The City of Hayward will hold a first raising of the Pan-African flag on City Hall Plaza at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 22, in commemoration of Black History month and to begin a new tradition of recognition of the African Diaspora and struggles for Black liberation, freedom and equity.
The flag-raising ceremony will be led by Hayward elected and community leaders, is open to the public, and will be documented in video and shared afterward across City social media accounts and over our YouTube and KHRT cable TV streaming and broadcast channels.
The Pan-African flag was created in 1920 by the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and is a symbol of freedom for Black people and descendants of those who were subject to the slave-trade movement of Africans to the United States and the Americas and later migrations from the African continent to other parts of the world.
Each color of the flag has special meaning—red, for blood shed by Africans in fights for liberation and the shared blood of African people; black, representative of Black people; and green, symbolic of growth and the natural fertility of Africa.
With the ceremony on Tuesday, the City begins a practice—reflective of its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion—of flying the Pan-African flag each year during Black History Month, on Juneteenth and on August 17, the birthday of Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born civil-rights activist, publisher, entrepreneur and founder of UNIA.
