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Plate 1 A flag of three horizontal stripes: black at the top, red in the middle, green at the bottom

Kwanzaa colours (bendera)

Black, red and green are the colours of Kwanzaa, flown on its flag, the bendera, and repeated in its seven candles. The holiday’s founder gives black for the people, red for their struggle and green for the future and hope that come from it.

Kwanzaa symbols. Also called bendera, kwanzaa colors, kwanzaa flag, red black and green, what do the colors of kwanzaa mean.

Meaning

Bendera (ben-DE-ra) is Swahili for a flag; Madan’s dictionary of 1903 adds that because the Arabian flag was red, the word also meant red cotton cloth. The official Kwanzaa website counts the bendera as one of two supplemental symbols, beside the seven basic ones, and calls its colours “colors of the Organization Us”. The same three colours fill the candleholder, one black candle in the centre, three red to its left and three green to its right (see Mishumaa saba (the seven candles)), and the website suggests them for Kwanzaa decorations. The National Museum of African American History and Culture sees them throughout the room at celebrations and in the clothes participants wear.

Origin and history

The colours are older than Kwanzaa. They are the colours of the flag that Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association created in 1920, which Smithsonian Magazine calls the Black Liberation Flag or Pan-African Flag, meant to unite all the people of the African diaspora. In Garvey’s flag, red is for the blood that was shed, black for the people and green for the abundant wealth of Africa. It was made in answer to a song of the period with a racist title, and the historian Robert Hill, a Garvey scholar, has said that Garvey saw having no flag as “a mark of the political impotence of the Black race”. The National Museum of African American History and Culture credits Garvey with first proclaiming red, black and green the colours of all people of the African diaspora.

Kwanzaa took the flag over and changed it. The official website says the bendera is “based on the national flag given to us by the Hon. Marcus Garvey, with slight adjustments in order and interpretation of the colors made in the 1960s”. The change of order puts black first: “We put Black because, in fact, the people come first, then Red for the struggle which is waged on by and for the people, and finally, Green, which is for the people’s future which comes out of their struggle.”

What do the colours of Kwanzaa mean?

In the holiday’s own account, black is for the people, red for their struggle and green for the future and hope that come out of that struggle. Karenga repeated it in 2024: “Black for our people, red for our struggle and green for the hope and future” that come out of struggle. Other accounts keep Garvey’s older meanings beside these. Washington University’s medical school gives red as the blood shed during the struggle for liberation; Buffalo Toronto Public Media gives the red candles as the struggle and the noble blood that unites all people of African ancestry, and the green as the Earth and the possibilities of the future. Frank Dobson, writing in 2017, calls the candles’ colours those of “the African Liberation flag”.

Black on top

The official website says the bendera changed the order of Garvey’s colours so that black, the people, comes first. A graphic on the official website sets out the protocol: displayed horizontally, the bendera has black on top, then red, then green; hung vertically, black is on the right. The same colours appear on the US Postal Service’s Kwanzaa stamps; the tenth, in 2024, highlights “the colors of the Pan-African flag” in its design.

See also

Mishumaa saba (the seven candles), Kinara, Mazao (the crops), Muhindi (the corn), Kikombe cha umoja (the unity cup), Zawadi (the gifts).

Sources

  1. The Symbols of Kwanzaa (Official Kwanzaa Website), Organization Us, Official Kwanzaa Website, “The Symbols of Kwanzaa”; text summarised from Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture (University of Sankore Press, 2008), Official Kwanzaa Website (Organization Us), Introduction; Supplemental Symbols: Bendera
  2. Greetings, Gifts, and Colors and Decorations (Official Kwanzaa Website), Organization Us, Official Kwanzaa Website, “Greetings, Gifts, and Colors and Decorations”; text summarised from Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture (University of Sankore Press, 2008), Official Kwanzaa Website (Organization Us), Colors and Decorations
  3. Symbols and Insights of Kwanzaa: Deep Meanings and Expansive Message (Maulana Karenga, Los Angeles Sentinel, 2024), Maulana Karenga, “Symbols and Insights of Kwanzaa: Deep Meanings and Expansive Message”, Los Angeles Sentinel, 4 December 2024, Los Angeles Sentinel, paragraph on the supplementary symbols
  4. How a Celebrated Artist Redesigned the Stars and Stripes (Smithsonian Magazine), Smithsonian Magazine, on David Hammons’s African American Flag (1990), acquired by the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Magazine, paragraph on the colours
  5. The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa (National Museum of African American History and Culture), National Museum of African American History and Culture, “The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa”, Explore: Stories, National Museum of African American History and Culture (Smithsonian), introduction
  6. Swahili-English Dictionary (A. C. Madan, 1903), A. C. Madan, Swahili-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), Internet Archive (University of California Libraries scan), entry Bendera
  7. Happy Kwanzaa (Washington University School of Medicine), Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, “Happy Kwanzaa”, Washington University in St. Louis, paragraph on the candles
  8. HEAR: The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa (Buffalo Toronto Public Media, 2021), Buffalo Toronto Public Media (WNED/WBFO), “HEAR The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa”, What’s Next?, 29 December 2021, Buffalo Toronto Public Media, segments for 27 and 30 December
  9. What Kwanzaa means for Black Americans (Frank Dobson, The Conversation, via PBS NewsHour), Frank Dobson (Vanderbilt University), “What Kwanzaa means for Black Americans”, The Conversation, 20 December 2017; republished by PBS NewsHour, 30 December 2021, PBS NewsHour, paragraph on a campus celebration
  10. USPS Unveils Kwanzaa Stamp to Celebrate African American Heritage (USPS, 2024), United States Postal Service, national news release, 25 September 2024, United States Postal Service, stamp description

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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 8, 2026. How we research

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