The Nation: Black Flag

One youngster who had been made part of the System threw Newark, N.J., into mild turmoil last week. Lawrence Hamm, 17, who was appointed to the local school board last summer by Mayor Kenneth Gibson, introduced a resolution permitting the predominantly black city’s classrooms to fly the red, black and green flag of black liberation.* The resolution passed (in the absence of four of the board’s nine members), and Newark schoolchildren planned to hoist the colors.

Whether Hamm’s intent was to build up black pride or encourage quasi-revolutionary notions, the idea seemed naively incendiary. Certainly the white members of the school board thought so. John Cervase filed a complaint charging that the raising of a flag “was a subject of deep significance” to the community, and won a court order demanding that the board show cause why it should not rescind the resolution. In addition, two New Jersey legislators introduced bills that would bar schools from flying the black liberation flag—or, for that matter, any ethnic or national banner other than the U.S. flag. Said Newark Assemblyman Anthony Imperiale: “The American flag is for all men, regardless of race, color or creed.”

*Derived from Marcus Garvey’s similar banner for his post-World War I black nationalist movement, the “liberation” tricolor first came into contemporary use by black groups some ten years ago.