The Pan-African Colors and Their Origin

Green, yellow and red entered African vexillology through Ethiopia, one of the few states never colonized, whose banners carried the three colors in the 19th century.

Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association added red, black and green in 1920.

Ghana raised the first independence tricolor of the Ethiopian scheme in 1957, and dozens of new republics followed within a decade, making the family the most recognizable color code on the continent.