David Hammons’s "African-American Flag"

1990

Black artists have used the American flag as a symbol of patriotism and protest.

David Hammons’s African-American Flag was one in a series of five flags created for the 1990 exhibition Black USA, which premiered at the Museum Overholland in Amsterdam. Hammons created the flag after meeting with curator Jan Christiaan Braun. African-American Flag was flown on a flagpole on the museum grounds across from the U.S. Consulate.

The colors and symbols of Hammons’s now-iconic artwork merge the red, black, and green colors of Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African flag with the stars and stripes of the American flag. Hammons’s flag references Black pride and heritage and the ways African Americans have celebrated freedom while acknowledging America’s unfulfilled promises.