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Black History Month (U.S.)

Description of the flag

See also:

Description of the flag

A GETTY IMAGES photo from https://kareem.substack.com flag photo was taken by its photographer: Valerie Macon. Image also seen at: https://en.as.com/latest_news/neither-martin-luther-king-jr-nor-malcolm-x-this-is-the-father-of-black-history-month-n/

Flags heralding some Black-rights advocate flying outside some U.S. museum celebrating "Black History Month" [Feb. 2025] somewhere in the U.S., (possibly Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass.). From right-to-left, flag portraits of: Harriet Tubman, Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcom X.

Image located by William Garrison, 12 April 2025.
FOTW does not have rights to repost Getty images, so please view the image at the sources above.

Direct image links are:
https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images
https://img.asmedia.epimg.net/resizer

This photo has been used as an illustration in several webpages about African American issues. At least one of them was posted in January 2021, evidencing that this photo was not taken in March 2025: https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/mundo/2021

So, these flags, even though they are artistically different, seem to have been prepared simultaneously (see the identical label on the edge of the lower fly). And while the photo shows more or less clearly only four, there’s at least two more, obscured but visible at the lower left side of the photo; the reverse of all these is very likely see-through.

These four are:

* Harriet Tubman
This squarish flag shows only a colorized version of a famous 1895 photo [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harriet_Tubman_1895.jpg] of Harriet Tubman - not my favorite, especially as it's so ubiquitous while there others to pick from, arguably more visually impactful, such as
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harriet-tubman-1860s-photo.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harriet_Tubman_late_in_life.jpg

* Angela Davis
A more oblong flag showing a photo Angela Davis taken likely in the early 1970s, with several layers of op art effects: Facing the hoist, head and shoulders, in sepia-on-white monochrome with a rubberstamp clone pattern effect, the contour (ineptly) cut and pasted on a black background.

* Martin Luther King, Jr.
A squarish flag with an iconic photo of MLK, in full color on green background, overlaid with a 'word cloud" set in typeface Impact, in several sizes, all lower case, with partial transparency. (Not unlike this: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/JTTtR one, with the same base photo). This flag is hoisted on a green staff, unlike the others, which are black.

* Malcolm X
Seems to be a squarish flag with, on dark grey background, an iconic https://images.fineartamerica.com 1964 photo centered on it: Malcolm X with raised arm, pointing finger, mouth in the "f" position, speaking to a microphone. This flag design archived here.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 25 July 2025

The two flags I couldn’t discern on 25 July 2025 are:

1. Another squarish flag with a complex underlying image (the visible details suggest a detail of a banknote or a similar rococo engraving artwork, typical of 19th. century vignettes and frame illustrations) overall tinted in red but for a horizontal stripe along the bottom, which is green. On the photo, the main area of this flag is obscured: Likely it's another historical figure: I’m guessing it's not Garvey, despite the colors — maybe Farrakhan, as the other four flags (with Harriet Tubman, Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X) are sorted chronologically? It should be easy to find out, as the set is apparently mass-produced and available as a kit (not to mention the obvious possibilily of finding other photos of this very event).

image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 3 March 2026

2. A red flag with black letters that seems to be not part of the same set as the other five – with simpler design, different semantics, and ~1:2 ratio. The visible portion suggests the inscription is the well known U.S. slogan "Defund the Police." It is set in three centered lines of text with wide spaced sans serif capitals seemingly modified for stencil use – either for artistic reasons or due to technical necessity (I used Agency FB with attested and conjectural cutouts; the horizontal spacing seems to be inset on a grid of ten horizontal bands: each text line separated by a gap half its height: 1+2+1+2+1+2+1.)

António Martins-Tuválkin, 3 March 2026

However the photo shows this flag, even if obscured by perspective, as readable («DEⱵ» ¶ «TⱵ» ¶ «POL») and yet the hoist is at the viewer's *right* hand side. This would mean that, if this flag was indeed see-through and thus with each side a mirror-image of the other, the flag side with the hoist is at the viewer's left hand side (usually seen as the main side, the obverse), would read rather «ƎƆI⅃Oꟼ ƎHT ꓷИUꟻƎꓷ». I suspect, therefore, that this one flag differs from the other four in being double-sided or otherwise made from a material thick enough to read correctly on both sides.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 4 March 2026