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African-American Confederate Flag Variants (U.S.)

Confederate Flag Variant 1
Nu South
Afro-Confederate Flag by Joe Small
"Reconstruction" by Jack Daws

See also:

Confederate Flag Variant 1

image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 6 November 2001

Two days ago in Oakland I spotted a car driven by an African-American man with an interesting flag in the spot where the front license plate would generally go: it was by pattern a rectangular "Confederate Battle Flag" but the colors were altered to be pan-African colors. The saltire was black, the stars and fimbriation for the saltire were green.
Josh Fruhlinger, 17 July 1998

This is the emblem of a company that makes clothes aimed at black American consumers. It appears on their clothing (along with the company's acronym below, which I don't recall), but it may have passed into common usage.
Nathan Lamm, 6 November 2001

Nu South

The NuSouth Apparel was a clothing company from Charleston, SC, whose logo, used as the conspicuous decoration of their products, was derived from the Confederate flag by replacing white and blue with green and black, respectively, thus displaying Garvey colors - a combination which might rightfully be called a vexillological oxymoron. The emblem actually predates the company, whose founders, Angel Quintero and Sherman Evans, created it in 1993 while running the recording company named Vertical Records, as a part of the promotion campaign for a local hip-hop group named DaPhlayva, with the idea of making a symbol which would express the group members' identity as the Afro-Americans from the South. The emblem, which added black-red-black vertical stripes to the hoist and fly edges of the flag, appeared on the cover of DaPhlayva's album "Phlayva 4 Dem All", as well as on the promotional T-shirts which were distributed during their concert. Shortly afterwards, wearing of these shirts was banned in a local high school, with one student being suspended for not respecting the ban (which she did in response to the lack of same reaction to the shirts with white racist messages). At that time, Quintero and Evans had produced a flag with this design and publicly displayed it before the South Carolina State House, proposing that it replace the Confederate flag, whose flying atop the building (it remained there until 2000) was becoming a heated topic at the time; the said flag is probably the one they were wrapped in while posing for the photo which was later published at the NuSouth website. On 2005-10-16, they sold numerous shirts with the emblem during the Million Man March, the large rally in Washington, D.C. This has initiated a growing demand for the clothing decorated like this, eventually resulting in the founding of the NuSouth company in 1997. The company name used the hip-hop style spelling of words "New South", but was also interpreted as "N-U-South", a same-style spelling of the words "In You, South", both expressing the wish to help creating a new, unified Southern identity, the symbol of which could be the described flag. The company website, online since early 2000 was closed down by the end of April 2003. Although the home page, which displayed only the company logo, actually remained until January 2009, NuSouth probably did not outlive the year 2003. While the logo went out of use with the changes of fashion, and the destiny of the produced flag is currently not known, still its existence was recorded enough to verify that it was not just a flagoid.

Two rarely used variants of the NuSouth logo were using Garvey colors in different patterns. One of them was replacing red, white and blue with black, red and green, respectively.

Confederate Flag Variant 2
image by Tomislav Todorovic, 19 October 2013

On the other one, red, white and blue were replaced with green, black and red, respectively.

Confederate Flag Variant 3
image by Tomislav Todorovic, 19 October 2013

Sources:
[1] Prince, K. Michael: Rally 'round the Flag, Boys!: South Carolina and the Confederate Flag University of South Carolina Press, 2004 Google Books preview available here: books.google.rs
[2] TheCabin.net website: thecabin.net/stories/051899/opi_0518990037.html
[3] KriPtiK website - cover of album "Phlayva 4 Dem All": kriptik.tistory.com/131
[4] AAME website - photo of Angel Quintero showing the NuSouth clothing in the store: www.inmotionaame.org
[5] NuSouth website at the Internet Archive - history of the venture, with a photo of the founders wrapped in the flag (saved on 2000-03-01, without images): www.nusouth.com/history.html
[6] NuSouth website at the Internet Archive - history of the venture, with a photo of the founders wrapped in the flag (saved on 2001-09-22): www.nusouth.com/history.html
[7] NuSouth website at the Internet Archive - home page (saved on 2003-04-19): www.nusouth.com

Tomislav Todorovic, 19 October 2013

A photo gallery of the NuSouth flag design in use, unfortunately with no information on the date of their making, can be found at Facebook[1]. Many of the photos show the people wearing - sometimes just holding - various clothing items by NuSouth, while several display the emblem as part of larger demonstration posters or as standalone handheld signs, which have appeared at some unspecified protests. There is also a photo of posters for the DaPhlayva on the wall, most of their surface occupied by the emblem. In all of them, the Confederate flag is repainted with the blue and white being replaced with the black and green, respectively, the other two color schemes clearly having been used extremely rarely. Regarding the vertical stripes next to the flag edges, black stripes are either merged with the background if it is black, or are repainted into the actual background color, thus merging with the background again, which leaves only the red vertical stripes, with the gaps between the flag and them. In a few examples with the white background, the inner black stripes were kept. Very rarely, the flag appears with no accompanying stripes. An interesting photo [2] displays a painting of three people, shown only as the silhouettes, who carry a black flag charged with a large NuSouth flag pattern between two red vertical stripes, as described above, and large white inscription *NuSouth* below, as was frequently used [1].

While none of the above examples display an actual flag, they clearly are related to the few of those which really do. On one of the photos [3], two men are holding a flag which displays the NuSouth design with narrow black-red-black stripes at its vertical edges. The man at the right is Sherman Evans, one of the flag designers, and this flag does much resemble the one which he and Angel Quintero wore in the photo once presented at the NuSouth website [source already listed above]. Unfortunately, no flag edges are visible in the original photo, so it cannot be told whether both photos display the same flag, or at least two flags with the same design. The fact that no date of creation is given for this photo is an additional problem in the flag identification. However, it may have been created in 2015, when another photo [4, 5] was taken in Columbia, SC on 2015-07-18 during the protests against the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds. That photo displays a counter-protester who much resembles the man who had been photographed with Mr Evans [3], although the photo quality, as well as the fact that he is wearing dark glasses, preclude the definite identification [4]. The flag he is carrying, though, is visibly different: the design omits the outermost black vertical stripes, the saltire is much wider and its fimbriations much narrower, and the stars are not only much larger, but their orientation varies greatly as well and in an irregular manner. The whole looks as if the flag was made rather carelessly, perhaps in a hurry to prepare it for the counter-protests, rather than expose the other flag to possible damage or even destruction. There is another photo [6], with a flag spread on the ground like a picnic blanket, with two small children sitting upon it. On this flag, the saltire and fimbriations are similar to those on the flag from the July 2015 counter-protests, as is the star size, but the image quality does not allow to verify their orientations, for most of them cannot be seen. However, the outermost black vertical stripes are not omitted here - a small portion is visible at the right, near the child's hand - so this is likely a third flag, different from the other two. Lastly, a photo [7] displays two car flags without the vertical stripes, but these parts of the image were clearly edited so heavily that it is impossible to tell whether there were originally any flags in the photo and how they really looked.

Consequently, while the flag use may now be additionally verified, the existence of several variants, as well as the lack of knowledge about their chronology, still reveals nothing about the fate of the original flag from the 1990's. In addition, its exact design turns out to be unknown as well - whether there have been the black-red-black vertical stripes at the hoist and fly, or not.

Sources:
[1] NuSouth photo gallery at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/nusouthflag/photos/?ref=page_internal
[2] NuSouth photo gallery at Facebook - photo of the painting displaying the NuSouth-derived flag: https://www.facebook.com/nusouthflag/photos/a.737439119929417/850228355317159/?type=3
[3] NuSouth photo gallery at Facebook - flag photo from an unspecified time and location: https://www.facebook.com/nusouthflag/photos/a.737439119929417/965429770463683/?type=3
[4] NuSouth photo gallery at Facebook - photo from the protests in Columbia, SC on 2015-07-18:
https://www.facebook.com/nusouthflag/photos/a.735935350079794/745370575802938/?type=3
[5] Dangerous Minds website: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/nazis_and_kkk_held_a_pro_confederate_flag_rally_in_sc_because_its_all_about
[6] NuSouth photo gallery at Facebook - flag photo from an unspecified time and location: https://www.facebook.com/nusouthflag/photos/a.737439119929417/945794732427187/?type=3
[7] NuSouth photo gallery at Facebook - flag photo (likely edited) from an unspecified time and location: https://www.facebook.com/nusouthflag/photos/a.737439119929417/906975152975812/?type=3

Tomislav Todorovic, 27 December 2020

Afro-Confederate Flag by Joe Small

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 5 July 2020

"Afro-Confederate Flag" [1] is one of many artworks which make part of the installation named "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being" by American artist Joe Small [2, 3], which was originally exposed in 2011 at the Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame [3, 4]. The installation was the result of the author's examination of "whiteness" - what defines the "white" people as such in the Western culture, including the changes of that definition through the ages [2]. The flag, which is one of larger objects included [3], combines the design of the Confederate flag with the colors found in most of African national flags - red saltire, fimbriated black and charged with yellow stars, on green field. The design was applied to the 4'x6' field in a rather irregular way - the saltire is visibly asymmetrical, and the stars' orientations vary. The way the flag was hung on the wall [1] does not allow for all the design details to be viewed. Neither the irregularities of the design nor their visibility are truly important for the artwork's message, which is probably why the author did produce and exhibit it as such; for that reason, the flag design is presented here in a regularized image, which keeps the original ratio of 2:3 while trying to reproduce the relative sizes of the charges as much as possible.

The image above has been regularized.

Sources:

[1] Joe Small's website - Photo of Afro-Confederate Flag: http://joesmall.net/artwork/1934852_Afro_Confederate_Flag.html
[2] Joe Small's website - Presentation of "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being" http://joesmall.net/section/198821_the_unbearable_whiteness_of_being.html
[3] Flickr - Photos of "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being": https://www.flickr.com/photos/artnd/albums/72157626750135084
[4] Joe Small's website - Resume: http://joesmall.net/resume

Tomislav Todorovic, 5 July 2020

"Reconstruction" by Jack Daws

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 27 December 2020

"Reconstruction" is the name of a flag made in 2002 by Jack Daws, Kentucky-born artist from Seattle [1]. The artwork represents a Confederate flag repainted into pan-African colors, which are described as those of the flag of Ethiopia: red, white and blue are replaced with green, red and yellow, respectively; the ratio is 2:3 [2]. The artist has exhibited the flag at the Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, where it was hung with two other flags he made: an all-white version of the US national flag [see message #5555] and a repainted version of Union Jack in colors of Irish national flag [2, 3]. The precise date of the exhibition was not possible to tell from its presentation at the gallery website (Daws has had a number of exhibitions there since 2002); the earliest one was 2003, when all three flags were completed, and the latest one was 2017, when the artist has exhibited there for the last time [1]. The flags may have actually been exhibited more than once, for there are the photos of the flags being hung in two ways, from the staffs planted onto the wall and spread upon the wall like the tapestries [2, 3]. Whichever was the case, the installation view may have remained unchanged even long after the sale of any of the flags, for the artist has made 10 copies of each flag, all offered for sale [2].

Sources:
[1] Greg Kucera Gallery website - Jack Daws' resume: http://www.gregkucera.com/daws_resume.htm
[2] Greg Kucera Gallery website - photos of Jack Daws' works: http://www.gregkucera.com/daws_sculpture.htm
(WARNING: some works may be considered obscene)
[3] Greg Kucera Gallery website - photos of Jack Daws' exhibition, installation view: http://www.gregkucera.com/daws_install.htm

Tomislav Todorovic, 5 July 2020