On July 12 Harold Thomas and the rest of Aboriginal Australia celebrated the 20th birthday of the National Aboriginal Flag, the red, black and gold banner that has unified support for Aboriginal people here and around the world.
Harold — originally from Alice Springs — designed the flag in Adelaide after a long discussion with the Aboriginal rights worker, Gary Foley. The flag was first raised with pride in Victoria Square on National Aboriginal Day in 1971. Soon after, thousands of people rallied behind it, and under it, at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 as the federal government came under increasing pressure to introduce land rights.
Since that fateful day, the red, black and gold has been adopted by nearly all Aboriginal people (and many of our supporters) to promote Aboriginal issues of land, health, education and justice.
"The flag has brought us a national symbolism, one that incorporates the red of the land, the black of our people and the gold of the sun", Harold told Land Rights News.
"And it's been especially effective because it represents people in the bush and in the cities and on the fringes of towns. It is the one symbol that relates to us all.
"When I see some young kids wearing those colours on a pair of earrings, for instance, I know that they are conscious of the importance of those colours and they identify with them as Aboriginal people."
Harold designed the flag when he realised that his people had no common symbol or flag to march under at Aboriginal protest rallies. As the first Aboriginal graduate from the South Australian School of Art, he was well placed to design a new flag to encapsulate the spirit of Aboriginality.
"I was only 24 at the time but I realised we needed a common symbol to march with, as blacks together in unity, and something we could be proud of", Harold relates.
"I had a few designs in mind but I knew the primary colours would best represent our lives, wherever we live in Australia."
To celebrate the 20th birthday of the Aboriginal flag, Harold held an exhibition of his watercolour landscapes at the Performing Arts Centre in Darwin, opened by Mick Dodson, the director of the Northern Land Council.
Limited edition prints of Harold's work have been released for
sale.
[Reprinted from Land Rights News.]