The struggle
The blood of those who died in the fight for independence, from the war of 1900 to the shooting of 1948.
Ghana-Net.com · Culture & Traditions · National symbols
Every Ghanaian knows the red, gold and green with the black star. Very few know that for two years the gold was gone, replaced by the white of Nkrumah's party, or that the anthem sung today is not the one sung at independence. This is the real story of Ghana's symbols: who designed them, what they mean, and how politics changed them.
The flag was designed by Theodosia Okoh, a teacher and artist, later a leading figure in Ghanaian hockey, and raised at independence on 6 March 1957. Three horizontal bands, red, gold and green, with a five-pointed black star in the centre.
The blood of those who died in the fight for independence, from the war of 1900 to the shooting of 1948.
The mineral wealth that gave the Gold Coast its name. Today it is also galamsey. Read our galamsey reporting.
The forests and the farmland, above all cocoa.
A pan-African first: Ghana was the first newly independent African state to adopt the red, gold and green, taken from the flag of Ethiopia. After Ghana, the colours spread across the continent, to Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon and many more.
In January 1964 a referendum turned Ghana into a one-party state under the Convention People's Party. The flag followed the party. The gold band was replaced with white, giving a red, white and green flag in the CPP's own colours, which looked startlingly like the flag of Hungary with a black star added.
It lasted barely two years. After the coup of 24 February 1966, the new military government restored the original red, gold and green in February 1966. The white flag was quietly forgotten, and today most Ghanaians have never seen it.
Why it matters: the white flag is the clearest picture of the moment when party and state became one. Read Ghana's coups, 1966–1983 and Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
The black star is the "lodestar of African freedom". It comes from the Black Star Line of Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican Pan-Africanist whose shipping company of 1919–1922 was meant to carry the African diaspora home. Nkrumah admired Garvey, and named Ghana's own national shipping line the Black Star Line in 1957.
Independence Square, with the Black Star Gate above it. Tips for visiting: here.
The national football team, and the 2010 World Cup quarter-final.
Garvey never set foot in Africa; in Accra a guest house at the Du Bois Centre carries his name.
The coat of arms was designed by the Ghanaian artist Nii Amon Kotei and introduced on 4 March 1957, two days before independence. It is a map of what the new state thought it was built on.
A linguist's staff and a sword crossed, for traditional authority. Osu Castle, then the seat of government, on the sea. A cocoa tree, for agriculture. A gold mine, for mineral wealth. In the centre, a gold lion on a green cross, for the link with the Commonwealth.
The Black Star on top. Two golden eagles holding the shield, each wearing the Order of the Star of Ghana. And the motto: Freedom and Justice.
Chiefs, a colonial castle, cocoa, gold and the British Commonwealth: an honest summary of Ghana in 1957. See the traditional kingdoms and the chieftaincy system.
The music of the national anthem is by Philip Gbeho, composer and music teacher. At independence it was sung with the words "Lift high the flag of Ghana", written by Emmanuel Pappoe-Thompson and revised by a committee in Nkrumah's office.
After the 1966 coup, the new government wanted words without the Nkrumah era in them. A competition was held, and the winning text came from a student at Bishop Herman College, Michael Kwame Gbordzoe: "God bless our homeland Ghana". That is the anthem sung today.
An unfinished story: the man whose words millions of Ghanaians sing has said he never received official state recognition for them. He was a schoolboy when he wrote them.
Under British rule the Gold Coast flew a British ensign carrying the colony's badge: an elephant standing in front of a palm tree, with hills behind. The Gold Coast coat of arms served from the colony's early years until 1957. Independence replaced the elephant with the Black Star.
Read the whole story: British Colonial Administration, 1901–1957, The Road to Independence and Names of Past and Present.
The founders of the state the symbols were made for.
The room where Africa planned its freedom, under the Black Star.
And the first to find out what that meant.
Every head of state since 1957, under every version of the flag.
Ghana's symbols are among the most copied in Africa: the colours and the star spread across a continent. But they were never neutral. The flag was bent to a party in 1964 and straightened by a coup in 1966. The anthem was rewritten because its words belonged to a fallen president. The coat of arms still shows a colonial castle and a British lion. And the schoolboy who wrote the words Ghana sings every morning says the state never officially thanked him. Symbols tell a country's history, if you know how to read them.
Verified: 28 September 2026. The flag's designer, 1957 adoption, the 1964 white variant and its reversal in 1966 follow standard references on the flag of Ghana. The coat of arms (Nii Amon Kotei, 4 March 1957) and its elements follow standard references. The anthem's composer and both sets of words follow standard references and Michael Gbordzoe's public statements. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.