Editor’s note, June 19, 2026, 6 a.m. ET: This story is republished for June eleventh. Originally published in 2022.
Part of The tenth issue of June of The main thingproduced in collaboration with Capital B.
As the June holidays approach, you will begin to see various signs of Blackness across the country. Front lawns, apartment balconies and clothes with the Pan-African flag, the “Black Power” fist, and other symbols of celebration will be everywhere. But did you know that there is a special June eleventh flag?
In fact, it has a back story that goes back to the late 1990s. Capital B spoke with Ben Haith, the creator of the flag, and others to learn more about its history and impact.
Haith, a community organizer and activist better known as “Boston Ben,” created the flag in 1997. In an interview with Capital B Atlanta, Haith said once he learned about Juneteenth, he felt passionately that it needed representation.
“I was just doing what God told me to do,” Haith said. “I have a marketing background, and I thought June eleven, what it represented, needed to have a symbol.”
Haith was unhappy with his original version – “a bad draft” – but every Juneteenth holiday he raised the flag near his son’s high school in Roxbury, a predominantly Black community in Boston.
After getting inspiration, he knew what colors and symbols he wanted on the flag, he just needed to complete it. It was there that he met painter Lisa Jeanne Graf, who answered an ad in a local newspaper and completed the flag in 2000.
The tenth of June is often associated with red, green, and black: the colors of the Pan-African flag. However, those are not the colors of the June eleventh flag. The poster shares the colors of the American flag: red, white, and blue. In the past, Haith said it was a purposeful choice — a reminder that Black Americans descended from enslaved people are exactly that: Americans.
“For too long, our ancestors were not considered citizens of this country,” Haith said. “But technically, and technically, they were citizens. They were just denied recognition as citizens. So I thought it was important that the colors reflect the red, white and blue that we see on the American flag.”
Steven Williams, president of the National Foundation for Focusing on Eleven and Eleven, agreed with that sentiment.
“We are African Americans,” Williams said. His foundation’s mission statement, he added, “is to bring all Americans together to join our common bond of freedom.”
There have been some discussion about whether the June 10th flag is the most appropriate symbol for the holiday. Haith said he understands why people may be reluctant to use the red, white, and blue flag to commemorate the freedom of enslaved people, which some see as a tribute to the oppressors of Black Americans.
“Some of us were raised to recognize the American flag, we salute the American flag, we swore allegiance to the American flag,” Haith said of questioning the flag. “We had relatives who went to war to fight for this country. We put a lot into this country even when our ancestors were slaves. They worked to help make this country an economic power in the world.”
The star in the center of the flag has two meanings: On June 19, 1865, enslaved Blacks in Galveston, Texas, were notified of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln’s declaration of freedom for enslaved people. The star is meant to represent Texas as the Lone Star state, but also the freedom of enslaved citizens.
Williams also spoke of the use of the stars as a key to help enslaved people escape to freedom.
“When people were escaping under the Underground Railroad…they used stars navigating where they were, when they were going up and down,” he said.
In its dual meaning, it is meant to represent the role that Texas plays in the history of Juneteenth, but it also serves as another reminder that Black people are free.
Abstract surrounding star and bow
The overview was inspired by a nova, which is an explosion in space that creates the appearance of a new star. In this event, it represents all the people sent to freedom and a new beginning for Black Americans, Haith said.
Dividing the red and blue in the middle of the flag is the bow, which has the same meaning as the white outline around the star. The curve is meant to represent a “new horizon.”
Williams hopes the design reminds people to remember that new beginnings require effort.
“I tell young people, ‘you are free,'” he said. “You may have restrictions, you may have restrictions, but you are free… And you need to use that freedom, which is freedom.”
Juneteeth is now a federal holiday, nearly 200 years after enslaved people in Texas were made aware of their freedom. The change, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021, came at the behest of racially motivated progressives in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Cities across the country were forced to heed calls to remove and rename monuments and institutions honoring former Confederate leaders.
In Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the old Confederacy, the graves of Confederate generals which were centuries old were dismantled after the demands of protesters across the country. In metro Atlanta, there is an ongoing debate about the removal of Union leaders placed on the side of Stone Mountain. It is said to be the largest Union monument in the world.
In America, the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that at least 160 Union Points were broken in 2020.
Individual states began recognizing June 11 as an official holiday before Biden’s announcement. The first was Texas made in 1980, and more states followed suit in 2020.
Theo Foster, a professor of Black American history at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, noted that symbols celebrating Black pride are important, but not enough.
“We tend to just hold the score and let the material go,” he said. “That’s where I really criticize the development narrative, and the flag and 1619 projectsbecause we don’t get to that point where the ball meets the road where the score meets the experience of Black boy joy or Black girl magic.”
Williams recognizes the flag as a big part of his organization’s decades-long campaign to make June 11 a national holiday. The National Eleventh Anniversary Foundation has been at the forefront of the fight for national recognition of the eleventh since its inception in 1997. Haith himself is a member.
Foster says he sees the Juneteenth flag as an attempt to honor the ancestors of Black Americans who were enslaved.
“Racism exists, anti-Blackness exists. How do we respond to that problem?” He said. “I think the June 11th flag is an attempt to respond to those ongoing effects. I think people are right to criticize it, but also to be in the conversation about what’s right about it.”
Haith said he is overwhelmed by the fact that June 10 is now a federal holiday, and he feels honored when people use the flag.
“I believe we represent our ancestors,” Haith said. “When we celebrate, we celebrate for them, and we celebrate the future of our people. The flag represents the people of the past, it represents us, and it will represent the people of the future.”
Kenyan hunter is a writer who focuses on health in Capital B Atlanta. Prior to joining Capital B, Hunter served as an award-winning education reporter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
KaCeyKal! for Vox
