1847 — Liberia's Flag Day: The Lone Star Rises

On August 24, 1847, one month after declaring independence, Liberia adopted its national flag — the Lone Star. A committee of seven women led by Susannah Elizabeth Lewis designed and hand-stitched it, and it was unfurled in Monrovia to patriotic speeches and band music, a new symbol for a new republic.

Eleven stripes stood for the eleven signers of the declaration; a single white star stood for a sovereign Black republic. Every August 24 since, Liberia has celebrated Flag Day as a national holiday — honouring not only a flag, but the women whose hands made the nation's own emblem.