The color black represents the people of the Republic of Kenya, red for the blood shed during the fight for independence, green for the country’s landscape and the white symbolizes peace and honesty.

The black, red, and white traditional Maasai shield and two spears symbolize the defence of all the things mentioned above.

History

In the years following World War II, the Kenya African Union was created and introduced a flag on September 3, 1951, which was a black and red bicolour with a shield and arrow at its center. The next year it was altered into a black, red and the additional green tricolor with a shield crossed with a spear and arrow coupled with the initials “KAU” at its center. The black stood for the native people, red for the common blood of all humanity and green for the nation’s fertile land. The weapons were a reminder for the organized struggle that was the basis for independence.

The black,red and green tricolor of the Kenya African Union with the shield crossed with a spear and arrow and the initials “KAU” in the middle

 In the 1952 book Mau Mau from Within, Kenyatta’s intentions were described differently: “What he said must mean that our fertile lands (green) could only be regained by the blood (red) of the African (black). The black was separated from the green by the red: The African could only get to his land through blood.” The flag was later adopted by the Kenya African National Union (KANU), successor to the KAU, in May 1960 with the weapons being replaced with a rooster wielding a battle axe. The Kenya Africa Democratic Union (KADU) was formed a month after adopted a flag following its formation in June 1960. Its flag was a tricolor of a similar design to that of KANU but with white instead of red in the middle.

Some officials wanted to use the KANU flag as the national flag. This was influenced by Tanganyika and Uganda’s choices to use the ruling party’s flag as the national flag. Tom Mboya, one of Kenya’s founding fathers, warned against using the KANU flag to avoid further politically polarizing the country. A committee set up by Jomo Kenyatta came up with a compromise that everyone could agree on. This was achieved by combining flags of the two rivaling parties, the KANU flag and that of KADU with the addition the white fimbriations (which were originally to symbolize Kenya’s multiracial society as they did in KADU’s flag but were changed to symbolize peace and unity), a modified Maasai shield crossed with spears, reminiscent to the original KAU flag, were also added. The meaning of the colours of the flag of Kenya matches closely to those of the Pan-African flag adopted by the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League in 1920.

Independence Monument of Kenya, Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi (Figure 1a), The KANU emblem (Figure 1b), The original KAU bicolor (Figure 1c), The KANU flag (Figure 1d), KANU flag variant (Figure 1e) and the Coat of Arms of Kenya (Figure 1g) next to the national flag.

The 2010 revised edition of the Constitution of Kenya includes specifications of the Kenyan flag, located in the Second Schedule, Article 9, paragraph 6.2.