Cherisse Moe

Whether flown in packed sta­di­ums at lo­cal foot­ball games, car­ried through the streets dur­ing re­gion­al Car­ni­val pa­rades or draped across the shoul­ders of Olympic ath­letes on glob­al podi­ums, the na­tion­al flag rep­re­sents Trin­ba­go.

When it was first un­furled on Au­gust 31, 1962, it sig­ni­fied a change from decades of British rule to in­de­pen­dence; we be­came the rulers of our own des­tiny.

In the fi­nal weeks be­fore sov­er­eign­ty, an In­de­pen­dence Com­mit­tee tasked with craft­ing the na­tion­al flag and Coat of Arms se­lect­ed a pro­pos­al by the vi­sion­ary lo­cal artist and de­sign­er Carlisle Chang. Sift­ing through thou­sands of pub­lic sug­ges­tions that ranged from com­plex mul­ti-coloured pat­terns and sug­ar­cane mo­tifs to or­nate her­aldry, the com­mit­tee fi­nalised the lay­out of red, white and black. Chang—who would lat­er come to be known as a pi­o­neer of lo­cal art—helped nav­i­gate the metic­u­lous de­sign process, lock­ing the geom­e­try in­to a pre­cise three-to-five pro­por­tion, where the twin white-edged black bands oc­cu­pied ex­act­ly one-fifth of the ban­ner’s length. Cab­i­net for­mal­ly signed off on the re­port on June 26, 1962.

His­to­ri­an and Pro­fes­sor Emeri­ta Brid­get Br­ere­ton re­called the sheer mag­ni­tude of see­ing the British flag come down.

“It was a source of pride,” she said, de­scrib­ing the col­lec­tive sen­ti­ment of the era. “All over the for­mer colo­nial world, the haul­ing down of the Union

Jack and the rais­ing of a new flag was a deeply mov­ing mo­ment to those who wit­nessed it. T&T was no dif­fer­ent, for those like my hus­band who were there in per­son in Port-of-Spain to see it, and for the many who saw it via the brand new TV ser­vice.”

The na­tion­al flag rose at mid­night on Au­gust 31 above the flood­lit fore­court of the Red House, bring­ing both tri­umph and cau­tion to a pop­u­lace sud­den­ly tasked with self-gov­er­nance, says for­mer Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary School his­to­ry teacher Michael Adam­son.

“What I imag­ine that would have rep­re­sent­ed to the peo­ple of this new­ly in­de­pen­dent na­tion would have been a deep sense of pride and op­ti­mism. We were now to be count­ed among the sov­er­eign na­tions of the world. And we were a pi­o­neer­ing ex­am­ple to the rest of the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean, be­ing the sec­ond coun­try to make the move from colony to sov­er­eign state.”

Mean­while, Her­itage Preser­va­tion and Re­search As­sis­tant Shad Gob­ins­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so faced the chal­lenge of forg­ing a uni­fied iden­ti­ty out of im­mense cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty while work­ing to­wards shared lo­cal val­ues. The flag em­bod­ied this mis­sion, with red rep­re­sent­ing the vi­tal­i­ty of the land, the warmth and en­er­gy of the sun, and the courage and friend­li­ness of its cit­i­zens; white sym­bol­is­ing the sea, the pu­ri­ty of as­pi­ra­tions and the equal­i­ty of all; and black stand­ing for the earth, ded­i­ca­tion, strength, uni­ty of pur­pose and the wealth of the land.

“It served as a clear vi­su­al con­tract: a de­c­la­ra­tion that, de­spite our var­ied ori­gins, our fu­ture de­pend­ed on har­mo­ny, re­silience, and col­lec­tive pur­pose,” he said.

Call­ing it an of­fi­cial call to civic du­ty, Gob­ins­ingh not­ed that the na­tion­al flag serves as a re­minder that uni­ty is not pas­sive­ly in­her­it­ed, but an ac­tive com­mit­ment to in­tegri­ty and mu­tu­al re­spect that each gen­er­a­tion must up­hold.

“It re­flects our abil­i­ty to over­come his­tor­i­cal hard­ships and es­tab­lish a ban­ner en­tire­ly free from colo­nial ties. It is an en­dur­ing record of our na­tion­al con­scious­ness, con­nect­ing our his­tor­i­cal roots with our fu­ture po­ten­tial.”

To­day, the red, white and black still flies high wher­ev­er Trin­bag­o­ni­ans cel­e­brate—a con­stant re­minder of how far we have come and how much re­mains ours to shape. As Dr Er­ic Williams put it that first In­de­pen­dence morn­ing: “Our na­tion­al flag be­longs to all our cit­i­zens.”

Fast facts: The na­tion­al flag

Mar­itime pro­por­tions: While land-based stan­dards strict­ly fol­low a three-to-five ra­tio, flags flown on na­tion­al mer­chant or Coast Guard ves­sels use a two-to-one ra­tio.

Des­ig­nat­ed fly­ing dates: State pro­to­col spec­i­fies that cit­i­zens may freely fly the na­tion­al flag on In­de­pen­dence Day, Re­pub­lic Day and Re­mem­brance Day.

Le­gal re­stric­tions on wear: Na­tion­al flag laws pro­hib­it cit­i­zens from de­fac­ing the stan­dard with writ­ing or pic­tures, mean­ing wear­ing ac­tu­al flags or fab­ric cut di­rect­ly from the ban­ner as cloth­ing vi­o­lates of­fi­cial state pro­to­col.

Com­mer­cial con­trols: Lo­cal leg­is­la­tion re­quires a for­mal li­cence to legal­ly re­pro­duce and sell com­mer­cial it­er­a­tions of the na­tion­al flag.

Cus­toms en­force­ment: State cus­toms au­thor­i­ties hold the le­gal pow­er to seize unau­tho­rised or in­cor­rect­ly pro­por­tioned flags im­port­ed in­to the coun­try.