Evolution of the Haitian Flag and the La Dessalinienne National Anthem

The flag you know is not the whole story.

Every Haitian knows the blue and red. But before that flag flew, there was another — black and red, bold and uncompromising — born from revolution, stitched by a seamstress named Catherine Flor, and deliberately buried by history.

Evolution of the Haitian Flag takes readers on a journey through more than two centuries of Haitian identity, power, and resistance — told through the one symbol every Haitian carries in their heart.

From the moment General Dessalines tore the French tricolor apart and ordered a new flag for a new nation, to the Vodou Manbo whose recommendation shaped its creation, to the political forces that changed its colors again and again — this is the untold story behind the cloth.

Discover why Haiti had not one flag, but many. How empires rose and fell and left their mark in color and coat of arms. Why France pressured a Haitian president to abandon the original black and red. And how, through every regime, every occupation, and every revolution, the flag endured.

Also included: the full history of La Dessalinienne, Haiti's national anthem — in French, Haitian Creole, and English — honoring the ancestors who made freedom possible.

Learn our stories. Honor our ancestors.