This year's festival T-shirt, featuring the Pink, White and Green has given rise to inquiries regarding the history of the flag. Thanks to Dave Benson and a previous newsletter, here it is. - Bridget Noonan

When the St. John's Folk Arts Council was established, it chose as its official colours, the Pink, White and Green.

These colours, in a vertical tricolor with green at the hoist and pink at the fly, had been the flag of the Newfoundland people since 1843. Indeed, it could be said that the flag was the banner of the working-class Newfoundlanders as opposed to governments.

The flag had its origins in the early 19th century Native Flag: a pink banner with a green tree in the center. The pink represented the English Tudor rose, under which Newfoundland was first settled, and the tree symbolized the land. It was the flag of the "bush born" or "copper-coloureds", as the Newfoundlanders were then called by recent immigrants from England & Ireland. The immigrants, mainly but not exclusively Irish, flew the old green Irish flag. Rivalry between the "copper-coloureds" (suntanned and windburned Newfoundlanders) and the immigrants over political power erupted into sectarian battles and the country was being torn apart.

It was to unite the English, and Irish, Protestant and Catholic, "bush-born" and newcomer, that their two respective flags were joined with white in between to symbolize peace. The Roman Catholic Bishop of St. John's Michael Fleming is usually given credit for actually tying the two flags together with a white handkerchief. But some claim that the originator of the Pink, White and Green was the Harbour Grace-born writer and radical working-class leader, Robert John Parsons.

The "new" Native Flag quickly gained prominence and soon became a nationalist symbol in the struggle for Responsible Government and against Confederation with Canada. It was also flown by striking sealers and adopted by trade unions such as the Longshoremen.

At the time of its creation, tricolors were symbols of revolution, so it is little wonder that the Pink, White and Green was never officially adopted as the flag of Newfoundland. It remained the flag of the Newfoundland people, hand-made from dyed flour sacks, its story is passed on from generation to generation.

As such, it is most fitting that the Pink, White and Green is representative of an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the folk arts of Newfoundland.

____________________________________________________________________
Reprinted: From the December 1997 newsletter of the St. John's Folk Arts Council.