Black Light Series #10: Flag For the Moon: Die Nigger, 1967

“David Rockefeller sent two people to buy a painting in 1969. They came to my studio to see the American People and Black Light series. They were looking at a painting of the US flag, thinking it was like a Jasper Johns! But they ran away when they realized you can read the words ‘Die Nigger’ within the stars and stripes – it was my painting Flag for the Moon: Die Nigger. Flag for the Moon: Die Nigger was my way of saying that too many American people go to bed hungry, while the government spent billions to place their flag on the moon.”~Faith Ringgold

Oil on canvas

36 x 50 in.

In 1969, Ringgold also paints the notorious Flag for the Moon: Die N••• as a response to the first U.S moon landing on July 20 of that year. The painting, at first glance depicting the flag of the United States of America albeit in a muted grey, greyish-red, and greyish-blue color scheme. Only a closer look will reveal the faint darker grey letters on top of the “union,” the starred area of the flag, spelling out the word “DIE.” Turning the painting, or one’s head, by 90 degrees will allow the viewer to discern that the stripes of the flag are formed by letters composing the second word of the title, arranged in a terraced manner, wrapped tightly, around the union. Just like in earlier paintings of the Black Light series and later in Ringgold’s political posters, the letters of words appear in various distortions – they are spaced out, compressed, or elongated, and are arranged in all directions. What slowly appears to the attentive viewer as variations of positive and negative space turns out to be racist hate speech hidden in plain sight.

For Ringgold, the American flag was a signifier of her relationship which is based on her experience as an African American woman: the harshness of the racial hate in the United States was intrinsically a part of the nation and its symbols. The painting that was nearly purchased by a major corporation, Chase Manhattan Bank, until the letters and resulting term were discovered and the painting remained with the artist until 2020.