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MoveOn Launches #MyAmericanFlag Campaign to Honor Immigrants and International, Multigenerational Heritages

By . Monday, July 6 2020

"I know this country belongs to me and I to it. I am her steward, a guardian of the promise and the possibility of America."
--Alfre Woodard

MoveOn, a leading national progressive advocacy organization, is announcing the launch of its #MyAmericanFlag campaign, a social media driven initiative dedicated to sharing unique flag designs that reflect the multinational heritages in America and encourage people to register to vote. 

In collaboration with Emmy Award-winning creative director Galen Graham, the #MyAmericanFlag campaign will feature images of flags that reflect America’s diverse history and with messages of community and inclusivity, in light of recent instances of police violence, anti-Black racism and the Covid-19 pandemic’s disproportionate impact on communities of color. The flag representing Black American participants Billy Porter and Alfre Woodard was designed by famed artist David Hammons.

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The #MyAmericanFlag campaign was created conjunction with several celebrity writers, actors, musicians and performers, including:

  • Stephanie Beatriz is a Colombian and Bolivian actress with Argentine-American nationality. She stars on the NBC comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine. 
  • Aloe Blacc is a Panamanian-America musician, singer, record producer
  • Richard Blanco is a Cuban, Spanish and American poet, public speaker, author and civil engineer. He is the  first immigrant, the first Latino, the first openly gay person and the youngest person to be the U.S. inaugural poet 
  • Dulce Candy is a Mexican-American YouTuber and social media lifestyle influencer.
  • Roxane Gay is a Haitian-American New York Times contributing opinion writter and best-selling author of Bad Feminist. 
  • Luvvie Ajayi Jones is a Nigerian-American New York Times bestselling author, speaker and podcast host
  • Ashley Judd is an Emmy Award-nominated actress and political activist. She’s starred in films including Barry, A Time to Kill and Divergent. 
  • Aparna Nancherla is an Indian-American comedian, actress and writer who has written for Late Night with Seth Meyers and appeared on Inside Amy Schumer.
  • Billy Porter, is a Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor and singer 
  • Reshma Saujani is an Indian-American lawyer, politician and founder of the tech organization Girls Who Code
  • Atkins Estimond is a Haitian-American actor and a star of the STARZ drama Hightown. 
  • Alfre Woodard is an Academy Award and Grammy nominated actress, producer, and political activist.
Alfre Woodard
"I am an AFRICAN American. This land is irrigated by deltas of sweat and rivers of the blood of my people, the stolen people who were brought by force to transform the stolen land. And transform it we have. Our presence in this land has given America the ingenuity, the texture and the esthetic that the world identifies as authentically American. Although it seems that My people have been constrained to the edges of power and prosperity from the very first arrival up until today. I know this country belongs to me and I to it. I am Her steward, a guardian of the promise and the possibility of America. The investment runs deep across the centuries. I will not let this experiment fail.”
Alfre's #MyAmericanFlag
Billy Porter
"American democracy is an experiment. Sometimes there’s forward motion. Sometimes there’s stagnation. However, wherever we are and whatever we may be in this moment, there’s always room to grow through the simple act of love. I look forward to the day when love wins once and for all."
Billy's #MyAmericanFlag
Aparna Nancherla
"I was raised to be as proud of being from India as I was to be born in the United States. Being American means celebrating my own heritage, but never at the expense of others' cultural histories and legacies, especially including trauma, oppression, and erasure. Reclaiming our own histories, even the painful and uncomfortable parts, is what being an American means to me."
Aparna's #MyAmericanFlag
Luvvie Ajayi Jones
"To be an American who is Black is to wonder if and when the place you call home will ever love you and honor you. It is to constantly have your heartbroken but you manage to still find revolutionary joy anyway."
Luvvie's #MyAmericanFlag
Roxane Gay
“In an ideal America being American means: From many, one. People are celebrated for their differences without prejudice nor bigotry and are free to live to be their authentic selves with a shared ideology of freedom, love and patriotism.”
Roxane's #MyAmericanFlag
Richard Blanco
Our country is a work-in-progress—a story, a poem—still being written. It’s our privilege and duty to be active citizens, to figuratively write (and re-write) the narrative of who we are, so that we are all represented and celebrated in our history, in our present moment, and in the future we envision together.”
Richard's #MyAmericanFlag
Aloe Blacc
"Being American is like being a small piece of a very complex puzzle. You know you fit in but sometimes it's hard to tell exactly where. It's messy and disorganized until most of the pieces are in place. And you keep faith that when it is complete it will show a beautifully unified picture."
Aloe's #MyAmericanFlag
Stephanie Beatriz
"A truly great America acknowledges the wrongs of our collective past, in particular the treatment of our Indigenous Peoples and the enslavement of Black people, and continues to build toward a future that values freedom and equality for every person on American soil, and in turn, the world."
Stephanie's #MyAmericanFlag
Reshma Saujani
"I am the person that I am today because of my Indian-American identity, because my parents were able to build a life for themselves after coming here as refugees. In Hinduism we say ‘what is your dharma? What are you put on this earth to do?.’ My dharma is to create opportunities for women and girls, to celebrate diversity, to speak truth to power. My dharma is to make sure all people have access to the opportunities regardless of who they are, where they are from, or how they identify."
Reshma's #MyAmericanFlag
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#MyAmericanFlag is part of a larger cultural initiative from MoveOn dedicated to engaging people of all ages, races and ethnicities who share progressive values with help from celebrities, artists, writers, and influencers.

”We hope the #MyAmericanFlag campaign will convey the power of identity, diversity and equity in America, and help expand the definition of what it means to be American,” said MoveOn’s cultural director, Michael Crawford. “We’re living in an era where many of those in power, including the Trump administration, are proactively trying to constrict our ideas of who counts as an American. Instead of accepting that same radicalized partisanship, fear and divisiveness, we want to highlight how our culture and population are constantly evolving, and that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to be American.”

This post was produced and paid for by MoveOn Civic Action.

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