For two years, the middle stripe of Ghana's flag was white

Ask most Ghanaians the colour of the middle stripe on the national flag and they will say gold. They are right, except for about two years in the 1960s, when it was white. The woman who designed the flag lived to see it change, and to see it change back.

1957: a competition

As independence approached in 1957, the government held an open competition for a flag. Kwame Nkrumah chose the design of Theodosia Okoh, a 34-year-old artist and teacher from Effiduase who had trained in fine art at Achimota.

She said she took her colours from the land. Red stood for those who died or worked for independence, and gold for the country's minerals. Green is usually explained as the forests and farms. The black star in the centre was, in her words, the symbol of African emancipation and unity. The flag was adopted on 6 March 1957.

The star's older story

In 1919, the Jamaican Marcus Garvey started the Black Star Line in New York, a shipping company meant to carry Black people back to Africa. The ships had problems, and the company was finished within about three years.

Nkrumah read Garvey as a student in America and later wrote that Garvey's book inspired him more than any other. John Mahama has written that the star was Nkrumah's homage to Garvey. Ghana went on to name its own shipping line the Black Star Line, and its football team the Black Stars.

1964: the white stripe

In January 1964, Ghana voted in a referendum to become a one-party state, with an official yes vote of 99.9%. The Convention People's Party's colours were red, white and green, and white replaced gold in the middle of the national flag.

In February 1966, with Nkrumah abroad, soldiers took power. By the end of that month the gold stripe was back.

Her flag, lowered for her

Theodosia Okoh went on to lead Ghana hockey for more than 20 years, and the national hockey stadium carries her name. She died in April 2015, aged 92. The government ordered flags across the country to fly at half-mast for three days in her honour.