The first World Romani Congress
Romani delegates from across Europe meet near London, adopt the name "Roma", a flag and the anthem "Gelem, Gelem", and declare themselves a nation without a state.
- Factsheets on Romani History: Emancipation and the Romani movement — Council of Europe
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
- The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies — Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, Chatto-Heinemann for Sussex University Press (1972)
- I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies — Yaron Matras, Allen Lane (2014)
Romani organisations had existed since the early twentieth century, but they were local. On 8 April 1971 delegates and observers from more than a dozen countries met at Orpington, near London, for the first World Romani Congress. They chose Roma as the name for the whole people, rejecting “Gypsy” and its equivalents; they adopted a flag of blue (the sky) over green (the earth) with a red sixteen-spoked wheel, recalling both travel and the Indian origins; and they took as anthem “Gelem, Gelem” (“I went, I went”), a song set to a traditional melody by the Yugoslav Romani musician Žarko Jovanović. The congress launched what became the International Romani Union, which later won consultative status at the United Nations, and the fourth congress, in 1990, made 8 April International Roma Day.
- Factsheets on Romani History: Emancipation and the Romani movement — Council of Europe
- The Gypsies — Angus Fraser, Blackwell (1992)
- The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies — Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, Chatto-Heinemann for Sussex University Press (1972)
Why it matters today
8 April is International Roma Day, celebrated with flags, music and the ritual of floating candles or flowers on rivers in memory of ancestors. The blue-green flag with its red wheel and the anthem "Gelem, Gelem" are the most widely shared symbols of a people spread across dozens of countries and dialects.