For millions of people in Africa and Asia, the achievement of political independence from foreign domination marked a singular moment in their personal and collective histories. That moment represented a triumph against great odds and an awakening to the possibility of building new lives and new societies. As India’s Nehru put it, independence was a “tryst with destiny.” Both during the struggle and after, the various meanings attributed to independence found expression in a proliferation of poster art, as illustrated in the visual sources that follow. Such images served to inspire and mobilize large numbers of people for the tasks ahead, to articulate a vision of the future, and sometimes to celebrate success. Those grand hopes became a baseline from which future generations measured the realities of the post-independence period.