The rainbow flag first made its debut at the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, but it wasn’t until 1994 that the flag was truly established as a unifying symbol for gay pride. Inspired by the spectrum of a rainbow, and looking to create something that would “express our joy, our beauty, our power,” Gilbert settled on an eight-stripe flag with each color chosen to represent an idea. – Gilbert Baker, Creator of the Pride flag Looking to express joy, beauty, and power, Gilbert Baker created the rainbow-colored Pride flag. I thought a gay nation should have a flag too, to proclaim its own idea of power. I thought of the vertical red, white, and blue tricolor from the French Revolution and how both flags owed their beginnings to a riot, a rebellion, or revolution. I thought of the American flag with its thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, the colonies breaking away from England to form the United States. In 1978, Gilbert Baker, an openly gay man, designed the first rainbow flag to represent the gay community at the request of San Francisco-based politician Harvey Milk, the first openly gay official elected to office. – Gilbert Baker, Creator of the Pride flag This was our new revolution-a tribal, individualistic, and collective vision. Here, we dive into the history of the Pride flag, what it stands for today, and how contributors and customers can incorporate Pride visuals in a respectful and ethical way.Īs a community, both local and international, gay people were in the midst of an upheaval, a battle for equal rights, a shift in status where we were now demanding power, taking it. How did the rainbow-colored Pride flag become a universal symbol of gay pride, queer love, inclusivity, and tolerance? A flag really fit that mission, because that’s a way of proclaiming your visibility or saying, “This is who I am!” – Gilbert Baker, Creator of the Pride flag
Our job as gay people was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth. Eventually, the indigo was replaced by royal blue, giving us the six-striped flag (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) we know today.Celebrate Pride Month with a look at the most colorful symbol in LGBTQIA+ history and its changing role in how the community sees itself. Baker also removed the turquoise to maintain an even number of colours.
Initially, Baker’s had eight coloured stripes: pink for sexual liberation, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for serenity and nature, turquoise for art, blue for harmony and violet for the human spirit.īut in November 1978, when a march was organized to protest the assassination of Harvey Milk, Baker’s friend and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, Baker worked with the Paramount Flag Company to produce a seven-striped version because the pink was not commercially available. Baker used the symbolism of the rainbow because, he said, “We are all of the colours. It began during the Pride Parade in San Francisco in 1978 when Gilbert Baker, American graphic artist and LGBTQ+ political activist, designed what is thought to be the first gay pride flag that would become a key symbol of Gay Pride for years to come. Today the rainbow flag is, for many cultures, a symbol of peace, diversity and harmony, but the flag with six stripes is specific to the LGBTQ+ community. Gilbert Baker (Photo : Spencer Platt -Getty Images)