Today, there are even more pride flags out there. Here are the meanings behind the colors in the current pride flag: The blue that replaced the indigo now symbolizes harmony. Baker dropped yet another stripe, which resulted in the six-stripe version of the flag we use most often today-red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. According to Baker's estate, that was because when it was hung vertically from the lamp posts of San Francisco's Market Street, the center stripe (turquoise) was obscured by the similarly-colored lamp post itself. As excerpted on the website for his estate, Gilbert's memoir, Rainbow Warrior, includes his memory of deciding to make the rainbow flag:
A piece of the original fabric has made it back to the city. The trio encouraged Baker to create a positive emblem for the LGBTQIA+ community.īaker agreed and he looked to his community for inspiration, specifically those dancing at San Francisco's music venue Winterland Ballroom one night. The indigo (400098) and turquoise (00C0C0) from the original flag were merged into one blue stripe and hot pink (FF69B6) was removed. Gilbert Baker hand-stitched and dyed the original rainbow flag for the 1978 Gay Freedom Parade in San Francisco. In the late '70s, Baker was living in San Francisco when he met writer Cleve Jones, filmmaker Artie Bressan, and rising activist Harvey Milk. The First Rainbow FlagĮnter: Gilbert Baker, the man who would create the first rainbow pride flag. Still, activists recognized the need for a more empowering symbol. "Gay people wear the pink triangle today as a reminder of the past and a pledge that history will not repeat itself," read one 1977 letter to the editor in Time. In the late 1970s, the pink triangle was somewhat reclaimed by the gay community. Throughout the Holocaust, the Nazis forced those whom they labeled as gay to wear inverted pink triangle badges, just as they forced Jewish people to wear a yellow Star of David.
Milk said he felt that queer people 'needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love. As America grieves George Floyd’s death, some say the LGBTQ+ community can honor his memory by ensuring that Black and Brown people are included on the Pride flag. This triangle, however, had a loaded, anti-gay history. In 1977, gay politician Harvey Milk tasked veteran Gilbert Baker to come up with a Pride flag. A 2018 redesign including Black, Brown, and trans pride stripes is going viral, with some calling for it to become the new symbol of the LGBTQ+ community. Before the rainbow pride flag was created, there was another symbol for the LGBTQIA+ community: a pink triangle. The original, eight-stripe flag designed by Baker had the following meanings for each color: Hot pink Sex.