History of the Rainbow Flag
The Alyson Almanac: A Treasury of Information for the
Gay and Lesbian Community describes the Rainbow Flag
as follows:
In 1978, Gilbert Baker of San Francisco designed and made a
flag with six stripes representing the six colors of the
rainbow as a symbol of gay and lesbian community pride.
Slowly the flag took hold, offering a colorful and
optimistic alternative to the more common pink triangle
symbol. Today it is recognized by the International
Congress of Flag Makers, and is flown in lesbian and gay
pride marches worldwide. In 1989, the rainbow flag received
nationwide attention after John Stout successfully sued his
landlords in West Hollywood, when they prohibited him from
displaying the flag from his apartment balcony. Meanwhile,
Baker is still in San Francisco, and still making more
flags.
The Rainbow Flag by Steven W. Anderson appeared in
GAZE Magazine (Minneapolis), #191, on 28 May 1993, p. 25:
Color has long played an important role in our community's
expression of pride. In Victorian England, for example, the
color green was associated with homosexuality. The color
purple (or, more accurately, lavender) became popularized
as a symbol for pride in the late 1960s - a frequent
post-Stonewall catchword for the gay community was "Purple
Power". And, of course, there's the pink triangle. Although
it was first used in Nazi Germany to identify gay males in
concentration camps, the pink triangle only received
widespread use as a gay pop icon in the early 1980s. But
the most colorful of our symbols is the Rainbow Flag, and
its rainbow of colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
and purple - represents the diversity of our community.
The first Rainbow Flag was designed in 1978 by Gilbert
Baker, a San Francisco artist, who created the flag in
response to a local activist's call for the need of a
community symbol. (This was before the pink triangle was
popularly used as a symbol of pride.) Using the
five-striped "Flag of the Race" as his inspiration, Baker
designed a flag with eight stripes: pink, red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. According to
Baker, those colors represented, respectively: sexuality,
life, healing, sun, nature, art, harmony, and spirit. Baker
dyed and sewed the material for the first flag himself - in
the true spirit of Betsy Ross.
Baker soon approached San Francisco's Paramount Flag
Company about mass producing and selling his "gay flag".
Unfortunately, Baker had hand-dyed all the colors, and
since the color "hot pink" was not commercially available,
mass production of his eight-striped version became
impossible. The flag was thus reduced to seven stripes.
In November 1978, San Francisco's gay community was stunned
when the city's first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk,
was assassinated, Wishing to demonstrate the gay
community's strength and solidarity in the aftermath of
this tragedy, the 1979 Pride Parade Committee decided to
use Baker's flag. The committee eliminated the indigo
stripe so they could divide the colors evenly along the
parade route - three colors on one side of the street and
three on the other. Soon the six colors were incorporated
into a six-striped version that became popularized and
that, today, is recognized by the International Congress of
Flag Makers.
In San Francisco, the Rainbow Flag is everywhere: it can be
seen hanging from apartment windows throughout the city
(most notably in the Castro district), local bars
frequently display the flag, and Rainbow Flag banners are
hung from lampposts on Market Street (San Francisco's main
avenue) throughout Pride Month. Visiting the city, one can
not help but feel a tremendous sense of pride at seeing
this powerful symbol displayed so prominently.
Although the Rainbow Flag was initially used as a symbol of
pride only in San Francisco, it has received increased
visibility in recent years. Today, it is a frequent sight
in a number of other cities as well - New York, West
Hollywood, and Amsterdam, among them. Even in the Twin
Cities, the flag seems to be gaining in popularity. Indeed,
the Rainbow Flag reminds us that ours is a diverse
community - composed of people with a variety of individual
tastes of which we should all be proud.
Sources used for this article were found at Quatrefoil
Library in St. Paul, and include: "Vexed by Rainbows", by
Paul Zomcheck, in "Bay Area Reporter" (June 26, 1986);
"Rainbow Flag" in "The Alyson Almanac" (1989); and "The
Rainbow Flag", in "Parade 90: San Francisco Gay/Lesbian
Freedom Day Parade and Celebration" (June 24, 1990)