Rainbow Pride Flag

History

The Rainbow Flag was created by Gilbert Baker, a gay artist and activist from Kansas City who had taught himself to sew after moving to San Francisco. Harvey Milk — the first openly gay elected official in California — asked Baker to create a symbol for the gay community for the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Baker designed an eight-stripe flag: hot pink (sexuality), red (life), orange (healing), yellow (sunlight), green (nature), turquoise (magic/art), blue (serenity/harmony), and violet (spirit). The flags were hand-dyed and sewn by Baker and thirty volunteers at the San Francisco Gay Community Center. When demand surged after Harvey Milk's assassination on November 27, 1978, commercial manufacturers dropped hot pink (the dye was not commercially available at scale) and turquoise, then split the remaining six colours evenly for practical production. The six-stripe version became the global standard. Baker described his inspiration partly from the American flag — "we needed something beautiful, something from us" — and partly from Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow," a longstanding gay anthem. He intentionally chose the rainbow as universal, non-threatening, and belonging to no single person. Baker died on March 31, 2017, before seeing his flag become one of the most widely recognised symbols in the world. In 2015, the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired a Baker rainbow flag for its permanent collection.

Colors

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet

Red: life. Orange: healing. Yellow: sunlight. Green: nature. Blue: harmony. Violet: spirit.

Symbols

Six horizontal rainbow stripes

Each stripe of the rainbow was chosen to represent a different aspect of the LGBTQ+ experience and community.