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)
The Alyson
Almanac - The Gay and Lesbian Fact Book & Guide to the Internet (Serial)
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