Rainbow flags was first flown at the 1978 “Gay Freedom Day” parade in San Francisco, and they quickly became the most popular symbol of gay pride.
Now the rioters who claimed their freedom at the Stonewall Bar in 1969 would have their own symbol of liberation.” A Rainbow Flag would be our modern alternative to the pink triangle. It was also found in Chinese, Egyptian and Native American history. “In the Book of Genesis, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all living creatures. The rainbow came from earliest recorded history as a symbol of hope,” Baker wrote. “A Rainbow Flag was a conscious choice, natural and necessary. He also considered the powerful symbolic significance of rainbows throughout history.
We all felt that we needed something that was positive, that celebrated our love.”īaker thought a rainbow flag would better represent the beautiful diversity of the LGBTQIA+ community. It functioned as a Nazi tool of oppression. “Adolph Hitler conceived the pink triangle during World War II as a stigma placed on homosexuals in the same way the Star of David was used against Jews. However, that symbol “ represented a dark chapter in the history of same-sex rights,” he wrote. Related: The 21 LGBTQIA+ Flags (and Their Meanings) Up until that point, a pink triangle had symbolized the gay rights movement, Baker explained in his memoir, Rainbow Warrior: My Life In Color. He came up with the design after prominent gay rights leader Harvey Milk urged him to create a new, positive symbol that the entire LGBTQIA+ community could rally behind. Designed for one parade in 1978, it's now one of the most recognized symbols in the world.The rainbow Pride flag was designed in 1978 by artist and gay rights activist Gilbert Baker. The LGBT pride version of the flag designed by Gilbert Baker has become the most famous of the rainbow flags. And in Peru and Bolivia, the rainbow "Flag of Cusco" is a symbol of the indigenous Inca people. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast based in Birobidzhan, a sort of satellite government of Russia located on the Chinese border in Birobidzhan, uses a rainbow flag as its own symbol. In Italy, it's used as a symbol of peace, often with the word "PACE" written in white across the flag's stripes. In 2001, one version added a black stripe for AIDs awareness.Īside from LGBT pride, rainbow flags have other historic and political meanings that persist today. One version unfurled in Philadelphia this year added black and brown, for racial inclusivity. The flag has been modified in different places at different times. The White House illuminated in rainbow colors after 2015's Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. Judy Garland, the star of "The Wizard of Oz," has a large following as a gay symbol, and is famous for singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in the movie. The rainbow also has some pop culture significance for the LGBT community.
The rainbow is so perfect because it really fits our diversity in terms of race, gender, ages, all of those things." We needed something beautiful, something from us. It came from such a horrible place of murder and holocaust and Hitler. "It was necessary to have the Rainbow Flag because up until that we had the pink triangle from the Nazis - it was the symbol that they would use. The rainbow flag was a way of taking these various colors and turning them into a coherent symbol, reclaimed by the LGBT community. During the Holocaust, Nazis forced gay men to wear pink triangles as a symbol of sexual deviance. Oscar Wilde wore a green carnation, and yellow served the same purpose in Australia, and purple provided that function in some communities in the United States. I realized I would have to make some compromises in order for this to really function as a symbol."Ĭloseted gay people have also historically used bright colors to signal their homosexuality to each other, as Forrest Wickman wrote in Slate. "Even to do four-color printing for photographs like this was complicated. " One of the reasons I had to adapt the eight-color version to the six-color version of the flag - the one we use today - is because in 1978 eight colors was expensive," Baker told the Museum of Modern Art. The longest rainbow pride flag ever, in Key West in 2003.Īndy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau/Getty Images