Pride Flag 101 The History of Pride Flags

In San Francisco 1974 Gilbert Baker, an activist and gay veteran, met up with Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in California. Milk challenged Baker to create a symbol to unify the queer community, and in 1978 Baker debuted the pride flag. Baker applied meaning to each of the stripes: the pink represents sex, the red represents life, the orange represents healing, the yellow represents sunlight, the green represents nature, the turquoise represents magic and art, the indigo represents serenity and the violet represents spirit. The Pride Flag made its debut on San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978.

Graphic spread by Morgana Carroll

The most common pride flag one sees, the pink and the turquoise stripes were removed in 1978 and 1979 respectively because of how difficult those colors of dye were to find.

The Philadelphia Pride Flag was the first popular flag to include a stripe to represent people of color, who traditionally had not been recognized in the gay rights movement despite being an essential cornerstone of the community. It was designed by a small Philidelphian marketing company Tierney, and was debuted on June 8 2017, at Philadelphia City Hall.

Oregonian designer Daniel Quasar was inspired by the Philadelphia Pride Flag, and wanted to rework it to give it further meaning. The white, pink and blue chevron represents the transgender community, and the brown and black stripes represent people of color. The black stripe has dual meaning, as it also represents those lost to AIDS. It debuted in 2018.

Information gathered from “San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus”

May 31, 2023