With thoughts of those affected by the tragic events in Orlando, we pause to offer a history of and meaning behind the Rainbow Flag, which was created by Gilbert Baker in 1978. Baker had been challenged by the late Harvey Milk to create a symbol that the gay community could be proud of and rally around.
Baker first created an eight-striped flag that was full of meaning: hot pink stood for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, turquoise blue for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for the human spirit.
When he tried to mass produce the flags, the pink material was not readily available in flag fabric, so a seven-striped flag was produced instead (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet).
Following Milk’s assassination on Nov. 27, 1978, the Gay Freedom Day Committee decided to fly the Rainbow Flag along San Francisco’s Market Street for the 1979 Gay Freedom Day parade. The colors were split into two flags—indigo was eliminated to make the split even—and the present-day six-stripe flag was born.
Read more about the Rainbow Flag’s history here.