Sewn by thirty volunteers, the original gay-pride flag flew in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978. It has been suggested that Baker was inspired by Judy Garland’s singing “Over The Rainbow.” The flag consisted of eight stripes; Baker assigned specific meaning to each of the colors as follows:
- hot pink: sexuality
- red: life
- orange: healing
- yellow: sunlight
- green: nature
- turquoise: magic/art
- indigo: serenity/harmony
- violet: spirit
As of 2008, the most common variant consists of six stripes, with the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The flag is commonly flown horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as the colors would appear in a natural rainbow.
SOURCES
- The National Museum and Archive of Lesbian and Gay History (1996). The Gay Almanac. New York City, Berkeley Books.
- Witt, Lynn, Sherry Thomas, and Eric Marcus (1995). Out in All Directions: The Almanac of Gay and Lesbian America. New York, Warner Books.
- Gilbert Baker (18 October 2007). “Pride-Flyin’ Flag: Rainbow-flag founder marks 30-years anniversary”. Metro Weekly. http://metroweekly.com/feature/?ak=3031.
- The Rainbow Flag http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/scotts/bulgarians/rainbow-flag.html
- Gay History Project
6 comments:
I think that the colors of the gay flag originated in Hawaii. The colors were from an active football team. Someone saw them, liked them and adopted them, and that's how we got them.
As always, very cool. Interesting to read such a neat history for something we tend to take for granted.
Peace <3
Jay
Your blog would have been more interesting to me if it did not push the image that the Gay Community is entirely comprised of ONLY white gender normative males.
A community is supposed to be inclusive of those who belong to that community. If minorities and non-gender normative people are intentionally or sub-consciously not depicted by an individual with some form of intent, then the said person whom acted in such a way must not think that the aforementioned oppressed groups do not belong in the LGBT Community.
That would really be hypocritical, wouldn't it? Asking for rights while continuing to discriminate and deny...
Anon, I am sorry that you feel that way, especially considering that I just concluded two weeks of posts about homosexuality in Asia, and that I have posted about the Harlem Renaissance and transexuals numerous times not to mention many other inclusive posts. I do not mean to exclude anyone, and do my best to bring out information about the gay community as a whole. I will attempt to do better.
Joe,
I don't think you need to be apologizing for a comment that was clearly made without the poster reading your entire blog. Your posts have opened many eyes to the extent of our great LGBT community. This anonymous read one or two posts and decided you were a hypocrit. Too bad for him/her. You do just fine. Keep it up!
Peace <3
Jay
Thanks, Jay.
Post a Comment