The year was 1978 and the place was in the heart of the gay community in San Francisco.   Local gay rights activists were looking for symbol to represent the pride and solidarity of the gay community.  The common symbol at the time was the pink triangle which represented the persecution and mass slaughter of gay men by the Nazis (see my article under “Triangle” for more details).  The objective of a new symbol was to be a  more positive and cheerful symbol of hope than the triangle.

A young San Francisco artist, Gilbert Baker, took the challenge in hand.  He used the “Flag of the Race” as his inspiration which was a five colored stripe design and came up with an eight colored striped flag with the following colors:

                                Pink – representing  sexuality

                                Red –  representing life

                                Orange –  representing healing

                                Yellow –  representing sun

                                Green –  representing nature

                                Blue –  representing art

                                Indigo – representing harmony

Baker had sewn and hand dyed his prototype flag and took it to the Paramount Flag Company in hope of mass-producing his new creation for sale.  He was disappointed to learn that the color of hot pink that he had at the top of his flag was not available commercially.  Having little choice in the matter he dropped pink from his flag leaving 7 colored stripes.

In November 1978,  Harvey Milk was assassinated.  He was San Francisco’s first openly gay city supervisor.  The gay community felt pain and outrage over Milk’s murder.  In an effort to show the city that there is solidarity in the  gay community and that it would prevail, the 1979 Pride Parade Committee decided to use Baker’s rainbow flag.  They decided to drop indigo from the flag so they could evenly line one side of the parade route with three colors and the opposite side of the street with three colors. 

Today, the 6 color flag is recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers.  It is displayed through out the world as a symbol of pride in diversity, strength of the gay community and it helps to increase the visibility of gay people and their supporters.  The universal order of the colors from top to bottom horizontally or left to right vertically are red – orange – yellow -- green – blue – violet.