In the decades following the end of World War Two, gay communities around the world stripped the pink badge of its intended humiliation and defiantly re-inflected it with pride.
![gay flag. gay flag.](https://www.domusweb.it/content/dam/domusweb/it/design/2021/06/19/la-storia-della-bandiera-del-pride-/88093AF9-8AC5-447D-966C-37CDDA04C536.jpeg)
In Nazi concentration camps, men imprisoned because of their homosexuality were marked out by a pink triangle affixed to their clothing. In contemplating how, precisely, he should reinvent that pattern, Baker was aware that any design he produced would compete in popular imagination with a painful, if resilient, logo by which the gay community had long been identified. Key to the summoning of such spirit was the restorative display across the country of the Stars and Stripes, whose simple geometry masked the intensity of the psychological, political, and social turmoil seething underneath. Still reeling from the twin traumas of withdrawal from the Vietnam War in 1973 and the first ever resignation of a US President in 1974, following the Watergate scandal, America strove to conjure from national malaise a feeling of patriotism. But as we watch its jubilant stripes bind together communities around the globe, it is worth pausing to reflect on the origin of a cultural symbol that was propelled into iconic status nearly 40 years ago by heartbreaking tragedy.Īccording to the US gay activist Gilbert Baker, who is credited with creating the emblem in the late 1970s, the idea behind the flag’s bold design emerged in 1976 – the year the United States celebrated the bicentenary of its independence as a republic. At first glance, the rainbow flag’s joyous refraction of colour may seem a strangely sunny response to the dark savagery of the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Popularity spiked again a decade later when a West Hollywood resident sued his landlord over the right to hang his flag outside his residence.Suddenly, they are everywhere: stretched across balconies, flapping from car antennas, and pinned to coat lapels the world over in a moving display of solidarity with the community that was brutally terrorised on Sunday after a bigoted assault at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. After the assassination of Harvey Milk on November 27, 1978, demand for the rainbow banner only increased.
![gay flag. gay flag.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/54246c6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1955x1536+0+0/resize/1486x1168!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc6%2F05%2F54a5456f4cf89ce209b1c553a32b%2Fgilbert-rainbow-flag-lavendar-drape.jpg)
Baker then took the design to Paramount Flag Company, which sold a version of the flag without hot pink and turquoise, which were replaced with blue for practicality purposes. It was first showcased at San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978.Īfter the design was unveiled, participants of the parade proudly waved the new symbol in solidarity. With the help of close to 30 volunteers working in the attic of the Gay Community Center in San Francisco, Baker was able to construct the first draft of the now world-renowned rainbow flag. At the top was hot pink, which represented sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow signifying sunlight, green for nature, turquoise to represent art, indigo for harmony, and finally violet at the bottom for spirit. The original flag featured eight colors, each having a different meaning. The different colors within the flag were meant to represent togetherness, since LGBT people come in all races, ages and genders, and rainbows are both natural and beautiful.
![gay flag. gay flag.](https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/xBM6SMA-8Ia-5fyDgkbHpF8rTmk=/438x0:1563x1125/1080x1080/media/img/mt/2021/06/PrideFlagRedo_1/original.jpg)
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