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The rainbow flag first arose in the 1970s in San Francisco, California. In that era, many LGBTQ people had adopted the pink triangle as their symbol, but the bright shape had a dark past. In the 1930s and 1940s in Nazi Germany, gay men were persecuted. They were forced to wear a pink triangle badge to identify them. In 1978, Gilbert Baker, an artist and gay rights activist, decided to design a more hopeful symbol.
Baker wanted an emblem that would give people a sense of pride and belonging. Searching his surroundings, he saw something that did exactly that—the American flag. He made up his mind to create an LGBTQ flag, and its stripes were inspired by…nature! A rainbow is a range of different colors that form a harmonious whole. Baker saw it as an appropriate symbol to represent the diversity and unity of the LGBTQ community.
Making the first flags was a huge job. The original design was 30 feet by 60 feet (9.1 meters by 18.3 meters). It featured eight colors: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, and purple. Baker and a team of volunteers dyed and stitched together the material themselves. The completed flags debuted in San Francisco at a parade on June 25, 1978.
Baker's artistic handiwork made a big impression that day. Afterwards, he wanted his design to spread far and wide, so he put it into mass production. In 1979, the pink stripe was taken out because typical flag fabric wasn't readily available in that color. Turquoise was then removed to make an even number of stripes. The result was the six-color design most often seen today.
One banner year for the rainbow flag was 1994. Twenty-five years earlier, New York City police had raided an LGBTQ club called the Stonewall Inn. That sparked an uprising which became a catalyst for the gay rights movement. Baker honored the milestone by making a flag that was a mile (1.6 kilometers) long. The one-mile wonder has been credited with popularizing the rainbow flag around the world. But in 2003, to mark the 25th anniversary of the flag's creation in 1978, Baker outdid himself once again. He made a rainbow flag that was 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) in length.
Today, the rainbow flag is the most widely recognized international emblem of LGBTQ pride. Its colors are often used to show support for the community. One example was in 2015. After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States, millions of people tinted their social media profile pictures with rainbow stripes.
Gilbert Baker died in 2017, but the design he dreamed up continues to inspire people in the LGBTQ community. The rainbow flag has passed the test of time…with flying colors.
