Original gay flag design
The pride flag, at its core, represents people, people who have gone on too far without a public identity or something to hold on to. The idea behind using a rainbow pride flag came from the notion that the community is built of people of various origins, genders, sexualities, and ideologies. The demand for the pride flag grew tremendously shortly after, leading to production issues but also to a wider and more public spotlight than ever before. Historic fact: The reason why the pride flag has to be impromptu redesigned in the wake of "material deficit" was due to Harvey Milk's untimely passing. The six stripe pride flag featuring red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet is the most common flag representing the LGBTQ community worldwide. While it would become a seven stripe flag later on and distributed by the Paramount Flag Company, the six stripe variant was created momentarily. At the time, it was difficult to mass-produce pink and turquoise stripes so the flag had to be redesigned. While the pride flag was positively received by everyone in the community, production issues quickly reared their head. Gilbert's flag was proudly used in the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade where it was presented to the public. The colors featured in the original pride flag are:
The pride flag as created by Baker in 1978 represents love and peace among people in eight different colors. What Gilbert came up with was nothing short of revolutionary given its simplicity and elegance. He tasked Gilbert Baker with representing the different groups within the community with a single symbol, a banner of peace for everyone to share. Harvey Milk, who was an openly gay man was elected into office in the US and found himself in the position to make gay pride his priority. Gilbert was openly gay and a drag queen, with very influential friends in US politics. Fast-forward to 1978 and an artist and designer Gilbert Baker, who was also a Vietnam veteran. The event was called the San Francisco Gay Liberation March, also known as Gay Freedom Day, and it was the spark that eventually led to the creation of what we now refer to as the pride flag.
They lack organization, identification, and representation, not to mention the then-mindset of the American people. A small group of like-minded people organize the first Pride march on the streets of San Francisco and are met with severe stigma and hostility. Let's talk about the history of the rainbow flag, its meaning, rainbow colors, and what it stands for today for members of the community around the world. To answer that, we need to go back to the origins of the pride movement when gender binary was the norm.