History of the Gay Pride / Rainbow Flag

Last modified: 2005-08-19 by antonio martins
Keywords: rainbow flag | gay pride | baker (gilbert) | steve (tyson) | international congress of flag makers | flag of the race | stripes: 8 | stripes: 7 | stripes: 6 | stripes: 5 |
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• Eight striped version
• Seven striped version
• Current version
• An alternative origin?
• The “International Congress of Flag Makers”?
• Striped flag of the race?

• Gay Pride / Rainbow Flag
• Sexual orientation flags

Eight striped version

The first Rainbow Flag was designed in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco artist, who created the flag in response to a local activist’s call for the need of a community symbol. (This was before the pink triangle was popularly used as a symbol of pride.) Using the five-striped “Flag of the Race” as his inspiration, Baker designed a flag with eight stripes. Baker dyed and sewed the material for the first flag himself — in the true spirit of Betsy Ross.
Christopher Pinette, 12 Jun 1996

The design may have been influenced by flags with multicolored stripes used by various left-wing causes and organizations in the San Francisco area in the 1960s. The Rainbow Flag originally ha