Rainbow Flag by aLex Cruz

The Rainbow Flag (aka Gay Pride Flag) was created in 1978 by an artist and vexillographer named Gilbert Baker. He is a friend of Harvey Milk. The flag was first presented at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day Parade. It is now known worldwide as the symbol of LGBTQQ.... unity. The flag has many variations and is usually made into bumber stickers, flags and decales. The Rainbow Flag, in fact is recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers. Each color of the Rainbow Flag has a meaning:

• Pink--------> sexuality
  Red---------> life
• Orange------> healing
• Yellow-------> sunlight
• Green-------> nature
• Turquoise---> magic
• Indigo/Blue--> serenity
• Violet--------> spirit
• Black---------> lost AIDS victims

The original flag had 8 stripes. They wer pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, and violet. 30 volunteers with Gilbert Baker, made two huge prototypes of the flag. They hand-stitched and hand-dyed it. Then in 1978 Baker called the San Francisco Paramount Flag Company and asked them if they could mass produced the flag for the 1979 Gay Parade. He found out that two stripes had to be removed. The pink stripe was removed because there wasn't any pink dye or fabric. Same with the violet stripe but also to make the flag have an even number of stripes. The black stripe is sometimes added to remember all the victims of the AIDS epidemic. In 1979 the Rainbow Flag changed in order to honoe Harvey Milk. The Turqouise stripe was eliminated, so that the colors of the flag could be evenly divide on both sides of the street were the parade was going to take place. So it was 3 colors on each side. Thus the current six color flag we see today evolved.