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The History of the Rainbow Flag Continues to Evolve as a Symbol of Hope Throughout Pride and the Black Lives Matter Movement

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The rainbow flag has become a global symbol that represents LGBT liberation and freedom, yet few know the origins of the flag or its meaning. This has been especially true in recent years as there has been debate and protest from members of the community who feel the flag doesn’t represent all the different aspects of the community.

Above: Gilbert Baker at San Francisco Pride in 2012

When vexillographer [that’s a flag maker btw] Gilbert Baker first created the Rainbow Flag in 1978, he had a clear mission in mind for its purpose: to design a symbol to unify the LGBT Community. “I discovered the depth of [a flag’s] power, [its] transcendent, transformational quality,” Baker wrote in his memoir, Rainbow Warrior. Gay people were tribal, individualistic, a global collective that was expressing itself in art and politics. We needed a flag to fly everywhere.”

The original gay pride flag flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration on June 25, 1978. Before this pride, the Pink triangle was used as a symbol for the LGBT Movement but it represented a dark chapter in the history of same-sex rights. The Pink triangle was created by the Nazis during World War II to identify and stigmatize homosexuals in the same way the Star of David was used against Jews and others regarded as viruses or sub-humans in the social fabric. It functioned as a Nazi tool of oppression. Harvey Milk and others did not want to use this symbol anymore, Artie Bressan, a close friend of Baker’s, pressed on Baker for a new symbol and called it “the dawn of a new gay consciousness and freedom.”

Above: Gilbert Baker Bequeathed a Cotton Rainbow Flag to Pres. Barack Obama in 2016. Photo by Jay Blotcher.

It’s been suggested that Baker may have been inspired by Judy Garland’s singing “Over the Rainbow” and the Stonewall riots that happened a few days after Garland’s death (she was one of the first gay icons).

Baker’s original Rainbow Flag included eight colors, each to represent a different universal meaning (ex. Red represents life; Orange represents healing; etc. see diagram below).

Hot pinkSex
RedLife
OrangeHealing
YellowSunlight
GreenNature
TurquoiseMagic/Art
IndigoSerenity
VioletSpirit

For nearly 40 years, the Rainbow Flag served as a universal symbol for LGBT rights and activism; a beacon of hope for those who have been oppressed for their sexual identity, and a sign of liberation for those fortunate enough to be able to openly express their freedom. 

I spoke to Charley Beal, President of the Gilbert Baker Foundation. Beal has seen his share of civil rights activism since attending his first protest with his parents in Lansing, MI in 1962.  Through his adulthood, Beal continued being a very active participant in LGBT activism, which allotted him the opportunity to meet and collaborate with Gilbert Baker on the Mile Long Flag to commemorate Stonewall 25 in New York City in 1994.

“We were buddies, we were very close friends,” Beal says.  “He would always be making some fabulous banner for a new protest and I would always be the guy at the end holding it.”

From 1994 up until Baker’s death in 2017, Beal would continue to collaborate with Baker with projects pertaining to the Rainbow Flag and beyond, including WorldPride 2000 and the bestowment of the Cotton LGBTQ Rainbow Flag to President Obama in 2016. While the rights of the LGBT community were at the forefront of Baker’s activism, Beal says that Baker was very cognizant of ensuring that his activism and his work were intended for a universal audience.

“Gilbert was an activist,” Beal said. “He put his words into actions, and he was always very supportive of the rights of others. Clearly, LGBTQ rights were his main focus because of his life experiences. But he was very passionate that we do not get caught up into subgroups, and allowing subgroups to get certain rights over others.”

Since the Rainbow Flag’s conception, there has been many versions of the Flag recreated to reflect the issues of certain subgroups and/or sociopolitical issues of the time. 2020 has been no different, as a number of iterations of the Flag have been utilized to show support to other marginalized communities.  

The More Color More Pride flag, introduced  in 2017 by Amber Hikes, added a black stripe and a brown stripe to add representation for members of the Black and Brown communities; it became the official Pride Flag for Philadelphia, PA in 2017, and was prominent in LGBT and Black Lives Matters protests worldwide this year.

The talk of this new flag began to take shape after a series of incidents of racial discrimination at gay clubs and bars happened in Philadelphia in 2015.

According to Philadelphia based activist Abdul-Aliy A Muhammad, “On May 7, 2015, journalist Ernest Owens penned an Op-Ed ‘Black not fetch enough for Woody’s?’ where he states that he had his “own personal rifts with the racial exclusion of the [Philadelphia] Gayborhood as a gay man of color.’ This sparked controversy in Philadelphia, which led to an array of in-person conversations and town halls. On June 1, 2016 the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative, neé Collective released “A Call To Action” citing patterns of workplace violences at local AIDS nonprofits, this call was informed by interviews conducted, as part of an archival project of the BBWC. This project is an endeavor to use qualitative research that provides person-centered narratives, used in many of our campaigns against local nonprofits. Alongside the emergence of the BBWC, there were incidents involving racialized dress codes at local gay bars, including the ban of timberland boots at ICandy.”

Muhammad continues, “The BBWC formed a coalition with Philly REAL Justice, ACT UP Philly and the Gran Varones Project to address racism in the Gayborhood. After an action at city hall, where we delivered demands to the former Director of LGBT Affairs, Nellie Fitzpatrick, we marched to Icandy and Woody’s. A video leaked within days of Darryl DePiano saying the n-word repeatedly and a movement against white supremacy in LGBTQ spaces ensued. There was a public hearing on racism, held by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations on October 25, 2016. The BBWC called for Nellie Fitzpatrick to resign, eventually this happened leading to the selection of Amber Hikes as her replacement. Amber introduced the More Color, More Pride Flag on thursday, June, 8, 2017.”

After a some pushback from various factions, the racial justice flag became the de rigeur flag used at many metropolitan pride celebrations around the world and  was widely visible at LGBTQ and Black Lives Matters protests worldwide this year.

Muhammad says, “The original pride flag provided a design impetus for the new iteration that Philadelphia embraced, but was explicit enough. Over the years there have been literary critiques about the rainbow not being enough. Most notably, the compilation of essays For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Not Enough traverses the intersections of Blackness and gayness. It’s clear, Black and Brown LGBTQ communities need our own symbols and iconography.”

 

Above: The More Color More Pride, designed by Tierney (Photo by Kelly Burkhardt/ City of Philadelphia)

Both Beal and The Gilbert Baker Foundation encourage people to tailor the original Rainbow Flag as they see fit, they do not endorse these new iterations of the Rainbow Flag as potential “replacement” candidates for the original.

“We honor [other flags], but we don’t endorse them,” Beal said. “I’ve had people contact me and ask, ‘oh, do you think we should have the Racial Justice Flag replace the Rainbow Flag?’ and I tell them, ‘no,’ because the implication there is that Gilbert did not include all races when he created the Flag.” 

“What I like about the symbolism of the rainbow is that it fits us,” Baker wrote in his memoir, Rainbow Warrior.  “It’s all the colors. It represents all genders, it represents all races. It’s the rainbow of humanity.”

“I commend people when they want to add these stripes for a certain issue that they’re fighting at a certain time,” Beal said. “On the other hand, it becomes a bit mired in identity politics, and we take umbrage with this implication that people of color were not included in the original flag. Gilbert was very prescient in not using the flag for identity politics… He intended for the Flag to be for all people; that’s why it became so famous and recognized worldwide.”

More than three years since Baker’s passing, the Gilbert Baker Foundation continues to be very busy, working with museums and corporations to ensure that the Rainbow Flag’s legacy continues to be  arried on the way Baker saw it to be: a universal symbol of hope and liberation.

“The Rainbow Flag is an incredibly hopeful symbol for people who are not living in America or the European metropolises where people don’t have the same rights as we do,” Beal said.  “Remember the people that can’t express themselves openly.  Let’s remember that the Rainbow Flag gives them a little shred of a hope for a better world tomorrow.”

I asked Muhammad how they [Muhammad uses the they pronoun] felt about many pride celebrations being merged with the BLM movement this year and they said, “It’s complicated: Pride was forged in the fire of oppression and Black and Brown transgender women’s unique struggles foregrounded that. People like Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major labored in the Queer Liberation space to move us forward. This includes the Stonewall Riots and the uprisings at Attica. These two poignant moments of people pushing back on carceral terrorism and police violence, made a pathway for Queer Liberation movements. That is our history and means that if Pride is being historical, it is accounting for Black leadership. The truth is that the history has been whitewashed and key figures of the movement have been erased at various moments in history.  Black Lives Matter actions must be led by Black people and solidarity actions must carry and amplify the demands of Black people.”

The latest version of the flag that’s been commonly shared was designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018 and sought to include the colors of the transgender community (baby blue, pink, and white) and has been derisively called the Chevron flag for its similarity to the ubiquitous corporate one (see above).

The future will surely bring more.

Just as the LGBT Community has expanded its inclusiveness over the years so too, have our flags, and hopefully they’ll continue to.

You can read more about Gilbert Baker here.

 

 

 

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