the colours of history

Yesterday I blogged about equality and I began to think more about the rainbow flag that I had posted. Turns out it has more of a history than I first thought.

The original Rainbow Flag was 8 striped
















1. Hot Pink for Sex
2. Red for Life
3. Orange for Healing
4. Yellow for Sun
5. Green for Nature
6. Turquoise for Art
7. Indigo for Harmony
8. Violet for Spirit.






But two occasions rose to make the flag what it is today.

San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker designed the rainbow flag in response to a need for a symbol that could be used year after year.

Gay folklore says that a parade was taking place in San Francisco where Baker and thirty volunteers hand-stitched and hand-dyed two huge prototype flags for the parade. But members of another pride parade realized they did not have all the colours necessary to paint themselves in the full 8 colour rainbow this was shortly after the flag came into existence in 1978.

The next year Baker approached San Francisco Paramount Flag Company to mass-produce rainbow flags for the 1979 parade. Due to production cost and other constraints the hot pink and turquoise were removed and blue replaced the indigo.

And thus the 6 striped gay pride flag came into being. Now it is mass-produced and can be seen in major cities and countries throughout the world.

My pride flag for example came from Hamm, Germany.