The rainbow flag is a worldwide symbol to represent the diverse community of LGBTQ. The flag was designed by the American queer activist, artist, army veteran, and drag queen named Gilbert Baker. He was urged by Harvey Milk, the first gay politician and a San Francisco councilman, to create a symbol for the LGBTQ community that may connect them all. The reason behind it was to substitute the pink triangle formulated by Adolf Hitler that was considered a symbol of shame. The LGBTQ community later accepted it as a symbol of pride. Gilbert wanted to replace the negativity behind that symbol, and therefore, he came up with a vibrant & positive symbol to celebrate love and uniqueness. He designed the flag with eight stripes of different colors and meanings, red for life, green for nature, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, pink for sex, indigo for harmony, turquoise for magic, violet for spirit. Baker chose the rainbow colors to symbolize the LGBTQ diversity in race, gender, expression, and age. The first two flags were hand-stitched and hand-dyed by Baker and his thirty volunteers. On the Gay Freedom Day parade, these 30/60 foot flags were first displayed on June 25, 1978, in San Francisco, US. In November 1978, Harvey Milk was murdered, which increased the protests and demand for the pride flag, resulting in mass production. During that time, the limited supply of fabrics resulted in the withdrawal of two colors from the flag, pink and turquoise. Both these colors were too expensive to be mass-produced. In 2003, Baker set a world record by stitching a 1.25-mile long flag with all eight colors to mark its 25th anniversary. The flag was further cut into several parts and distributed across 100 cities worldwide, and people embraced it with a lot of hope and emotions. Alterations were also equipped on the flag as they believed more the colors, more the pride. In 2017, Baker added a lavender stripe at the top of the flag to symbolize diversity. Later that year, two more colors, brown and black, were added to make it more inclusive towards black and brown members of the LGBTQ community. June is the Pride month of the LGBTQ community in the United States. It is celebrated to honor the 1969 Stonewall uprising, a series of events between the police and LGBTQ protestors at the Stonewall Inn, US. They fought back when the police became violent, and the rebellion stretched for six days. The Stonewall rebellion was considered the first major protest in history at the behest of equal rights for homosexuals and marked the beginning of the gay rights movement.
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