Today in History—June 25: A Symbol of Pride Is Born

In 1978 preparations for the 7th annual Gay Freedom Day parade in San Francisco were charged with a special sense of purpose.

Planners were aware of an initiative, scheduled to be voted on by Californians in November, that would discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community: Proposition 6, otherwise known as the Briggs Initiative, which would bar gay and lesbian people from working in public schools. People were determined to speak up, and a rally opposing the initiative was planned to accompany the June 25 parade.

The decorations committee created two flags for the day. Both were rainbow-themed, with eight stripes of color: hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, turquoise, and violet. One included a blue canton with tie-dyed stars in the style of the American flag. (Committee members have since presented conflicting sources of inspiration for the rainbow motif, including a disco ball, the diversity of humanity, and one of the decorators’ love of rainbows.)

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The flags, which were designed to be flown from two large flagpoles near the end of the route, were massive. It took some 30 volunteers to dye the strips of materials and sew the flags by hand. Several people were needed to move the completed flags.

The 1978 parade and rally were very well-attended, and many people who saw the flags wanted smaller versions for themselves.

A flag-manufacturing company began mass-producing the simpler rainbow flag. Owing to production limitations, the original eight stripe colors were reduced to seven and then to six: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. This version of the flag would, in the following years, become indelibly associated with LGBTQ+ pride, and there are now multiple variations.

The 1978 decorations committee didn’t know they were making a symbol that would endure for decades, but it did.

And the discriminatory proposition that was up for referendum? It failed, with more than 58 percent of voters against it.

Famous Birthdays

1852: Antoni Gaudí—Spanish architect, famed for his work on the Sagrada Família

1870: Robert Erskine Childers—Irish writer and nationalist

1903: George Orwell—British author

1956: Anthony Bourdain—American chef, author, and TV personality