Sonntag, 08. Dezember 2024
Sonntag, 08. Dezember 2024
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The rainbow flag and the red ribbon

Information about history and significance of Gilbert Baker's rainbow flag.

The most colorful of all our symbols is the Rainbow Flag, and the range of colors

red, orange, yellow, green , blue and violet

to the diversity of the gay and lesbian community to represent.The choice of the rainbow as a symbol for this community is of course also in historical tradition : In the Old Testament he appears as a symbol of the connection between heaven and earth, and as a guarantee that mankind could expect no second deluge. In ancient Greece, was the rainbow the companion of the goddess Iris. Among the ancient Germans the rainbow was even considered road to Valhalla. The first Rainbow Flag was made ​​in 1978 by the artist Gilbert Baker in San Francisco. Based on the five-colored flag of race and the five Olympic rings , Baker has the first rainbow flag itself designed, dyed and sewn together. This very first flag still contained eight colors

pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, and violet.

According to Baker, these colors are to bear the following meanings:

    1978 - 8 Colors:
    pink - sexuality, red - life, orange - healing, yellow - sun, green - nature, turquoise - Art, indigo - harmony, violet - spirit.

    Today - 6 Colors:
    red - life, orange - healing, yellow - sun, green - nature, indigo - harmony, violet - spirit.

Baker went to a flag factory to let pass the flag in mass production and to establish it as a new gay flag. Unfortunately, Baker had all the colors themselves mixed and because his pink - color (hot pink) was not available commercially, could not go into mass production, the eight-lane flag. So was the pink strip, which should just represent the sexuality, removed and reduces the flag on seven hard-on.

In November 1978, the gay community was in San Francisco, shaken by the murder of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city council, the city has ever had.

In early 1979, therefore, a mourning and protest march of gays and lesbians was organized in San Francisco. In order to demonstrate their strength and solidarity, the rainbow flag should have its first major appearance in public. It was planned to present three strips left and right along the road of the roadmap. But that was another strip of seven colored flag too much, and it was decided on the turquoise to dispense the color of the Arts . On that occasion, then the indigo was also the same as the color of harmony replaced by royal blue.

A few years ago , the flag has also been recognized by the International Association of flag makers as a symbol for the gay and lesbian community . The rainbow flag belongs next to the pink triangle (had in the Nazi concentration camps gay men this angle as marking do) and the Red Ribbon (red bow as Buttons, solidarity characters for HIV -infected people and AIDS sufferers) with the world's most established icons of the gay - and lesbian movement.

The longest flag in the world in 1994 in New York at the CSD - (one mile) worn demonstration through the streets. It was then cut into small pieces and sold for a charitable purpose.

The red ribbon

Hardly nobody who does not know them - the Red Ribbon. In the whole world it is a symbol for solidarity with people with HIV and AIDS and for the common fight against the immune difficiancy syndrom.

It was developed in spring, 1991 by the New York artist's group Visual AIDS modelled after the yellow ribbons - at that time very present in the USA as a sign of devotion of the victims of the golf war. The fact that the choice fell on the colour Red, had symbolic reasons: Red stands for passion and love, for blood - and fury.

To Europe the Red Ribbon came in 1992 with a commemorative concert for Freddie Mercury in the London Wembley stadium: More than 100,000 red ribbons were distributed, more than one milliard people in more than 70 countries pursued the concert in the television set.