ABOUT OUR FOUNDER - ERICA KAY-WEBSTER

The Gay Pride Flag, also known as the Rainbow Flag, originated in 1978 and was created by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist, activist, and Vietnam War veteran. He was commissioned by Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., to create a symbol of pride for the LGBTQ+ community to fly at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Baker saw flags as the most powerful symbol of pride and unity; a language without words. The very first rainbow flag had eight stripes, and each color held a specific symbolic meaning:

Hot Pink – Sex

Red – Life

Orange – Healing

Yellow – Sunlight

Green – Nature

Turquoise – Magic/Art

Indigo – Serenity

Violet – Spirit

This flag was hand-dyed and hand-stitched. Hot pink fabric was expensive and difficult to source, so when the flag was mass-produced in 1979, hot pink was removed. The most widely recognized version of the flag is the six-striped version, which emerged after 1979:

Red – Life

Orange – Healing

Yellow – Sunlight

Green – Nature

Blue – Harmony/Peace

Violet – Spirit

Turquoise and indigo were merged into a single blue stripe to simplify production and allow for even stripes.  The Rainbow Flag became more than just a banner, it became an international symbol of visibility, pride, resistance, and hope for the LGBTQ+ community. It embraces diversity and celebrates unity in difference, much like the spectrum of colors coming together in a single arc. A Declaration of Presence: At a time when being openly gay was dangerous, the flag boldly claimed public space.

A Symbol of Love and Freedom: It challenges shame, stigma, and marginalization with beauty and openness.

A Living, Evolving Emblem: Over time, new variations of the flag have emerged, such as the Progress Pride Flag and the Transgender Flag, to honor the full spectrum of identities within the community.  The flag flies not just as a celebration, but as a memorial, an act of defiance, and a pledge to keep fighting; for safety, dignity, equality, and love.

In a sky once silent, hidden and gray

A whisper rose with the break of day

A thread of color, stitched with grace

To give the unseen a sacred place

Not just a flag, but a living breath

Born from the ache of silence and death

Eight stripes first flew with a fierce desire

Each hue a hymn, a spark, a fire

Hot Pink for bodies unshamed and free

Red for the pulse of life’s decree

Orange for healing soft and wide

Yellow for sunlight that would not hide

Green for nature wild and wise

Turquoise for magic in open skies

Indigo for serenity’s call

Violet for spirit that binds it all

But cloth was rare and cost was high

So pink was lost to a mourning sky

Turquoise and indigo found new form

Merged as blue in a rising storm

Then six stripes rose in 1979

A simplified banner bold by design

It waved with joy from soul to soul

A legacy stitched to make us whole

Red for the beating heart of life

Orange for healing after strife

Yellow for sunlight breaking through

Green for earth and all that’s true

Blue for peace in every fight

Violet for spirit fierce and bright

This was the flag that caught the wind

In marches vigils love unpinned

It flew in grief it flew in grace

It carved a home in public space

But still the banner dared to grow

For truth runs deeper than we know

And voices long kept in the shade

Called for justice long delayed

Black for those whose lives were lost

Brown for the roots and the heavy cost

White pink and light blue entwined

Trans colors sacred redefined

They point like arrows to the sky

Saying we are here and we will not die

So the Progress Flag with stripes renewed

Carries the flame of a broader truth

It honors the many still unseen

The black the brown the in-between

It tells the world we’re still becoming

We’re still resisting we’re still homecoming

From Stonewall’s cry to today’s parade

This banner is the love we made

So raise it high where stories unfold

A skybound promise in scarlet and gold

For we are the many the brave the true

And every color still carries you. 

Piper Dellums 6/21/2025                                                                                        

O Sacred Ones,

You who walk with two feet in many worlds

You are not broken.

You are not lost.

You are ancient.

Before borders, before binaries,

Before the forgetting

You were already here

Seen by the Elders,

Blessed by the Sky People,

Named by the drumbeats of the Earth.

You are not “other.”

You are whole.

You are the thunderbird with two wings. You are the mountain that speaks in more than one tongue.

You are the fire that holds both flame and ash,

The river that knows both source and sea.

You are the Oneness of the Oneness.

Neither confined nor divided,

But woven

By the Creator who dreams in all directions.

You carry within you

the medicine of balance,

the bridge between the sun and moon,

the sacred harmony of masculine and feminine, sky and soil,

being and becoming.

The ignorant may call you names.

The frightened may cast you out.

But we see you.

And we call you:

Truthwalker. Wisdomkeeper. Spirit Weaver.

You were never meant to conform.

You were sent to transform.

To teach the world that identity is sacred ceremony,

That love is not bound by body,

That the soul is a spectrum

dancing in and out of form,

as Spirit does.

So when you feel alone,

Remember:

Your ancestors danced in your bones.

They wore feathers and paint. They carried dreams from both sides of the fire.

They honored you.

So must we.

To our Two-Spirit family,

To our Transcendent kin

You are not transsexual.

You are transcendental.

Trans-Elemental.

Trans-Miraculous.

You are here

not to survive this world

but to help it remember

how to love without condition,

how to see without separation,

how to become without fear.

May you walk in beauty,

Speak with thunder,

Dream in both directions,

And know always

You are not alone.

You are prophesied.

You are perfectly placed.

You are Divine.

Piper Dellums 6/21/2025

O Great Spirit who weaves the cosmos in hues unseen

Who speaks in flame in feather in stream

You called us forth from the womb of silence

To rise in color to sing in light

To dance our truth upon the sky

In the beginning we were scattered stars

Whispers in bone echoes in water

Yet we remembered the song of return

The sacred ribbon of who we are

So we stitched a banner from the breath of the ancestors

Hot Pink the breath of creation the sacred fire of flesh

Where touch is holy and bodies are drums

Red the river of life pulsing through lineage and land

The bloodline of warriors and dreamers

Orange the healing flame of the West

Where grief becomes medicine and wounds bloom wisdom

Yellow the rising sun of truth

A place where no child must hide from the light

Green the forest of memory

Roots tangled with laughter leaves soaked in resilience

Turquoise the sky magic of artists and seers

Where the invisible becomes visible

Indigo the deep lake of peace

Where silence is prayer and breath is communion

Violet the crown of the spirit

Where all stories meet and rise like smoke

And when the world tried to erase our colors

When pink was too wild when turquoise too free

We became rivers rerouted but never dried

We rose again in six sacred tones simplified but sovereign

Still carrying the thunder of the old songs

Then came the new dawn

The black of those buried without justice

The brown of soil and skin long despised

The blue pink and white of our two spirit kin

Of gender as wind as sacred as shifting earth

A chevron an arrow pointing forward

Toward futures not yet born

Where no voice is silenced

Where no love is feared

Where every spirit walks in ceremony

This is not just a flag

It is a sacred bundle

A prayer on cloth

A fire carried in our hands

We are not broken

We are braided

We are not lost

We are legend

Raise the banner

Not just for pride

But for prophecy

For pilgrimage

For the remembering

Piper M Dellums