The real story of Pride: How Harvey Milk and a rainbow flag changed the world

Harvey Milk in 1978 at Mayor Moscone's Desk. Photo credit Daniel Nicoletta. Courtesy of the Harvey Milk Archives

Harvey Milk proves Pride can change the world

By 1977, Pride had spread across America, but it still felt like a celebration on the margins. Then Harvey Milk got elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and everything changed.

Milk wasn't just California's first openly gay elected official. He was proof that Pride's message of visibility could translate into real political power. His camera shop on Castro Street had become an unofficial headquarters for the growing gay rights movement, and his approach was simple: come out, be proud, make yourself impossible to ignore.

"Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets," Milk declared. When California's Proposition 6 threatened to ban gay teachers in 1978, Milk led the campaign that defeated it decisively. The proposition was rejected by a margin of over one million votes. He'd shown that Pride wasn't just about one day a year, it was about transforming shame into political power every single day.

Then, on 27 November 1978, Dan White walked into San Francisco City Hall and shot Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Milk had recorded a prophetic message months earlier: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."

That's exactly what happened. His assassination didn't silence the movement, it amplified it across the country.

Gilbert Baker gets a commission that changes everything

The same year Milk was elected, he commissioned artist Gilbert Baker to create a new symbol for the gay rights movement. Baker was a young activist who'd been making banners for protests, and he wanted to design something that would capture the diversity and hope of their community.

Working with Lynn Segerblom in the attic above a Gay Community Center, Baker hand-dyed and stitched the first rainbow flags. The original design had eight stripes with specific meanings: hot pink for sexuality, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic, indigo for serenity, and violet for spirit.

When Baker unveiled the flags at the 1978 San Francisco Pride parade, people started crying and cheering. But Baker made a decision that would change everything. He refused to trademark the design, calling it "torn from the soul of the people."

What Milk had commissioned and Baker created wasn't just a symbol, it was a universal language that could speak to any culture and represent any identity under the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

Pride goes global with local flavour

While America was processing Milk's legacy and embracing Baker's flag, Pride was taking root across Europe, but not as a simple copy of the American model.

Amsterdam held its first Gay Liberation Day in 1977, but by 1996, they'd created something uniquely Dutch: Pride on the canals. In 1981, Paris saw 10,000 people march, growing out of France's own radical tradition stemming from the May 1968 student protests, rather than from Stonewall. Berlin launched Christopher Street Day in 1979, building on the city's queer history that stretched back to the 1920s Weimar era.

Each country adapted Pride to fit their own politics. Spain held its first parade in Barcelona in 1977 while homosexuality was still illegal under Franco. Sweden used Pride as part of their progressive image after becoming the first country to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness in 1979.

What united these different movements was Baker's rainbow flag. The symbol transcended language, culture, and national borders.

The complicated relationship with respectability

As Pride grew bigger through the 1980s and 1990s, a familiar tension emerged: should events try to look "respectable" to win over straight allies, or celebrate the full spectrum of LGBTQ+ identity without apology?

Some organisers wanted dress codes and corporate sponsors to make events look professional and mainstream. Others argued this betrayed Pride's origins. It had been started by the people society rejected most, so sanitising it missed the entire point.

The AIDS crisis intensified these debates. As communities watched friends die while governments ignored them, Pride events became spaces for both celebration and mourning. The rainbow flag began appearing alongside the AIDS Memorial Quilt at events that were simultaneously about joy and grief.

Corporate involvement began tentatively in the late 1980s but really took off in the 1990s. Companies that had fired gay employees just years earlier suddenly wanted to sponsor Pride floats. The money was desperately needed, but every corporate dollar came with implicit expectations about content and messaging.

From Christopher Street to the world stage

By the 1990s, Pride had become a global phenomenon. EuroPride launched in 1991, InterPride connected local committees across continents, and the first WorldPride took place in Rome in 2000.

What had started with a few thousand people walking through Greenwich Village had become a coordinated global celebration involving millions. Toronto's Pride became famous for its political edge, Sydney's Mardi Gras evolved from a protest that ended in arrests into a spectacular parade, and São Paulo Pride regularly draws over three million people.

The rainbow flag was everywhere by then, flying outside embassies during Pride month, displayed in shop windows, worn as jewellery. Baker's design had become as recognisable as national flags.

But success created new questions about Pride's purpose. Was it still a protest movement if many goals had been achieved? How should it balance celebration with activism? And as corporate sponsors and politicians showed up for photo opportunities, who actually controlled the message?

These tensions would explode in the 2020s as political backlash intensified globally, forcing Pride organisers to rediscover the movement's activist roots.

The rainbow flag still flies over Pride events in over 100 countries each June, just as Harvey Milk envisioned and Gilbert Baker created. From Cooper Do-nuts to Amsterdam's canals, the thread remains unbroken. Pride remains an act of joyful resistance.

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