Quiz: Celebrate Pride Month

One year after the Stonewall Uprising in New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, people commemorated the event with marches in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The phrase “gay pride” was also created that year, coined by activists as a shorthand to unify the events planned for the fledgling movement.

Gilbert Baker, who described himself as the “gay Betsy Ross,” created the first Pride flag from strips of fabric dyed in trash cans in the attic of San Francisco’s Gay Community Center before the city’s 1978 Pride parade. Each of the original flag’s eight colors had a meaning: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, turquoise for magic, blue for peace and purple for spirit.

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay politician in California. Elected to the board of supervisors of San Francisco in 1977, he led the fight for equality at the local level. His efforts included authoring a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, housing and employment.

Bayard Rustin was a leader in the civil rights movement and a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Rustin was not involved in the LGBTQ+ rights movement until later in life, but in the 1980s spoke forcefully about the need for society to change its treatment of the LGBTQ+ community.