Oakland Pride unveiled its new logo Sunday, incorporating the colors of the Progress flag to include Black, Brown, Indigenous, and trans people alongside the six familiar rainbow flag colors.
The organization stated that it's the first major Pride celebration to use its logo to prominently embrace inclusivity with the added Progress colors.
The new logo will be part of Oakland Pride's virtual celebration that will take place September 6-13. The organization announced in June that its in-person Pride festivities would move online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"We owe so much of our rights and freedoms we enjoy today to the sacrifices and leadership of Black, Indigenous, people of color, and transgender women," Carlos Uribe, Oakland Pride executive director, stated in an August 2 news release.
The first rainbow flags were created in 1978 by Gilbert Baker and his friends, Lynn Segerblom and James McNamara, according to a 2018 Bay Area Reporter article. Baker died in 2017. McNamara died of AIDS-related complications in 1999. Those early flags included more colors and other items, such as stars, than the standard six, which Baker turned into an international symbol of LGBTQ rights.
Oakland Pride's release stated that Baker had assigned meaning to each of the six colors commonly used today: red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for harmony, and violet for spirit. (Some of Baker's flags also included turquoise, which represented magic.)
In 2017, Philadelphia Pride partnered with Amber Hikes, a queer Black social justice advocate, to include black and brown on the rainbow flag, Oakland Pride's release stated. At the time Hikes led the More Pride More Color campaign, according to her Wikipedia entry. She also led Philadelphia's Office of LGBT Affairs. She is now the chief equity and inclusion officer for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Graphic designer Daniel Quasar added a five colored-chevron to the rainbow flag to place greater emphasis on "inclusion and progression," Oakland Pride's release noted. That flag is generally referred to as the Progress flag.
"Oakland Pride's new logo embraces LGBTQ+ history, resilience, joy, and our communities' continued pursuit of justice," the release states. "It's a recognition and celebration of the diversity and intersectionality within the LGBTQ+ community."
For updates on Oakland Pride, visit www.oaklandpride.org or visit its Facebook or Instagram pages.
Silicon Valley Pride seeks videos
In other Bay Area Pride news, Silicon Valley Pride is seeking videos for its virtual celebration. The South Bay Pride organization also announced in June that it was moving the festivities online due to the health crisis.
This year's theme for the August 29-30 event is "Equality Rising."
In an email, organizers said that 1-minute videos will be considered of people showing their fashion, art, or dance moves.
The deadline has been extended to Saturday, August 8. People can submit their videos by going to https://www.svpride.com/submit
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