Parade

  Pride Parade

· Western Students
· Rainbow Flag
· HALO Flag
· PFLAG Support

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  Western Students
UWO students and Pride Library volunteers at Toronto's Pride Parade. At the right is a photograph of UWO students and Pride Library volunteers at Toronto's Pride Parade. The Pride Parade is an international annual event and festival that celebrates the diversity and strength of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. The first pride march took place on 28th June, 1970 in New York City and four other cities, commemorating the Stonewall Rebellion a year earlier.
 
Pride Parade Photos
  Rainbow Flag
Dr. James Miller's children with the rainbow flag at the Toronto's Pride Parade. In 1978, Gilbert Baker of San Francisco designed and made a flag with six stripes representing the six colours of the rainbow as a symbol of gay and lesbian community pride. Slowly the flag took hold, offering a colourful and optimistic alternative to the more common pink triangle symbol. Today it is recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers, and is flown in lesbian and gay pride marches worldwide.

Colour has long played an important role in the GLBT community's expression of pride. In Victorian England, for example, the colour green was associated with homosexuality. The colour purple (or, more accurately, lavender) became popularized as a symbol for pride in the late 1960s, a frequent post-Stonewall catchword for the gay community was "Purple Power". And, of course, there's the pink triangle. Although it was first used in Nazi Germany to identify gay males in concentration camps, the pink triangle only received widespread use as a gay pop icon in the early 1980s. But the most colourful of our symbols is the Rainbow Flag, and its rainbow of colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple represents the diversity of our community.

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Pride Parade Photos
  HALO Flag
The HALO flag at Toronto's Pride Parade. The symbol of the HALO flag represented both the male and female gender. The colour purple represented the colour of UWO. Purple is a symbolic of, royalty, magic, and spiritual enlightenment, associated with androgeny and same-sex passion, its various hues including lavender, lilac, magenta, mauve, and violet. In the early 20th century, purple, especially as lavender, the colour was claimed by the contemporary gay Liberation movement.
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Pride Parade Photos
  PFLAG Support
PFLAG marches at Pride. PFLAG, parents and friends of lesbians and gays, holding their flag at Toronto's Pride Parade. PFLAG is a national non-profit organization with over 80,000 members and supporters and more than 460 affiliates in the United States. This vast grassroots network is cultivated, resourced and serviced by the PFLAG national office, located in Washington, DC.

The parents, families and friends of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons celebrate diversity and envision a society that embraces everyone, including those of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. P-Flag promotes the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, their families and friends through: support, to cope with an adverse society; education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and advocacy, to end discrimination and to secure equal civil rights. Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays provides opportunity for dialogue about sexual orientation and gender identity, and acts to create a society that is healthy and respectful of human diversity.

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This site was developed for LIS 695, Archival Reference Services and Outreach, by Students of the MLIS program at UWO.

Last modified: October 2002