Here is a brief history of the LGBTQ+ pride flag. http://www.sanfrancisco.travel/media/a-brief-history-of-the-rainbow-flag.html
For more information about Harvey Milk, watch the movie “Milk” released in 2008 staring Sean Penn. Many people do not know that during WWII the Nazi’s labeled concentration camp prisoners with a variety of labels (You can see the “code” here: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_da.php?ModuleId=10005378&MediaId=5037). Gay men were assigned an upside down pink triangle for being “homosexuals”. Gay women were assigned a black upside triangle for being “antisocial” (or basically deviating from social norms). For many years – including now – many people have reclaimed the upside down pink triangle as a symbol for LGBTQ+ populations. However, since it does have a violent history, Harvey Milk asked his friend Gilbert Baker to make a symbol that was more inclusive of the community and without this history. He created a rainbow flag that originally had 8 colours on it. The colors that have been removed are pink (which stood for sexuality) and indigo (which stood for harmony) for reasons explained in the article. The current LGBTQ+ pride flag has 6 colours.
The colours stand for:
Red – life
Orange – healing
Yellow – sun
Green – nature
Blue – art
Purple – spirit