You have probably seen it. A rainbow pride flag with two extra stripes on top, one black and one brown. People call it the Philadelphia pride flag, the Philly flag, or the More Color More Pride flag. It looks simple. The story behind it is anything but.
The flag was born from a real fight inside the LGBTQ+ community about who actually gets seen. Here is where it came from, what every stripe stands for, and why it still matters in 2026.
What Is the Philadelphia Pride Flag?
The Philadelphia pride flag is an eight-stripe version of the rainbow pride flag with a black stripe and a brown stripe added to the top. The City of Philadelphia and the Office of LGBT Affairs unveiled it on June 8, 2017 as part of a campaign called More Color More Pride.
The added stripes call attention to Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people, who have always been part of the community but have not always been treated like it. The rest of the flag uses the same six rainbow colors Gilbert Baker designed in 1978: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.
★ Quick Facts
| Year released | 2017 |
| City of origin | Philadelphia |
| Campaign name | More Color More Pride |
| Designer | Tierney agency for the City of Philadelphia |
| Stripes | 8 (black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet) |
| Also called | Philly flag, Intersectional pride flag, More Color More Pride flag |
The Story Behind the Design
In the spring of 2017, Amber Hikes had just been named director of the Mayor's Office of LGBT Affairs in Philadelphia. The city was preparing for Pride Month and there was a real conversation happening about racism inside Philly's gayborhood. A bar in the neighborhood had recently been called out for a racist door policy. People were asking what the city was actually going to do about it.
Hikes worked with the marketing agency Tierney to launch More Color More Pride, a public awareness campaign about racism inside queer spaces. The new flag was the centerpiece. The city raised it at City Hall on June 8, 2017, and Hikes spoke at the unveiling about the need to make space for Black and Brown queer people who had been pushed to the margins.
The reaction was loud in both directions. Some people loved it right away. Others insisted the rainbow flag already included everyone and the new stripes were unnecessary or divisive. Hikes pushed back hard on that idea and the campaign kept going. Within a year the flag was being flown at Pride events around the country and across the world.
It was the first major redesign of the rainbow flag to officially come from a city government. That is a big deal. It signaled that municipal LGBTQ+ leadership was willing to put racial inclusion at the center of Pride, not in a footnote.
What Each Stripe Means
The Philly flag uses eight stripes. The top two are the new additions. The bottom six come from Gilbert Baker's original 1978 design.
| 1 | Black. Represents Black LGBTQ+ people and acknowledges the racism that exists inside the queer community. The placement at the top is intentional. It says these voices belong at the front, not buried in the middle of the flag. |
| 2 | Brown. Represents Latino, Indigenous, Asian, Middle Eastern, and other people of color in the LGBTQ+ community. Together with the black stripe, it expands what visibility looks like. |
| 3 | Red. Life. Carried over from Gilbert Baker's 1978 design. |
| 4 | Orange. Healing. |
| 5 | Yellow. Sunlight. |
| 6 | Green. Nature. |
| 7 | Blue. Serenity. |
| 8 | Violet. Spirit. |
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2017 The year the City of Philadelphia raised the new flag at City Hall and launched the More Color More Pride campaign. |
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Why the Black and Brown Stripes Matter
The pushback against the flag in 2017 mostly came from people who said the rainbow already covered everyone, so calling out specific groups was unnecessary. That argument misses the point.
Pride started with a riot led by Black and Brown queer people. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, and Sylvia Rivera, a Latina trans woman, were both at Stonewall in 1969. They spent the rest of their lives fighting for the most marginalized people in the community, often while being shut out of mainstream gay spaces themselves. The bars, the magazines, the activist groups, the Pride organizing committees, all of it had a long history of centering white gay men.
The Philly flag was a response to that history. The stripes are not symbolic in the abstract. They are pointing at a specific gap and saying the community has work to do. That is uncomfortable for some people, which is part of the reason it works.
Eight years later, the flag has become a fixture at Pride events across the country. Cities, schools, businesses, and individuals fly it because the message still applies. Racism inside queer spaces did not vanish in 2017. The flag keeps the conversation going.
How It Connects to the Progress Pride Flag
The Philly flag opened a door. Designer Daniel Quasar walked through it.
In 2018, one year after Philadelphia, Quasar released the Progress Pride flag. It kept Gilbert Baker's six rainbow stripes as the body of the flag and pulled the Philly flag's black and brown stripes into a chevron on the left side. Then Quasar added three more stripes to the chevron: light blue, pink, and white, the colors of the transgender flag designed by Monica Helms in 1999.
The chevron points to the right to represent forward movement. It puts trans people, people of color, and those lost to AIDS visually at the front of the flag, leading the rest of the community forward. Without the Philly flag, the Progress flag would not exist in the form it does today.
In 2021, Valentino Vecchietti updated the Progress design again, adding a purple circle on a yellow triangle to represent intersex people. That version is sometimes called the Intersex-Inclusive Progress flag.
The Philly flag is the bridge between Baker's original rainbow and everything that came after. If you want the longer story of how Pride flags have evolved, our Progress vs Rainbow flag breakdown walks through the differences.
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How to Fly the Philadelphia Flag
The flag flies the same way any rainbow pride flag does. Black and brown stripes go on top.
For step-by-step setup, our guide on how to display a pride flag at home covers indoor and outdoor mounting options.
Common Mistakes
MISTAKE 01
Confusing the Philly flag with the Progress flag
The Philly flag has eight horizontal stripes including black and brown on top. The Progress flag has the six rainbow stripes plus a chevron on the left side with black, brown, light blue, pink, and white. Two different designs, related but not the same.
MISTAKE 02
Saying the black and brown stripes "divide" the community
That argument was tired in 2017 and it is still tired now. Naming the people who get overlooked is the opposite of dividing the community. It is making sure they belong in it.
MISTAKE 03
Hanging the flag upside down
Black goes on top. Violet goes on the bottom. Flipping it puts the rainbow above the new stripes, which defeats the entire point of the design. Double check before you mount it.
MISTAKE 04
Buying a cheap flag that fades in a month
Bargain bin flags lose their color fast and fray at the seams. Spend the extra few dollars on outdoor-grade polyester with reinforced grommets. A quality flag holds up for a full season.
MISTAKE 05
Treating the flag like a finished project
The Philly flag exists because there was real work to do inside the community. Flying it without doing any of that work is missing the point. Show up for Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people in the rest of your life too.
Now for the questions people ask most often.
Common Questions
Who designed the Philadelphia pride flag?
The flag was designed by the Tierney marketing agency for the City of Philadelphia and the Mayor's Office of LGBT Affairs, led at the time by Amber Hikes. It launched on June 8, 2017 as part of the More Color More Pride campaign.
What do the black and brown stripes on the pride flag mean?
The black stripe represents Black LGBTQ+ people. The brown stripe represents Latino, Indigenous, Asian, Middle Eastern, and other people of color in the queer community. Both stripes call attention to racism that exists inside LGBTQ+ spaces.
Is the Philadelphia flag the same as the Progress pride flag?
No. They are related but different. The Philly flag has eight horizontal stripes. The Progress flag, designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018, keeps the six rainbow stripes and adds a chevron with five colors including the Philly flag's black and brown plus the transgender flag colors.
Why is it called the More Color More Pride flag?
More Color More Pride was the name of the public awareness campaign that introduced the flag in 2017. The campaign focused on racism inside Philadelphia's gayborhood and on making space for Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people in mainstream Pride.
Is the Philly flag still used today?
Yes. The flag is flown at Pride events, on city buildings, at schools, and at businesses around the world. It also became the foundation for the Progress Pride flag, which carried the black and brown stripes forward into a new design.
Which way does the Philly flag fly?
Black stripe on top, violet stripe on the bottom. The new stripes are placed above the rainbow on purpose. Flying it the other way around defeats the meaning of the design.
Want to see how every pride flag fits together? Our complete guide to every pride flag covers the full lineup. The history of the original rainbow design lives in our rainbow flag history piece.
For the 2021 update that put intersex people on the flag, read the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag guide.
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