City of Chicago raises Progress Pride Flag for LGBTQ+ Pride Month
CHICAGO (CBS) -- June is LGBTQ+ Pride month, and the City of Chicago raised the flag Monday to celebrate.
City leaders gathered Monday morning at Daley Plaza downtown – emphasizing the city's dedication to making sure everyone is welcome.
The Progress Pride Flag will be on display at Daley Plaza for the entire month of June – flying beneath the new Cook County flag on the middle pole. The Chicago flag flies on the pole to the south, the American flag to the north.
"And by raising the flags together today downtown, in the very heart of our city, we are reaffirming this as a place where all people are free to live, to live how they wish, to love who they want, and to be themselves in the most authentic of ways," said Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The Progress Pride Flag was designed in 2018 by graphic designer Daniel Quasar. It includes a chevron with black and brown stripes to represent LGBTQ+ communities of color, and pink, light blue, and white, which represent the transgender community.
The rainbow stripe design to the right of the chevron dates back some 45 years. On the flag, red represents life, orange healing, yellow sunlight, green nature, blue serenity, and violet spirit.
The original eight-color pride flag, designed by Gilbert Baker, also featured a pink stripe for sex, a turquoise stripe for magic, and an indigo stripe rather than the blue stripe for spirit.
The ceremony Monday was the fourth annual flag raising for Pride Month.
Pride train goes into service on CTA system
Also Monday, the Chicago Transit Authority unveiled its Pride Train along the Red Line.
The design stretches the colors of the Progress Pride flag – including the black, brown, pink, white, and light blue of the flag's chevron – along eight cars of the train. The CTA said it celebrates freedom, love, and inclusion.
"The 2024 design is an evolution of the previous year's line-art, using bands of color like the transit map lines, but with a curved and inverting rainbow pattern forming shapes," the CTA said in a news release.
