We originally displayed this Pride flag at Ferens Art Gallery during Pride in our City, 2021. The flag was kindly donated to our collection after the exhibition.
Pride in Our City was a community-led retelling of the museum collections through the lens of Hull's LGBTQ+ history. It was part of a wider project to increase representation of LGBTQ+ communities. Through the exhibition we collected many objects and stories, including this original Hull Pride Flag.
Pride in Hull
Hull Pride launched in 2002 out of an urgent need for LGBTQ+ representation in the city. Several hundred people attended that very first event in Queens Gardens.
By 2011, the event moved to Hull’s West Park. And in 2015, Hull Pride relaunched as Pride in Hull. The same year, Pride in Hull became a registered charity. The event took place on Baker Street in Hull City Centre, where it remained until 2016.
In 2017, when Hull was UK City of Hull, Pride in Hull was named the inaugural UK Pride. Both celebrated LGBT50 – the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. The event returned to Queens Gardens for the first time since 2003. It was an incredible homecoming, bringing 44,000 people back to Pride's roots in the city.
About pride flags
In 1978, Gilbert Baker designed the first rainbow flag. Baker, an openly gay man and drag queen, created the flag as a symbol for the LGBTQ+ rights movement. He chose to make a flag since he saw flags as the most powerful representation of pride.
Since then, many other flags have come to represent LGBTQ+ communities. These include (but aren't limited to) the bisexual flag designed by Michael Page in 1998, the trans flag designed by Monica Helms in 1999 and the non-binary flag designed by Kye Rowan in 2014.
