Disability Pride Flag: everything you need to know

The Disability Pride Flag is often flown and displayed during Disability Pride Month, which first took place in July 1990 to mark the passing of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). This landmark legislation, which was signed by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990,  prohibited discrimination against disabled people. In that same year, Boston held the first Disability Pride Day. Ever since then the disability pride flag has helped increase the disability community’s visibility.

In their own words, Ann Magill describes why and when was the disability pride flag created:

"As I'm growing older, the issue of Disability Rights has been deeply important to me.

Ever since I attended the local 'celebration' of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 2010, only to find disappointment that the celebration was confined to the basement and grounds of the regional Independent Living Center instead of out in public, I've wanted a Disability Pride Flag.

Six years later, after the massacre at the Tsukui Yamayuri En care home in Sagamihara, Japan, when nineteen disabled inmates were murdered and twenty-six injured (because they were disabled, by the killer's own confession), I was driven to design an actual disability flag, instead of just wishing we had one."

Ann Magill, Designer of the Disability Pride Flag

On 4 June 2019, Ann Magill officially waived all copyright claims to the disability pride flag and generously registered it under International Public Domain. This allowed the disability pride flag to be shared and adapted, even for commercial purposes.

"Along with simplifying the central motif to straight lines, the colors have been rearranged so that the warm colors (red and gold) and cool colors (blue and green) are grouped together. 

And the brightness of the colors on the disability pride flag has also been edited so that they radiate more evenly from brightest at the center toward darker in the outside stripes."

"I think of this Disability Pride Flag as signifying our solidarity with each other as individuals, spanning/regardless of borders between us, and fighting for our rights on a grassroots level." 

To read Ann Magill's original Disability Pride Flag design statement, visit her blog: Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains  The songs that are stuck in my head!

[We have chosen not to display the old disability pride flag due to the strobe effect and Ann's request to focus on one version of the flag]

Feel free to download the new Disability Pride Flag by Ann Magill.

The new Disability Pride Flag is distributed under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication.

New Disability Pride Flag Download

(just right-click on it and select “Save image” from the menu)

What do the colors of the new disability pride flag mean? Each of the old and new Disability Pride Flag colors and elements has a particular meaning:

The Black Field on the disability pride flag is a color of mourning. This represents disabled people who have suffered from "Ableist violence, rebellion, and protest." It represents disabled people who have lost their life not only to their illness but also to suicide, negligence and eugenics.

The Five Colors on the Disability pride flag - red, gold, pale grey, blue, and green - represent the various needs and experiences of disabled people: mental illness, intellectual and developmental disability, invisible and undiagnosed disabilities, physical disability, and sensory Disabilities.

The Parallel Diagonal Stripes of the Disability Pride Flag represent solidarity within the Disability Community and all its differences. The diagonal suggests cutting across barriers that separate the disabled from society.