First created in 1989, the Leather Pride Flag was designed by Tony DeBlase and was first displayed at the International Mr. Leather Contest in Chicago. The flag has been adopted as a symbol for practitioners of BDSM as well as leather fetishists in general. While the Leather Pride flag seems to have caught on more with the gay community, it was always intended to be pansexual, and is in use by some pansexual groups (such as NLA:CO) and many heterosexual individuals. "Flying" the flag is a good way to signal others of your interests, and it is available
in many forms for that purpose, and to unite us as a community.

The flag is, in some ways, an enigma. Mr Deblase never explained why he selected the colors or the design that he did, preferring that each of us interpret the shapes and colors as we wish. That notwithstanding, there do seem to be a couple of interpretations.

One view sees the heart standing for the love we feel, the white stripe for purity, and the black and blue for leather and denim. This view is generally attributed to Stacey, Ms. National Leather Association 1996.

Another interpretation is the heart for love, black and blue for bruises and the white stripe dividing the flag into top and bottom (common terms for dominant and submissive partners).

One of the best interpretations I ever heard came from Max at the Mr. Tri-State Leather contest held in Cincinnati. He said "the black, blue and white mean what they mean to every individual, the important element is the heart because it is the passion we all feel and what is inside us all, what binds us together."

The point is, given the endless universe of the scene community, the flag can mean something different to all of us and still be the symbol we rally behind.

Finally, although the Leather Pride flag is a copyrighted symbol, Mr. DeBlase made it available for free for any non-profit use.

The above information obtained from About.com and from my own musings

To get your own copy of the flag, you can copy it here, although this image is at a pretty low resolution, or you can go to the Rainbow Icon Archive and download a better copy of it.