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As Pride points out, a plethora of other flags were designed to represent different groups within the LGBTQIA+ community. Today, there are even more pride flags out there. Baker made an 8-color variation on the rainbow flag, a prominent symbol of peace. Here are the meanings behind the colors in the current pride flag: In 1977, Harvey Milk challenged Gilbert Baker, an openly gay activist, to create a symbol for the gay community. The blue that replaced the indigo now symbolizes harmony. Baker dropped yet another stripe, which resulted in the six-stripe version of the flag we use most often today-red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. According to Baker's estate, that was because when it was hung vertically from the lamp posts of San Francisco's Market Street, the center stripe (turquoise) was obscured by the similarly-colored lamp post itself. As excerpted on the website for his estate, Gilbert's memoir, Rainbow Warrior, includes his memory of deciding to make the rainbow flag: ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb The trio encouraged Baker to create a positive emblem for the LGBTQIA+ community.īaker agreed and he looked to his community for inspiration, specifically those dancing at San Francisco's music venue Winterland Ballroom one night. In the late '70s, Baker was living in San Francisco when he met writer Cleve Jones, filmmaker Artie Bressan, and rising activist Harvey Milk. The First Rainbow FlagĮnter: Gilbert Baker, the man who would create the first rainbow pride flag. Still, activists recognized the need for a more empowering symbol. "Gay people wear the pink triangle today as a reminder of the past and a pledge that history will not repeat itself," read one 1977 letter to the editor in Time. In the late 1970s, the pink triangle was somewhat reclaimed by the gay community. Throughout the Holocaust, the Nazis forced those whom they labeled as gay to wear inverted pink triangle badges, just as they forced Jewish people to wear a yellow Star of David. Photograph by Mark Rennie, courtesy of the Gilbert Baker Foundation.
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A segment of the flag in the foreground, with the pink stripe at the top, was donated to the GLBT Historical Society in April 2021. This triangle, however, had a loaded, anti-gay history. The two original eight-color rainbow flags flying at United Nations Plaza during San Francisco Gay Freedom Day 1978. Using color to establish meaning, Baker conceived a flag that would empower his “tribe” and a “rainbow of humanity” motif to represent the community’s diversity.Before the rainbow pride flag was created, there was another symbol for the LGBTQIA+ community: a pink triangle. In 1978, while preparing for that year’s Gay Freedom Day celebration, City Supervisor Harvey Milk (1930–1978) and other local activists appealed to Baker, the co-chair of the Decorations Committee, to create a new symbol for the LGBTQ community to be unveiled at the event in June. He quickly became well known for his sewing skills and flamboyant creations, such as drag costumes and political banners for street demonstrations. Gilbert Baker arrived in San Francisco in 1972 during the early years of the Gay Liberation movement. Thought to have been lost for over 40 years, the fragment, shown in the banner above, was recently rediscovered and is the only known surviving remnant of the two inaugural rainbow flags. but before you do, find out what the colors of the rainbow flag mean below. In April 2021, the GLBT Historical Society received an archival donation of an extraordinary, unique piece of history that we are unveiling during the Pride season: a fragment of one of the two monumental rainbow flags first raised on Jin San Francisco’s United Nations Plaza at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade.ĭisplaying the original design’s eight colored stripes, it was created by Gilbert Baker and hand-stitched and dyed with the help of volunteers and friends, including Lynn Segerblom (Faerie Argyle Rainbow), James McNamara, Glenne McElhinney, Joe Duran and Paul Langlotz. In 1978, though, a gay artist and civil rights activist Gilbert Baker.