The original gay flag
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In the decades following the end of World War Two, gay communities around the world stripped the pink badge of its intended humiliation and defiantly re-inflected it with pride. In Nazi concentration camps, men imprisoned because of their homosexuality were marked out by a pink triangle affixed to their clothing. In contemplating how, precisely, he should reinvent that pattern, Baker was aware that any design he produced would compete in popular imagination with a painful, if resilient, logo by which the gay community had long been identified. Key to the summoning of such spirit was the restorative display across the country of the Stars and Stripes, whose simple geometry masked the intensity of the psychological, political, and social turmoil seething underneath. Still reeling from the twin traumas of withdrawal from the Vietnam War in 1973 and the first ever resignation of a US President in 1974, following the Watergate scandal, America strove to conjure from national malaise a feeling of patriotism. But as we watch its jubilant stripes bind together communities around the globe, it is worth pausing to reflect on the origin of a cultural symbol that was propelled into iconic status nearly 40 years ago by heartbreaking tragedy.Īccording to the US gay activist Gilbert Baker, who is credited with creating the emblem in the late 1970s, the idea behind the flag’s bold design emerged in 1976 – the year the United States celebrated the bicentenary of its independence as a republic. At first glance, the rainbow flag’s joyous refraction of colour may seem a strangely sunny response to the dark savagery of the deadliest mass shooting in US history. 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.Suddenly, they are everywhere: stretched across balconies, flapping from car antennas, and pinned to coat lapels the world over in a moving display of solidarity with the community that was brutally terrorised on Sunday after a bigoted assault at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. 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. 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.