Meet Gilbert Baker, the Man Who Invented the Gay Pri Rabow Flag |

Contents:

• GAY PRI
• THE ORIG OF THE GAY MEN’S PRI FLAG AND ITS MEANG
• MEET GILBERT BAKER, THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE GAY PRI RABOW FLAG
• UNY AND RISTANCE: THE HISTORY BEHD THE GAY PRI FLAG

GAY PRI

It go back to 1978, when the artist Gilbert Baker, an openly gay man and a drag queen, signed the first rabow flag.

Baker later revealed that he was urged by Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials the U.

S., to create a symbol of pri for the gay muny. As he later said an terview, “Our job as gay people was to e out, to be visible, to live the tth, as I say, to get out of the lie. The first versns of the rabow flag were flown on June 25, 1978, for the San Francis Gay Freedom Day para.

THE ORIG OF THE GAY MEN’S PRI FLAG AND ITS MEANG

The rabow flag, which has bee a universal symbol of hope for LGBTQ people around the world, first flew San Francis’s Uned Natns Plaza for Gay Pri Day, on June 25, 1978. It had eight lors – two more than today’s versn – and was signed by Gilbert Baker, an openly gay artist and activist. He had been missned to sign a symbol for the LGBTQ muny by his iend Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official California.

He was missned to create a flag by another gay in, polician Harvey Milk, for San Francis’s annual pri cisn to enlist Baker proved serendipo, as the ia of a flag to reprent the gay and lbian muny had occurred to him two years earlier.

As Baker told the Mm of Morn Art durg a 2015 terview, he had been spired by the celebratns markg Ameri’s bicentennial 1976, notg that the nstant display of stars and strip ma him realize the cultural need for a siar rallyg sign for the gay muny. And as a stgglg drag performer who was acctomed to creatg his own garments, he was well-equipped to sew the soon-to-be inic the time, the most monly ed image for the burgeong gay rights movement was the pk triangle, a symbol ed by the Nazis to intify homosexuals.

MEET GILBERT BAKER, THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE GAY PRI RABOW FLAG

At the top was hot pk, which reprented sex, red for life, orange for healg, yellow signifyg sunlight, green for nature, turquoise to reprent art, digo for harmony, and fally vlet at the bottom for the help of close to 30 volunteers workg the attic of the Gay Communy Center San Francis, Baker was able to nstct the first draft of the now world-renowned rabow flag. It was first showsed at San Francis’s Gay Freedom Day Para on June 25, the sign was unveiled, participants of the para proudly waved the new symbol solidary. His legacy liv on the six-lored flag that fli proudly every Gay Pri month, regnizg the liv, and lov, of LGBT people worldwi.

Gay Pri, also lled LGBT Pri or LGBTQ Pri, byname Pri, annual celebratn, ually June the Uned Stat and sometim at other tim other untri, of lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer (LGBTQ) inty.

Gay Pri memorat the Stonewall rts, which began the early hours of June 28, 1969, after police raid the Stonewall Inn bar New York Cy’s Greenwich Village neighbourhood. Gay Pri typilly volv a seri of events and is often pped by a para volvg marchers and lourful floats om the LGBTQ muny and s the Stonewall rts, LGBTQ dividuals had generally not broadst their sexual orientatn or inty, but the event galvanized the gay muny and sparked greater polil activism (see gay rights movement).

UNY AND RISTANCE: THE HISTORY BEHD THE GAY PRI FLAG

In 1970, on the first anniversary of the rts, several hundred monstrators marched along Greenwich Village’s Christopher Street, which ns past the Stonewall, what many nsir the first Gay Pri march (though other memoratns were also held that year). Early Gay Pri events (often lled Freedom Day or Gay Liberatn Day) were often sparsely attend and enuntered protts, particularly bee of the outlandish stum that some marchers wore. In 1978 what is perhaps the most-regnized symbol of Gay Pri ma s but at the San Francis event: the rabow flag.

As acceptance of the LGBTQ muny creased among the straight muny, policians sympathetic to the views of the LGBTQ muny and gay-iendly bs and rporatns began participatg the march. The total number of people participatg—both gay and straight—mhroomed, and Pri events were held many part of the globe, cludg ci where they sometim enuntered stiff ristance (e.

The origal pri flag was created the 1970s by gay activist Gilbert Baker, iend of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office California. The (cis, whe) gay man has always been at the centre of pri movements, but as people opened their mds to clu all LGBTQ+ inti the movement, the rabow flag creasgly solidified s posn as one that reprents the entire LGBTQ+ time, mand grew for a flag that specifilly reprents gay men.