Gilbert Baker is the seamster responsible for creating the most enduring symbol of the LGBTQ rights movement: the rainbow pride flag. Pride50
Tim Fitzsimons
Gilbert Baker is the seamster responsible for creating the most enduring symbol of the LGBTQ rights movement: the rainbow flag.National flags have long represented the extension of government power over a physical area. Baker’s LGBTQ pride flag reclaimed that powerful symbol for a social movement that needed to reclaim space.
In the four decades since he first stitched it together, the rainbow flag has come to represent the openness of a place for LGBTQ people. Today, Baker’s symbol is everything from a unicode emoji to a sticker seen in the windows of gay-friendly businesses around the globe. When he died in 2017, Baker’s personal website said he made the flags and banners for gay rights and anti-war protests, often at the request of Harvey Milk, who rode under one of Baker’s rainbow banners on San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade in June 1978 — the same year Gilbert created the flag.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
#Pride50: Co-organizer of first NYC Pride March Fred SargeantFred Sargeant was a leader in the Homophile Youth Movement and an organizer of the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day gay pride march. Pride50
Read more »
Tinder celebrates World Pride with a 30-foot rainbow slide in New York CityFor each person who rides down the 'Pride Slide,' Tinder will donate $10 toward efforts to pass the Equality Act.
Read more »
Straight 'country boy' whose rainbow truck went viral joins Oklahoma City Pride march'Having a visible ally like him can change the trajectory of a young person’s life,” said Lauren Zuniga, president of the Oklahoma City Pride Alliance.
Read more »
#Pride50: Gay psychiatry trailblazer Dr. John FryerHis 1972 speech in before fellow members of the American Psychiatric Association is credited with helping homosexuality get declassified as a mental illness. Pride50
Read more »
#Pride50: Veteran of the Stonewall uprising Raymond CastroRaymond Castro is remembered as one of the first people arrested during the 1969 Stonewall uprising that sparked the modern-day LGBTQ rights movement. Pride50
Read more »