Not everyone embraces them, but a lot more people do than they did forty years ago.įorty years later the pride flag is everywhere - it makes people smile inside, feel warm, happier. The history of Gilbert Baker’s flag is much like the history of openly gay elected officials. To most straight people the rainbow flag symbolized queer things, unknown things, sparked uncomfortable thoughts and conversations, gave rise to images of isolation and shame, and then, disease. Then they decided to hang the flags vertically on the lampposts of San Francisco, but it only worked if there was an even number of colors, so Gilbert changed the flag to six stripes. The flag began with eight stripes, but Gilbert ran out of hot pink dye. The flag Gilbert created would live and grow. We need a positive image that can unite us.” Gilbert thought, I sew my own dresses, so why not a flag? Gilbert was twenty- seven. A couple of days before the June 25, 1978, Gay Freedom parade the Mayor of Castro Street called him on the phone. After leaving the Army, Gilbert stayed on and became a fixture of the Castro. Gilbert appreciated this - San Francisco in the 1970s was gay Nirvana. Rather than being discharged, he was transferred to San Francisco to be an Army nurse. Gilbert Baker was nineteen when he was enlisted into the Army to go to Vietnam. The following shortened excerpt from The Children of Harvey Milk by Andrew Reynolds explains the making of the pride flag, and its symbolism in U.S.
