Gilbert Baker fu il primo a esibire nel 1978 la bandiera arcobaleno durante un gay pride

Baker era nato in Kansas nel 1951. Negli anni Settanta si era spostato a San Francisco, con l’inizio del movimento per i diritti gay. Ha inoltre speso molte energie nella protesta contro la guerra.

Ha affiancato nella lotta per la rivendicazione dei diritti Harvey Milk, il primo a sfilare sotto la bandiera arcobaleno creata da Baker alla parata gay di San Francesco nel giugno del 1978.

La bandiera arcobaleno da lui ideata oggi sventola in Harvey Milk Plaza, a San Francisco, dove nel 1978 fu assassinato il noto politico e attivista gay Harvey Milk, il primo uomo americano omosessuale a ricoprire una carica pubblica.
Nello stesso anno, il suo amico e compagno di lotta per il movimento di liberazione omosessuale Gilbert Baker, esibì per la prima volta in un gay pride la sua bandiera arcobaleno.
A questo proposito, va specificato che la bandiera arcobaleno del movimento Lgbt ideata da Baker, possedeva otto colori, così disposti dall’alto verso il basso: rosa, rosso, arancione, giallo, verde, turchese, blu, viola. In seguito la bandiera fu modificata e portata a sei colori, così ordinati dall’alto verso il basso: rosso, arancione, giallo, verde, blu, viola, con l’eliminazione quindi dei colori turchese e rosa.
Non va assolutamente confusa con quella della pace, che possiede invece le seguenti differenze: in primo luogo per la scritta “pace” al centro, traducibile in tutte le lingue del mondo, e per i colori che sono invece sette così disposti in modo progressivo: blu, turchese, viola, verde, giallo, arancione, rosso.

Occhio anche ai colori caldi che sono posti in alto nella bandiera gay (in basso a quella della Pace).

Nel 2015, il Museum of Modern Art di New York acquistò la bandiera per la sua collezione di design, definendola una “potente pietra miliare”.

Baker, ex militare, aveva imparato a cucire da solo all’età di 20 anni, e subito aveva cominciato la sua militanza nei primi movimenti lgbt a San Francisco. “Ho il cuore infranto. Il mio più caro amico è scomparso”, commenta su Facebook l’attivista statunitense Cleve Jones. “Gilbert ha regalato al mondo la bandiera arcobaleno e a me 40 anni di amore e amicizia. Non riesco a fermare le lacrime. Ti amerò sempre”, ha concluso, invitando i suoi amici di San Francisco a riunirsi per una veglia su una enorme bandiera arcobaleno nel quartiere di Castro

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Gilbert Baker (June 2, 1951 – March 31, 2017) was an American artist and gay rights activist who designed the rainbow flag in 1978. Baker’s flag became widely associated with LGBT rights causes, a symbol of pride that became ubiquitous in the decades since its debut.

Baker was born on June 2, 1951, in Chanute, Kansas. He grew up in Parsons, Kansas, where his grandmother owned a women’s clothing store. His father was a judge and his mother was a teacher.

Baker served in the United States Army from 1970 to 1972. He was stationed in San Francisco at the beginning of the gay rights movement. After his honorable discharge from the military, he taught himself to sew. He used his skill to create banners for gay-rights and anti-war protest marches. It was during this time that he met and became friends with Harvey Milk.[3] He first created the Rainbow Flag in 1978. Baker refused to trademark it.

In 1979, Baker began work at Paramount Flag Company in San Francisco, then located on the southwest corner of Polk Street and Post Street in the Polk Gulch neighborhood. Baker designed displays for Dianne Feinstein, the Premier of China, the presidents of France, Venezuela and the Philippines, the King of Spain, and many others. He also designed creations for numerous civic events and San Francisco Gay Pride. In 1984, he designed flags for the Democratic National Convention.

In 1994, Baker moved to New York City, where he lived for the rest of his life. Here, he continued his creative work and activism. That year he created the world’s largest flag (at that time) in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots.

In 2003, to commemorate the Rainbow Flag’s 25th anniversary, Baker created a Rainbow Flag that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean in Key West.[4] After the commemoration, he sent sections of this flag to more than 100 cities around the world.[5] Due to his creation of the rainbow flag, Baker often used the drag queen name “Busty Ross”.

Baker died in his sleep on March 31, 2017, at the age of 65, in New York City. He is survived by his mother and a sister, both of whom reside in Texas, as well as his life partner Alex Bruno from Laurence Harbor, NJ. Upon Baker’s death, California state senator Scott Wiener said Baker “helped define the modern LGBT movement”.

Flag

The six-color version of the pride flag is the most commonly used. The original version from 1978 had two additional stripes—hot pink and turquoise—which were removed due to manufacturing needs.
Main article: Rainbow flag (LGBT movement)
The colors on the Rainbow Flag reflect the diversity of the LGBT community. When Baker raised the first rainbow flags at San Francisco Pride (his group raised two flags at the Civic Center) on June 25, 1978, it had eight colors, each with a symbolic meaning:

Hot pink Sex
Red Life
Orange Healing
Yellow Sunlight
Green Nature
Turquoise Art
Indigo Harmony
Violet Spirit

Thirty volunteers had helped Baker hand-dye and stitch the first two flags in the top-floor attic gallery of the Gay Community Center at 330 Grove Street in San Francisco. As they were not supposed to use dye in public washing machines, they waited until late at night to rinse out the dye from their clothes, and put chlorine bleach in the washing machines after they left.

The design has undergone several revisions to first remove then re-add colors due to widely available fabrics. As of 2008, the most common variant consists of six stripes, with the colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Baker referred to this version of the flag as the “commercial version”, because it came about due to practical considerations of mass production. Specifically, the rainbow flag lost its hot pink stripe when Baker approached the Paramount Flag Company to begin mass producing them, and the hot pink fabric was too rare and expensive to include. The rainbow flag lost its indigo stripe before the 1979 Gay Freedom Day Parade, as the committee organizing the parade wanted to fly the flag in two halves, from the light poles along both sides of Market Street, so it became a six-striped flag with equal halves. (Wikipedia)