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ENTITY shares five facts you should know about Gilbert Baker, creator of the original rainbow flag.

Have you ever heard of Gilbert Baker? Even if you don’t recognize his name, you probably have seen his legacy: the rainbow flag, a symbol of gay pride and the LGBTQ community.

To celebrate the late Gilbert Baker’s birthday, here are five facts you should know about the inspirational creator of the rainbow flag!

1 He created his first rainbow flag in 1978.

The gay rainbow flag first appeared in 1978 when Baker designed the eight-colored flag for San Fransico’s gay freedom day. Later, this celebration would transition into the modern gay pride parade. After serving time in the army, Baker taught himself how to sew. He then worked as a flag-maker and designer, creating displays for several big names, including the presidents of France, Venezuela, and the Philippines.

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So what does the rainbow flag mean? Baker’s original gay flag design boasts eight colors, each with their own symbolism. Pink means sexuality; red is life; orange is healing; yellow represents sunlight; green is nature; turquoise is art; indigo is harmony; and, violet symbolizes the human spirit. The next time you see the pride flag, you’ll know those colors were intentional!

2 Baker strived to sew a symbol of diversity and inclusion.

But what were some of Baker’s underlying motivations for designing the rainbow flag? One was his dissatisfaction with the only other symbol available to the gay movement at the time: the pink triangle. He explained to “In the Life Media” in 2009, “Really, up until the rainbow flag, the pink triangle was the dominant symbol that we used. But it came from the Nazis [placed on those sent to concentration camps for suspected sexual deviancy]. It was put on us. It had a really, horrible negative origin about murder and [the] Holocaust.”

When Baker contemplated other options, a rainbow immediately came to mind: “A rainbow fit us. It is from nature. It connects us to all the colors [of] sexuality, all the diversity in our community.”

3 He credits challenges for a lot of his creativity.

Despite his success as one of the big names in gay pride history, Baker experienced challenges from his sexuality. He told Refinery29 that coming out at age 19 was the hardest choice of his life. In fact, his parents – a teacher and a lawyer in a rural Kansas town – didn’t speak to him for years.

ENTITY shares five facts you should know about Gilbert Baker, creator of the original rainbow flag.

However, Baker found a silver lining in these obstacles, saying, “My parents didn’t talk to me for ten years, but it allowed me to get past my own suicidal urges, it allowed me to become the artist that was inside of me and it allowed me to say, ‘Well, you know, I can have a dream and I can go for it.'”

4 The gay pride flag has changed since Baker’s first design.

If you’ve seen the gay rainbow flag recently, you probably noticed that it’s different than the Gilbert Baker original flag. First, the color pink was removed from the flag. At the time, the pink dye was too hard to obtain for mass production. Later, in 1979, turquoise was also left out to give the flag an even number of colors. This allowed the 1979 Gay Freedom Day Parade to fly the rainbow flag in two halves.

Despite the changes, Baker always seemed proud of the rainbow flag, calling it the “commercial version” of his original design.

5 He died in his sleep at age 65.

On March 31, 2017, Gilbert Baker passed away in his sleep at the age of 65. However, it’s obvious that Baker’s legacy has lived on – through his friends, his work in the LGBTQ community and, of course, the rainbow flag.

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In fact, Baker said in 2009, “Together, we’re changing the world – our planet – from a place of violence and war to a place of love and diversity and acceptance. That is why we’re here. That’s the big, long rainbow – from before me to well after me.”

Whether you know Gilbert Baker by name or not, you’ve likely witnessed his impact on the LGBTQ community and beyond. And the next time you see a rainbow, remember the man who turned it into a symbol of love and diversity all over the world.

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