Gilbert Baker | The Rainbow Man

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General Infos

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-born on 6/2/1951; died on 3/31/2017

-born in Chanute, Kansas(USA)

-gay rights activist and artist

-known for deg the rainbow flag

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His Life

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-grew up in Parsons, Kansas

-served in the United States Army for two years(1970-1972)

-was stationed as a medic in San Francisco

-lived there as an openly gay man

-after his honorable discharge from the military, he worked at California Proposition 19(first marijuana legalization initiative); there he learned sewing

-with this skill he made banners for gay rights and anti-war marches

-in 1978 he first created the rainbow flag

-refused to trademark the flag

-saw it as a symbol that was for the LGBT community

-in 1979 he started working at the Paramount Flag Company in San Francisco

-he designed displays for many people, for example for Dianne Feinstein and the King of Spain

-in 1994 Baker moved to New York City

-in this year he also 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 25th anniversary of the rainbow flag, he created a flag that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean in Key West

-after that Baker sent sections of the flag to more than 100 cities around the world

-he often used the drag queen name „Busty Ross”(alluding to Besty Ross), due to his creation of the rainbow flag

-on March 31 2017 Gilbert Baker died at home at the age of 65

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The Flag

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-colors on the flag reflect the diversity of the LGBT community

-with the help of 30 volunteers Baker hand-dyed and stitched the first two flags

-throughout the years the flag changed

-two colors were removed, so the flag only had six colors

-in 2008 the flag with six stripes became the most common variation of the flag

-Gilbert Baker referred to this version of the flag as „commercial version” (because of its mass production)

-the first color, which was losed, was pink, because the fabric was too expensive and too rare to include

-it lost its turquoise stripe before the 1979 Gay Freedom Day Parade, because the committee organizing the parade wanted to fly the flag in two-halves, so it became a six-striped flag with equal halves

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Thank you for reading :blush:

{#curatorreview}