“It was a three-person idea” - from herself, Baker, and fellow volunteer James McNamara, who died in 1999.įor her part, Segerblom says, “I loved rainbows.
“The rainbow idea, I cannot say that was Gilbert’s idea,” says Lynn Segerblom, now a Los Angeles-area resident, who was, with Baker, cochair of the decorations committee for the 1978 Gay Freedom Day celebration. Where the disagreement comes in is over who came up with the concept of a rainbow flag. Numerous volunteers dyed strips of fabric, rinsed them, hauled them to coin laundries for drying, ironed them, and sewed them together. When people versed in LGBT history see a rainbow flag, they usually think of it as a creation of Gilbert Baker, the activist behind the first flags that flew July 25, 1978, over San Francisco that was before the rainbow was adopted as a worldwide queer symbol.īut with the 40th anniversary of the flag, other people have come forth to say it was not solely Baker’s idea - something that friends of Baker, who died last year, and the administrators of his estate hotly dispute.Īll those who were involved agree that many people collaborated to make the two giant rainbow flags that flew over United Nations Plaza in San Francisco 40 years ago.
