--- title: Gilbert Baker: Google Doodle on Man Behind the Rainbow Flag description: American artist and gay rights activist Gilbert Baker created the rainbow flag that has become an international symbol of LGBTQ pride. canonical: https://time.com/4802639/google-doodle-rainbow-flag-lgbt-lgbtq/ author: Ryan Kilpatrick article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-06-02T07:23:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T07:22:33.000Z og:title: Google Doodle Celebrates the Man Behind the Rainbow Flag og:description: Gilbert Baker created the LGBT symbol in 1978 og:url: https://time.com/4802639/google-doodle-rainbow-flag-lgbt-lgbtq/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte19906bd23755391/6988cfdf7cdbacab43d5897f/gilbert-bakers-66th-birthday-6016396013076480-3-2xa.gif?branch=production&width=569&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 569 og:image:height: 320 og:image:alt: gilbert-bakers-66th-birthday-6016396013076480.3-2xa og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Doodle Celebrates the Man Behind the Rainbow Flag twitter:description: Gilbert Baker created the LGBT symbol in 1978 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte19906bd23755391/6988cfdf7cdbacab43d5897f/gilbert-bakers-66th-birthday-6016396013076480-3-2xa.gif?branch=production&width=569&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google Doodle Celebrates the Man Behind the Rainbow Flag > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=b01ba52e-21b6-4386-9bdd-2e93c333729f&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: This is The History of the Rainbow Flag [Watch (HLS stream): This is The History of the Rainbow Flag](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bnTiT5cr.m3u8) (1:31)  _Published 2015-06-24. How the rainbow flag became an icon of LGBT rights_ by [Ryan Kilpatrick](https://time.com/author/ryan-kilpatrick/) ## Ryan Kilpatrick Updated: Dec 13, 2023 7:22 AM UTCPublished: Jun 2, 2017 7:23 AM UTC  Gilbert Baker Google Doodle. Gilbert Baker Google Doodle. Google by [Ryan Kilpatrick](https://time.com/author/ryan-kilpatrick/) ## Ryan Kilpatrick Updated: Dec 13, 2023 7:22 AM UTCPublished: Jun 2, 2017 7:23 AM UTC Google on Friday used its latest [Doodle](https://www.google.com/doodles/gilbert-bakers-66th-birthday) to celebrate American artist and gay rights activist Gilbert Baker, creator of the rainbow flag that has become a symbol of pride for LGBTQ individuals around the world. Baker made his way from Kansas to San Francisco with the U.S. Army. After leaving the military, Baker taught himself to sew and volunteered his skills to make protest banners for the city’s gay community. In 1978, influential gay leader Harvey Milk challenged Baker to create a new symbol for activists to rally around. The most widely used icon at the time was the pink triangle, reclaimed from the symbol used during World War II to identify gay prisoners being held in Nazi concentration camps. While it may have been a potent symbol of common suffering and struggle, Baker wanted to create something more positive and celebratory to bind the growing LGBT movement together. The first rainbow flag Baker put together with volunteers in the attic of the Gay Community Center included eight differently colored horizontal stripes with their own meaning. After Milk’s assassination later that year, demand for the flag exploded and the limited availability of some fabric meant reducing the number of stripes to today’s six. Baker passed away last year at the age of 65\. Today, he would have turned 66. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] The rainbow flag is a worldwide symbol of the LGBT community, but it's birthplace is in San Francisco and it's creation is thanks to a man named Gilbert Baker. Baker moved to San Francisco as an Army draftee in 1970. It was there that he became acquainted with Harvey Milk and they gay rights movement. Gay rights now. After sewing many banners for gay events and marches, the San Francisco Gay and **** Pride Parade commissioned him to design a symbol that could be used for years to come. And this is what Baker came up with the original rainbow flag. The rainbow is a beautiful part of nature. All of the colors and even the colors you can't see. So that really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors. Our sexuality is all of the colors, where all the genders, races and ages. Each color represents something different Pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for art, indigo for harmony, and violet for the human spirit. The flag later evolved to have six stripes. Turquoise was swapped for blue and pink and indigo were taken out. 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