Twitter Honors Gilbert Baker, Late Rainbow Flag Creator

“Our Flag Flies At Half Mast”

LGBT activist Gilbert Baker, who designed the original rainbow flag that would become an international symbol for the LGBT community, died in New York yesterday at the age of 65.

Baker’s original 1978 design, created at the behest of Harvey Milk, included eight stripes, each with its own meaning. Pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for art, indigo for harmony and violet for the human spirit. The design morphed into its current incarnation the following year.

“The rainbow is a part of nature,” Baker told CBS in 2012, “and you have to be in the right place to see it. It’s beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can’t see. That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors… we are all the genders, races and ages.”

Appropriately, in honor of Baker, people of all genders, races and ages took to Twitter to celebrate not just his creation, but the man himself:

 

Rest in Peace, Power and Pride, Gilbert.

 

 

Photo via torbakhopper on Flickr