In the late '70s, Baker was living in San Francisco when he met writer Cleve Jones, filmmaker Artie Bressan, and rising activist Harvey Milk. ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb The First Rainbow FlagĮnter: Gilbert Baker, the man who would create the first rainbow pride flag. Still, activists recognized the need for a more empowering symbol. 'Gay people wear the pink triangle today as a reminder of the past and a pledge that history will not repeat itself,' read one 1977 letter to the editor in Time. In the late 1970s, the pink triangle was somewhat reclaimed by the gay community.
Throughout the Holocaust, the Nazis forced those whom they labeled as gay to wear inverted pink triangle badges, just as they forced Jewish people to wear a yellow Star of David. This triangle, however, had a loaded, anti-gay history. Before the rainbow pride flag was created, there was another symbol for the LGBTQIA+ community: a pink triangle.
