History Daily - The First Rainbow Flag

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

June 25, 1978. The rainbow flag is flown for the first time in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

It's the morning of June 25th, 1978, at United Nations Plaza in the heart of San Francisco. Gilbert Baker opens the back of his van and then climbs inside. A 27-year-old artist and activist, Gilbert has made plenty of political banners in his time, but nothing as big as this. Tucking his long, dark hair behind his ears, he grabs hold of a huge, hand-died flag that's folded up in the corner of the van. With a hefty pull, Gilbert drags the fabric to the edge of the front. vehicle where other volunteers are waiting to help lift it from the van.

It's Gay Freedom Day in San Francisco, with an annual parade that brings the city's queer community into the streets to celebrate who they are. And this year, Gilbert and the team of other artists have been tasked with creating a new symbol to mark the occasion. Now they're ready to present it to the world. Gilbert and his helpers carry the flag across the square between them. A few passers-by stop and watch as they reach a flagpole, and then begin attaching their new design to its ropes. When they're done, Gilbert yanks hard on the pulling, sending the material up into the sky.

When the flag is halfway up the pole, there's a sudden gust of wind from the bay. Enormous flag ripples and unfurls, revealing the design in all its glory, eight stripes, a rainbow of color that seems even brighter against the gray municipal buildings surrounding it. Gilbert smiles.

It's even better than they imagined. It's joyful, unique, unapologetic, possible to ignore. And its story is only just beginning. The rainbow flag's first appearance at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade is a huge success. For the thousands who gather beneath it, the colorful design is quickly adopted as a symbol of their community, and its influence will only grow through the years of protest, tragedy, and progress that follow the flag's first appearance in San Francisco on June 25, 1978. From Noisor and Airship, I'm Lindsay. And this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is June 25th, 1978, the first rainbow flag. It's January 9th, 1978 in San Francisco, six months before Gay Freedom Day. Beaming with pride, Harvey Milk marches down the street arm in arm with his boyfriend. Milk has recently been elected to San Francisco's board of supervisors, and the day has come for him to take office. The two men are followed by hundreds of Harvey's supporters, all heading towards City Hall for his swearing in. As they round a corner, the gold-tipped dome of City Hall comes into view, and Harvey's smile grows even wider.

This grand, neoclassical building is surrounded by a crowd that roars with approval when they see Harvey. Detaching himself from his boyfriend, Harvey steps forward to green. greet them. He throws his arms in the air, prompting another huge cheer. His election as supervisor last November wasn't just his victory. It was theirs, too. And today they'll witness history together when Harvey is sworn in as California's first openly gay elected official. It's the culmination of a long and difficult journey for Harvey. Having drifted through life for several years, he found renewed purpose when he moved to San Francisco in 1972. There, he opened a store selling cameras. and quickly established himself as a prominent figure in Castro,

the city's thriving gay neighborhood. Some of the community's existing leadership resented this, though, but Harvey didn't let their skepticism stop him, and he soon set his sights on being elected to San Francisco's board of supervisors. Harvey had a natural flair for politics, but despite his talents, he kept falling short, running for office three times without success. He was determined to keep trying, though,

and when the 1977 election came around, Harvey threw his hat into the ring again. He put everything he had into it. He combined the lessons he'd learned from his previous campaigns with a relentless schedule of public meetings, interviews, and debates. He was up against 16 other candidates, but on Election Day, he came out on top with over 30% of the vote. So today, as the other new supervisors are sworn in at City Hall,

Harvey Milk waits for his turn to speak. Those before him thanked their husbands and wives and families for their support, But when Harvey stands, he doesn't have a spouse to think. As a gay man, he cannot legally marry. But he loves his partner just the same, and one day he hopes there will be equal rights for all. In the meantime, he closes his speech with a promise to fight for all his new constituents. In his first few weeks in office, Harvey follows through on his vow with two major initiatives. First, he sponsors a civil rights bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Then he starts a campaign against the scourge of dog waste on San Francisco sidewalks. This is classic Harvey Milk, mixing transformative social reforms with more traditional street politics, and it works. With his sharp eye for a photo opportunity, he's soon getting more press coverage than anyone else on the board. And as the most prominent public face of San Francisco's gay community, Harvey naturally involves himself in the preparations for the city's annual Gay Freedom Day parade. And as the celebration approaches, he thinks more and more about the community's visibility and how it can show its pride all year round. For decades, the most recognizable iconography associated with gay people has been a pink triangle.

In the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, gay men were forced to wear these badges as a mark of shame. In the years since, though, it's been reclaimed by some queer people in America who wear the pink triangle to protest homophobia and show. show that they are no longer afraid. But for many others, the badge's origins are too painful to be ignored. So Harvey believes the time has come for the queer community to create a symbol rooted in joy rather than persecution. Question is, what it could be. Harvey is no artist, so to find an answer, he seeks out the help of a friend who is the activist Gilbert Baker. Harvey soon discovers that he isn't the first to suggest this idea to Gilbert, but as an elected official, his backing gives

the project the push it needs. So at Harvey's urging, the organizers of the Gay Freedom Parade will come up with a $1,000 budget, then it will be up to Gilbert and a small band of volunteers to create something attention-grabbing, representative, and truly iconic. It's June 1978 inside the Gay Community Center in San Francisco, less than a week before the parade. In the makeshift workshop on the top floor of the center, 27-year-old artist and activist Gilbert Baker hunches over a sewing machine. All around him are piles of cotton. Some of the material has already been dyed into vibrant colors, but other pieces are still awaiting their transformation. Gilbert feeds red and hot pink cotton through his machine, joining them together as one combined

piece of fabric. When it's finished, it will be part of a giant flag, 30 feet tall by 60 feet wide. It's an ambitious undertaking, but Gilbert isn't tackling it alone. With him are many other volunteers, including the co-chair of the Decorating Committee for the Freedom Parade, Ferry Argyle Rainbow. And as Gilbert sows, Ferry manages her team of a dozen volunteers to get the colors of the material just right. It's a long and arduous process, but Gilbert and his colleagues believe the effort will be worth it. They're sure they are creating something special, a flag that will inspire people to stand up, be proud, and not feel that they have to hide who they are the way Gilbert once did.

Gilbert was born in a conservative small town in Kansas, where his grandmother owned and ran a women's clothing store. After his parents discouraged his dream of becoming an artist, he joined the army as a medic and was stationed in San Francisco. Gilbert soon found a home among the gay community there, and when he left the service with an honorable discharge, he was finally free to embrace his old artistic ambitions. He learned how to sew and use his new skills to create banners

for the growing gay rights movement. Gilbert's designs were often seen on marches in San Francisco, where they eventually caught the eye of a promising young politician named Harvey Milk. When Harvey suggested the creation of a new symbol for the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade, Gilbert immediately saw the potential. The parade's organizing committee provided $1,000

and a team came together to make the new symbol a reality. But Gilbert and his friends still had to decide on what to do with their funding. Their first idea was to decorate City Hall with Bucking, When the parade was given permission to use the polls at the United Nations Plaza, a flag became the obvious choice instead. In the years to come, several people will claim credit for the rainbow design. But whoever first suggested it, the committee quickly embraced the idea.

The stripes echoed the United States flag, grounding the queer community in their nation, while Gilbert wrote down a meaning for each color of the rainbow. From hot pink at the top of the flag to violet at its base, everything from art to healing to sunlight is represented in the design. And once it was set, Gilbert and his dozens of volunteers got to work. He had everything he needed to turn the idea into reality except time. The parade is now just days away, so the team works long into the night. They decide to make two flags, with slight variations on the rainbow design,

but the same core message. Working at the sewing machines alongside Gilbert is James McNamara, a photographer and fashion designer. Meanwhile, Ferry Argyle spends her hours on the community center's rooftop, dipping huge sheets of cotton into trash cans of dye and crossing her fingers that everything would be ready in time. But after a string of sleepless nights, Gilbert, Ferry, James, and the others are ready to unveil their designs to the world.

On June 25th, they heave the flags into a van and drive them across the city to the United Nations Plaza. And as gay and lesbian people and their actions, Allies from San Francisco and beyond head to the start of the parade, Gilbert and his team run their flags up the pole. Timely gust of wind catches the material, and the rainbow shines out against a bright blue sky. After its unveiling, the queer community in San Francisco

quickly embraces this new symbol. But its message of love, pride, and acceptance will soon be needed more than ever. Only four months after Gay Freedom Day, Harvey Milk will be shot dead alongside the men. mayor at City Hall. The death of the first openly gay man to be elected to office anywhere in America will lead to an outpouring of grief and anger in San Francisco. But the symbol Harvey helped champion, the symbol he wanted his community to unite under, will live on without it. It's June 26, 1994, on 1st Avenue in New York, 16 years after the rainbow flag was first flown.

The now 43-year-old artist Gilbert Baker parks his van. at the starting point for the international march on the UN, a demonstration in support of gay and lesbian rights around the world. And just as he did a decade and a half earlier, Gilbert opens the back of a truck and begins the painstaking process of lifting out a giant rainbow flag. This one weighs thousands of pounds, and when fully unfurled, it will be a mile long.

Since the rainbow flag was first unveiled, it has evolved, and now features six colors rather than the original eight, but its message remains the same. And in 1994, that is needed just as much as ever. The queer community in America has endured enormous loss. Harvey Milk's tragic death in 1978 was followed by the devastating AIDS epidemic that continues to kill thousands every year.

In major cities like San Francisco and New York, almost every gay man knows someone who has died. But alongside the grief, there's anger at the government's inaction in the face of the disease. and today Gilbert wants to help give voice to that frustration. So as well as the official march on the UN, there is a second protest underway today. A group of activists want to mark the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, a watershed moment in the history of the gay rights movement in the United States.

They've been denied a permit by the authorities, but are still determined to march down Fifth Avenue anyway, and Gilbert wants to show his support. So once the mile-long flag has been completed, completely unfurled, Gilbert takes a pair of scissors and cuts off a huge section of the material. Then he and some volunteers carry it over to Fifth Avenue. A cheer erupts as Gilbert unfolds it and hands it to the protesters there. Despite lacking a permit, this unofficial march will be allowed to continue. And later that afternoon, the two demonstrations will meet all under the same flag, the rainbow symbol that was first unveiled on June 25, 1978.

Next on History Daily, June 26, 1948, the Berlin airlift begins after the USSR closes off all road and rail links to the enclave of West Berlin. From Noisor and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham, audio editing by Jake Samson, sound design by Molly Bach, music by throne. This episode is written and researched by Owen Paul Nichols, edited by William Simpson, managing producer Emily Burr. Executive producers are William Simpson for airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.