Until his death in 2017, Baker maintained that he originated the idea for a rainbow flag from two sources of inspiration: First, he was wowed by the U.S. bicentennial in 1976, when flags adorned everything from chintzy souvenirs to moving works of art. He liked the idea of a flag as a statement of revolution in the U.S., France, and elsewhere, and thought LGBTQ people deserved their own marker of an insurgent identity. Then, while he was tripping on acid at a club with Jones, twirling under the disco lights and mirror ball, he got the idea to make it a rainbow. A rainbow is a beautiful freak of nature, he said, and it kind of flies like a natural flag in the sky.
This version of the story has been retold and republished in many different ways over the past 25 years or so. Baker has been credited as the creator of the rainbow flag by history books and major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, which credits Segerblom and McNamara not as the flag’s creators but as “fabricators.” But according to Segerblom, Baker’s story isn’t true. She came up with the idea, she said, as an outgrowth of her rainbow-centric identity.
In Segerblom’s telling, the Gay Freedom Day parade organizers were the ones who suggested she and Baker make a flag. They did so because near the end of the march route, participants would walk between two 80-foot flag poles at United Nations Plaza on the way to San Francisco City Hall. Baker just wanted to make bunting, Segerblom said, but the parade organizers knew someone who had the keys to the flagpoles and suggested the decorations committee make use of them. At the meeting at which the committee leaders were supposed to present their ideas, Segerblom brought her designs for a series of rainbow flags. Baker and McNamara didn’t even show up, she said.
Both Baker and Segerblom largely agree on what came next: With the help of volunteers, they dyed hundreds of yards of cotton muslin in garbage cans on the roof of the gay community center. It was a memorable experience: They needed hot water to mix the dye, but there was no running hot water at the center, so they had to heat pots of water on the stove in the building’s kitchen, then carry the boiling-hot water up a flight of stairs and a wooden ladder onto the roof. Then, they laundered the dyed strips at a dry cleaner, took them back to the community center, sat down at their sewing machines, and pieced the fabric together into 60-foot stripes.