On the 40th anniversary of the LGBTQ pride symbol, artist wants her rainbow flag story told
On the 40th anniversary of the LGBTQ pride symbol, artist wants her rainbow flag story told: www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rainbow-flags-20180531-story.html. Thanks for watching, subscribe for more videos: www.youtube.com/channel/UCeZsT-KcXEkPrWymklhKZwQ?sub_confirmation=1 It was the summer of 1978, and the Gay Community Center in San Francisco swarmed with dozens of young hippies flitting between ironing boards, sewing machines and trash cans filled with colorful dye. They had been tasked with making two enormous flags to fly above the city’s Gay Freedom Day Parade, and they wanted something bright. Something inclusive. Something hopeful. Advertisement Unbeknownst to them, their colorful project, the rainbow flag, would become the international symbol for LGBTQ rights, seen practically everywhere — from atop City Hall in liberal West Hollywood, to countries like Uganda, where homouality is illegal, to the Target clothing aisle during LGBTQ Pride Month. Now, 40 years later, one of the women instrumental in the flag’s creation says history has largely forgotten some of the artists who made it happen. “It would be nice to get credit,” said Lynn Segerblom, a tie-dye artist who concocted the dyeing process for the giant flags and who was then known as Faerie Argyle Rainbow. The design and sewing of the first rainbow flag often is solely credited to the self-described “gay Betsy Ross,” Gilbert Baker — a well-known activist and drag queen who died last year — with little or no mention of the artists and volunteers who helped that summer. “It hurts,” said Segerblom, 62, of Torrance, who co-chaired the 1978 Gay Freedom Day decorations committee that year with Baker and remembers the conceptualizing and creation of the rainbow flag as a joyous collaboration with friends. “I’d rather tell the truth.” Segerblom and Paul Langlotz, a Larchmont marriage and family therapist who witnessed the making of the giant banners, said Baker had been their friend and roommate but that as he traveled the world promoting the flag over the years, the stories of the other artists eventually fell by the wayside. “We want our LGBT history to be as honest as possible,” Langlotz said. Without Segerblom and the seamster James McNamara, who died of AIDS in 1999, the flags probably wouldn’t have happened, he said. Charley Beal, manager of creative projects for the Gilbert Baker Estate, said that Baker did come up with the idea for the rainbow symbol but that he was always “effusive with credit” for those who helped create it, especially in a soon-to-be-published memoir. “He never claimed to have made them himself. Never,” Beal said. “He immediately called all his friends. … To say Gilbert took somebody’s idea and marketed it and promoted it is an insult to him as an artist and an insult to his legacy. He spent his life spreading this symbol.” But after all these years, he said, he is glad to see Segerblom publicly telling her story and called her and McNamara “heroes” who “helped create a universal symbol.” Before 1978, there was no agreed-upon symbol for LGBTQ rights. Among the most common signs at the time was the pink triangle, which had been reappropriated from its use by the Nazis, who forced gay concentration camp pris #40th, #anniversary, #LGBTQ, #pride, #symbol, #artist, #wants, #rainbow, #flag, #story, #told #LGBTQPridePrideMonth, #rainbowflagLynnSegerblomGilbertBaker
