Now, after a four-decade-long journey from a leaky storage unit to a dusty closet, a piece of the original fabric is returning home to San Francisco. embassies and symbolizing inclusivity across the world. Since its first flight above the United Nations Plaza during San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade, the rainbow flag has grown to global significance, painted on city crosswalks, flown at U.S. In 1978, San Francisco resident Gilbert Baker stitched a new symbol: a striped rainbow flag of pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue and purple.

For decades, the primary LGBTQ symbol was a small pink triangle - first displayed on the uniforms of prisoners at Nazi concentration camps who had been labeled as homosexual.