Gilbert Baker - Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color

by Dustin Lance Black

G ilberts calls would most often come late in the evening, London time. I would already be in bed, my phone set to silent, but that wouldnt stop the screen from lighting up and pulling my eyes open. The caller ID would read the way Id first entered his number into my phone years earlier, when wed met on the film Milk: Gilbert Rainbow. On that San Francisco morning, Gilbert had sashayed onto set with a rainbow scarf draped around his neck, cascading down his body and onto the ground below. His bejeweled jacket collar and sequined cuffs glittered in the crisp February sun. It was a spectacular morning, and he was making an undeniably spectacular entrance.

But I already knew how special Gilbert was. I knew he was the creator of the Rainbow Flag. Thats why he had returned to San Francisco. We had asked him to recreate a version of his original flag for our film.

Now, years later, roused from sleep in London, I snuck out of bed so as not to wake my future husband. Once safely in our hallway, I answered the phone with a whisper: Hello, my queen.

Call me back, girl, he shot back, and he quickly hung up. It was only four words, but I could already hear fresh excitement in his voice, and his passion never failed to light mine up. I could tell he had just stumbled upon some new vision, and I was eager to hear it.

But calls between Harlem and London could get pricey, and though the creator of one of the most iconic symbols of the last century, Gilbert had no copyright or patent on the Rainbow Flag and thus had never reaped any seven-figure rewards for it. But, on this night, that didnt matter much. He knew full well I would gladly pay the phone bill to hear his voice.

To be clear, Im not here to claim that there exists some sort of a gay God up in a lofty, rainbow-striped heaven, but if there was such a God, She had Gilbert Baker in first position on Her speed dial, and he spoke with Her frequently. And so, my conversations with Gilbert often felt like a three-way call with Gilbert and his heavenly gay Goddess. Most often, their visions came slowly or in pieces, and some sounded more like poetry than a plan, but on occasion an idea would emerge fully formed: aggressive, undeniable, and always dazzling.

When I got Gilbert back on the line, he asked if it was true that I would soon be traveling to Russia to screen Milk in a show of solidarity with Russian LGBTQ people who were in real peril thanks to Vladimir Putins gay propaganda law. This law made it clear that nothing that might be interpreted as pro-LGBTQ was allowed to be seen in public. Because coming out and being visible is a necessary piece of gay liberation, and because AIDS taught us that silence and invisibility equals death, then it followed that our brothers and sisters in Russia would surely suffer under the cloak of invisibility that this new law threatened. Images of brave, bloodied Russians fighting back, many with Rainbow Flags in hand, had begun to surface on the Internet and in Western media, and with the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics headed to Putins shore, now was the time to shine a bright light on our brothers and sisters plight. So yes, I told Gilbert, I was headed to Saint Petersburg and Moscow with our film.

Gilberts voice lit up in the way that Id come to love. I settled in on the floor to listen to him ramble out his latest design. He felt strongly that he needed to be with these Russians in some form, and so, despite his recent health struggles, he had woken up each morning over the past two weeks to turn on his sewing machine and construct a twenty-meter-long rainbow banner with the words SUPPORT RUSSIAN GAYS spelled out across it in bold black letters. Now he was demanding that I bring this rainbow banner to the LGBTQ people of Russia as a show of unity and defiance.

I gave voice to what Gilbert surely already knew: that a twenty-meter-long Rainbow Flag most certainly qualified as gay propaganda. For me to smuggle in something like that would be seen as a trespass, if not a crime. But Gilbert insisted: They need to know were with them. This banner will help do that. Wait until you see it. Its fabulous. They need this. We need this. And honey, you have no choice in the matter.

Only a madman might have convinced me to willfully put myself in such peril, but as it turns out, Gilbert was my favorite kind of crazy.

Gilberts banner arrived in the mail days later. It ran the entire length of my home and back patio. It was undeniable and, as promised, truly spectacular. I quickly unloaded most of my clothes from the one carry-on bag Id planned on taking (to insure a speedy exit if necessary), and I jammed Gilberts goliath roll of gay propaganda deep into the bottom of it. Then, based on a tip from a local, I paid the Russian airlines VIP travel fee in hopes that their VIP security might be willing to turn a blind eye. A day later, I made it into Saint Petersburg with little more than a cross look from the airports VIP customs agent. I could almost hear Gilberts voice in my ear: You go, girl.