HARVEY MILK

(May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978)

Harvey Milk was a gay activist and politician. He was known as the “Mayor of Castro Street” and was elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977 – the first openly gay elected official of a major city in the United States.

Milk was born in Woodmere, New York on May 22, 1930. He attended Bay Shore High School and graduated from the University at Albany in 1951. He joined the United States Navy and was honorably discharged though he later said he left the service due to an anti-gay military purge.

After serving in the Navy, Milk lived in Dallas for a short while but returned to New York and worked on Wall Street. He also worked as an assistant director along with Tom O'Horgan on a number of plays in New York City including Lenny and Jesus Christ Superstar .

Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 with his partner Scott Smith and settled in the Castro District, opening up a camera shop – Castro Camera. He became a community leader and founded the Castro Valley Association, a merchant and business group, and became adept at dealing with the local city government. He ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1973 and 1975, which he lost both times and was successfully elected as a Supervisor in 1977.

In the eleven months he served in office, Milk sponsored a gay rights bill for the city of San Francisco as well as a “pooper-scooper” ordinance. He was instrumental in defeating the Briggs Initiative (Proposition 6) – a bill authored by California State Senator Briggs – which would have allowed openly gay and lesbian teachers to be fired based on their sexual orientation. California voters soundly rejected Proposition 6 in the fall of 1978.

One of the Supervisor's Milk served with was conservative politician, Dan White. White and Milk usually voted opposite of one another and their relationship was acrimonious. White resigned from the Board of Supervisors but other conservative allies on the Board talked him into rescinding his resignation. Mayor George Moscone, who was a progressive and allie of Harvey Milk, decided not to re-appoint White as a Supervisor. On November 27, 1978 Dan White went to San Francisco City Hall with a gun and several bullets in his pocket. He entered through an unlocked window to prevent a metal detector search. When Mayor Moscone refused to reinstate him as a Supervisor, White shot him to death. He then reloaded his gun, went to Milk's office and shot him to death. White later turned himself into police at the station where he used to work as a police officer.

Thousands of people attended a spontaneous candlelight vigil on the night of Milk's funeral. Harvey Milk had believed he might be assassinated by someone homophobic and/or who did not believe in his political ideals. He had recorded several audio tapes to be played in case he was murdered. One of these tapes was played at the candlelight vigil and included Milk's now famous quote, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”

Dan White went to trial and the jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter for the murders of Moscone and Milk. White was given a sentence of seven years and eight months. The gay community in San Francisco was incensed by this extremely light sentence and stormed City Hall in what became known as the “White Night Riots.” Some years after Dan White was released from prison, he shot himself to death.

Harvey Milk's life and death as a politician is depicted in the film, The Times of Harvey Milk which won an Academy Award as best documentary in 1984. The city of San Francisco will be erecting a bust of Harvey Milk in City Hall in 2008.