Harvey Milk | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Milk in June 1978 | |
| Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from the 5th district | |
| In office January 8, 1978 – November 27, 1978 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Harry Britt |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Harvey Bernard Milk May 22, 1930 Woodmere, New York, U.S. |
| Died | November 27, 1978 (aged 48) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Manner of death | Assassination |
| Political party | Democratic (from 1972) |
| Other political affiliations | Republican (before 1972)[1] |
| Relatives | Stuart Milk (nephew) |
| Education | State University of New York, Albany (BA) |
| Awards | Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009, posthumously) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1951–1955 |
| Rank | Lieutenant (junior grade) |
| Unit | USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) |
Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Milk was born and raised in New York. He acknowledged his homosexuality in adolescence but secretly pursued sexual relationships well into adulthood. The counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and sexual expression. Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera store. Although he held an assortment of jobs and frequently changed addresses, he settled in the Castro, a neighborhood that was experiencing a mass immigration of gay men and lesbians. He ran for city supervisor in 1973 but the existing gay political establishment resisted him. Milk's campaign was compared to theater due to his personality, earning media attention and votes, although not enough to be elected. He campaigned again in the next two supervisor elections, dubbing himself the "Mayor of Castro Street". The voter response caused him to also run for the California State Assembly. Due to his growing popularity, he led the gay rights movement in battles against anti-gay initiatives. Milk was elected city supervisor in 1977 after San Francisco began to choose neighborhood representatives rather than city-wide ones. During Milk's almost eleven months in office, he sponsored a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, housing, and employment. The Supervisors passed the bill by a vote of 11–1, and Mayor George Moscone signed it into law. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk's bill.
Despite his short political career, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the LGBTQ community.[note 1] In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significant openly LGBTQ official ever elected in the United States".[2] Anne Kronenberg, his final campaign manager, wrote of him: "What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary. He imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us."[3] Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
- ^ "Harvey Milk Biography – California Safe Schools Coalition and Friends – Safe Schools Coalition". www.safeschoolscoalition.org. Archived from the original on March 30, 2018. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
- ^ Smith and Haider-Markel, p. 204.
- ^ Leyland, p. 37.
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