Harvey Milk, an American gay political leader, was born in Long Island, New York, USA, 1930, and died in San Francisco, November 27, 1978.
See a black and white photograph in
Richmond and Noguera (1979), page 204.
EditLife and Career
Harvey Milk attended college in upstate New York, served briefly in the Navy, and then settled down to an inconspicuous life in a New York apartment with a male spouse. He joined a Wall Street firm and campaigned for Barry Goldwater in 1964. He moved to San Franscico and opened up a camera shop in Castro Street before the neighbourhood had achieved any renown as the centre of a gay community. He began to get involved in political campaigns and proved to be a shrewd wheeler-dealer, cultivating an improbable but effective alliance with the city’s blue-collar unions. On his third try, in 1977, he was elected to the post of San Franscico supervisor.
He quickly became a nationally known figure whom many believed destined to rise to higher office. Harvey Milk retained elements of his conservative background and held onto the concept of the autonomy of small neighbourhoods, prospering through small businesses and local attention to community problems. His belief in citizen participation led him to stress voting, which is sometimes forgoten by radicals. By not painting himself into a corner through inflexible doctrinaire principles he was able to develop the broad base he needed for acquiring and keeping power. He anticipated the later strategy of the “rainbow coalition” and worked very effectively with it.
A black and white photograph of Harvey Milk with journalist Randy Shilts celebrating on election night in 1978 is reproduced in
Neil Miller, (1995), page 398. On the Board of Supervisors he was frequently opposed by Dan White. After White first resigned his post and sought vainly to regain his post he decided to shoot Mayor Moscone who had thwarted him. On November 27, 1978 he shot not only Moscone but also his enemy Harvey Milk. In his trial Dan White put forward the “twinky defence”, claiming that his judgement had been impaired by consuming too much junk food. On May 21, 1979, the judge sentenced him to only seven years, eight months for manslaughter.
That evening, a protest against the verdict and sentence by 5000 people at San Francisco City Hall became a riot, resulting in the burning of a dozen police cars and the breaking of every ground floor window in City Hall. In retaliation, 24 police officers later descended on the gay Castro disctrict, beating up by-passers and trashing the Elephant Walk gay bar. The evening came to be known as the “White Night Riot” - the first gay riot since the
Stonewall Rebellion ten years earlier. After White’s release from prison he took his own life.
Harvey Milk was listed at number 26 in the top 500 lesbian and gay heroes in
The Pink Paper, September 26, 1997, issue 500, page 21.
Harvey Milk at UNCLE DONALD’S CASTRO STREET
EditBibliography
Warren Hinckle, (1985),Gayslayer, Virginia City, NV: Silver Dollar. Paul Elliott Russell, (1994), “The Gay 100” Randy Shilts, (1982),The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Re-published at theHard Press website:http://www.hardpress.com/newhp/lingo/authors/fassbinder.html