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Harvey Milk

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, where he acknowledged his homosexuality as an adolescent, but chose to pursue sexual relationships with secrecy and discretion well into his adult years. His experience in the counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and the expression of sexuality.

For other uses, see Harvey Milk (disambiguation).

Harvey Milk

Constituency established

Harvey Bernard Milk

(1930-05-22)May 22, 1930
Woodmere, New York, U.S.

November 27, 1978(1978-11-27) (aged 48)
San Francisco, California, U.S.

Democratic (from 1972)

Republican (before 1972)[1]

Stuart Milk (nephew)

Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009, posthumously)

United States

1951–1955

Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera store. Although he had been restless, holding an assortment of jobs and changing addresses frequently, he settled in the Castro, a neighborhood that at the time was experiencing a mass immigration of gay men and lesbians. He was compelled to run for city supervisor in 1973, though he encountered resistance from the existing gay political establishment. His campaign was compared to theater; he was brash, outspoken, animated, and outrageous, 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". Voters responded enough to warrant his running for the California State Assembly as well. Taking advantage of his growing popularity, he led the gay political movement in fierce battles against anti-gay initiatives. Milk was elected city supervisor in 1977 after San Francisco reorganized its election procedures to choose representatives from neighborhoods rather than through city-wide ballots.


Milk served almost eleven months in office, during which he sponsored a bill banning discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment on the basis of sexual orientation. The Supervisors passed the bill by a vote of 11–1, and it was signed into law by Mayor George Moscone. 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 career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the LGBT community.[note 1] In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significant openly LGBT 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.

LGBT culture in San Francisco

LGBT social movements

List of assassinated American politicians

List of civil rights leaders

Kathy Kozachenko

The Mayor of Castro Street

Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, St. Martin's Press.  0312342691. OCLC 865096291

ISBN

Clendinen, Dudley, and (1999). Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684810913. OCLC 946579946

Nagourney, Adam

de Jim, Strange (2003). San Francisco's Castro, Arcadia Publishing.  978-0738528663. OCLC 1176178319

ISBN

(1999). Left Out: the Politics of Exclusion: Essays, 1964–1999, Basic Books. ISBN 0465017444. OCLC 51871732

Duberman, Martin

Harvey Milk: Messenger of Hope (2020). SFO Museum.

(1985). Gayslayer! The Story of How Dan White Killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone & Got Away With Murder, Silver Dollar Books. ISBN 0933839014. OCLC 652202654

Hinckle, Warren

Leyland, Winston, ed (2002). Out In the Castro: Desire, Promise, Activism, Leyland Publications.  978-0943595870. OCLC 682374266

ISBN

(2002). Making Gay History, HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0060933917. OCLC 173503711

Marcus, Eric

(1994) Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, Vintage Books. ISBN 0679749888. OCLC 654712107

Miller, Neil

(1982). The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312523300. OCLC 1285784510

Shilts, Randy

Smith, Raymond, Haider-Markel, Donald, eds., (2002). Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation, ABC-CLIO.  1576072568. OCLC 1056097931

ISBN

Weiss, Mike (2010). Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, Vince Emery Productions.  978-0982565056. OCLC 655662629

ISBN

(2018). Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300235272.

Faderman, Lillian

with Dawson, Jeff (2000). Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist. ISBN 0062516426

Jones, Cleve

Milk, Harvey (2012). The Harvey Milk Interviews: In His Own Words. Vince Emery Productions.  978-0972589888.

ISBN

Milk, Harvey (2013). An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk's Speeches and Writings. . ISBN 978-0520275485.

University of California Press

Meason, Christopher, ed (2009). Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk, NewMarket Press.  978-1557048295

ISBN

Media related to Harvey Milk at Wikimedia Commons

Quotations related to Harvey Milk at Wikiquote

Harvey Milk Foundation

Official Harvey Milk Day Website

holds the Harvey Milk Archives–Scott Smith Collection.

The James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library

Harvey Milk photo history by Strange de Jim, with photos by Daniel Nicoletta

Archived February 10, 2009, at the Wayback Machine

Harvey Milk, Second Sight: Personal Photographs

Archived September 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine

Significant collection of photographs and Milk history

Organization dedicated to placing a bust of Harvey Milk in San Francisco's City Hall.

Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial

Harvey Milk Center for the Arts

by Chuck Wolfe

Harvey Milk: What His Presidential Medal of Freedom Means to All Americans

by Vince Emery

The Unknown Adventures of Harvey Milk in Dallas