Harvey Milk

Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician, gay rights activist, and one of the most consequential figures in San Francisco civic history. Born in Woodmere, Long Island, New York, Milk won a seat on San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in U.S. history. His open and unapologetic declaration of his identity as a gay candidate for public office, and his subsequent election, gave unprecedented hope to LGBT people everywhere at a time when the community was encountering widespread hostility and discrimination. His remarkable career was tragically cut short when he was assassinated nearly a year after taking office. He remains one of the defining figures of the Castro neighborhood and the broader struggle for LGBTQ civil rights in America.

Early Life and Background

Harvey Milk was born May 22, 1930, in Woodmere, New York. He came from a small middle-class Jewish family that had founded a Jewish synagogue and was well known in the New York "Litvaks" community for their civic engagement. Harvey and his one sibling, Robert, worked in the family's department store, "Milks"; his Lithuanian-born father, William, served in the U.S. Navy, as did his mother Minerva, also of Lithuanian heritage, who was a Yeomanette during World War I.

Milk knew he was gay by the time he attended Bayshore High School, where he was a popular student with wide-ranging interests, from opera to playing football. While in college at the New York State College for Teachers (now the State University of New York) in Albany, where he studied math and history, Milk penned a popular weekly student newspaper column where he began questioning issues of diversity. He graduated in 1951 and enlisted in the Navy, attending Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, and subsequently serving as a diving instructor in San Diego. In 1955, he resigned at the rank of lieutenant junior grade after being officially questioned about his sexual orientation.

Over the course of the 1950s and 1960s, he lived a professionally unsettled life, serving in the Navy, working in finance, then as a teacher, before finding his way into politics as a volunteer on Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964. The counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and sexual expression.

Arrival in San Francisco and Rise to Community Leadership

Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 with his romantic partner Scott Smith and opened a camera shop in the Castro, a neighborhood that by that time had become a sanctuary for the city's gay population. His camera store and campaign headquarters at 575 Castro Street — and his apartment above it — became centers of community activism for a wide range of human rights, environmental, labor, and neighborhood issues.

Milk announced his candidacy for the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1973 on a platform advocating gay and lesbian rights, individual freedom, and economic reform. He lost that race, but emerged from the campaign as a force to be reckoned with in local politics.

After some area merchants tried to prevent two gay men from opening a store, Milk and a few other business owners founded the Castro Village Association — a first-in-the-nation organizing of predominantly LGBT businesses — with Milk as president. He organized the Castro Street Fair in 1974 to attract more customers to area businesses, and its success made the Castro Village Association an effective power base for gay merchants and a blueprint for other LGBT communities in the U.S.

In 1976, Milk lost an election for the California State Assembly and co-founded the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club to help organize future campaigns. His close friend and ally Mayor George Moscone appointed him to the city's Board of Permit Appeals, making Milk the first openly gay city commissioner in the United States.

Realizing that he would have a greater chance of political success if he relied on voters in the Castro, he worked with his campaign manager Anne Kronenberg and Mayor Moscone for the passage of an amendment that would replace at-large elections for the Board of Supervisors with district elections. In 1977, he easily won his third bid for the Board of Supervisors and was inaugurated as a San Francisco City-County Supervisor on January 9, 1978. This was an important and symbolic victory for the LGBT community as well as a personal triumph for Milk, and his election made national and international headlines.

Tenure as Supervisor

A commitment to serving a broad constituency — not just LGBT people — helped make Milk an effective and popular supervisor. His ambitious reform agenda included protecting gay rights through a major anti-discrimination bill, as well as establishing day care centers for working mothers and the conversion of military facilities in the city to low-cost housing.

His first act as supervisor was to introduce a bill outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation, which Mayor George Moscone signed into law with a pen Milk had given him. In March 1978, Mayor Moscone signed this landmark ordinance authored by Milk that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment and housing in San Francisco.

That same year, Supervisor Milk was instrumental in the fight against California ballot initiative Proposition 6, which sought to ban openly gay teachers from working in the state's public schools. The initiative's defeat at the ballot box in November was a validation of the political power of the LGBTQ community and its allies.

Milk's legislative work extended to everyday neighborhood concerns as well. One of his most far-reaching local political successes was his sponsorship of San Francisco's first pooper-scooper law, which aimed to rid the city's streets of dog waste by requiring dog owners to pick up after their pets or face a fine. He also played a leading role in the Coors boycott movement of the 1970s and the initial planning for the 1979 March on Washington.

Assassination and Aftermath

On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled fellow city supervisor. White, a conservative former city supervisor, shot and killed both men in City Hall. At White's murder trial, his attorneys successfully argued that his judgment had been impaired by a prolonged period of clinical depression, one symptom of which was the former health enthusiast's consumption of junk food. The attorneys' argument was derided as the "Twinkie defense" by satirist Paul Krassner while reporting on the trial for the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

White's conviction on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter sparked an uproar in the city that was subsequently termed the "White Night Riots." White was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison, but was ultimately released after about five years.

That evening, more than 25,000 grieving San Francisco Bay Area citizens congregated in the Castro before marching to City Hall in a candlelight vigil, sending a powerful message that the struggle for gay rights would not end with Milk's death. Six months later, when White received his voluntary manslaughter sentence, the community responded with a demonstration at City Hall that turned violent, with enraged protesters engaging police in a series of pitched street battles. The "White Night Riots" served notice that the LGBTQ community would no longer suffer injustice in silence.

Legacy and Honors

Despite his short political career, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the LGBTQ community. In 2002, he was called "the most famous and most significant openly LGBTQ official ever elected in the United States."

A statue of Milk was unveiled in the center rotunda at San Francisco City Hall in 2008. A plaza in the Castro and Terminal One of San Francisco International Airport were both renamed in Milk's honor. In San Francisco, there is also a federal building at the U.S. Job Corps Center on Treasure Island named after Milk, as well as a public recreation center, a branch of the public library, and a public plaza.

In 2009, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and California declared his birthday, May 22, Harvey Milk Day. A bill designating Milk's birthday as an annual "Harvey Milk Day" was introduced by Senator Mark Leno, championed by Milk's nephew Stuart Milk and Equality California, passed by the California State Legislature in 2009, and signed into law by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Harvey Milk was also included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. On May 22, 2014, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp honoring Harvey Milk — the first openly LGBTQ political official to receive this honor — featuring a photo taken in front of his Castro Camera store, unveiled on what would have been his 84th birthday.

In November 2021, the U.S. Navy launched the USNS Harvey Milk, a John Lewis-class fleet oiler. It was the first U.S. Navy vessel to be named for an openly gay person.

In the realm of arts and media, The Times of Harvey Milk, a documentary film, won the 1984 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. A 1995 opera and the 2008 feature film Milk, a cinematic depiction of his political career that starred Sean Penn, also brought his story to broad audiences.

Today, Harvey Milk's legacy is felt in the gains for LGBTQ rights made during the decades since his assassination, including the 2015 United States Supreme Court ruling recognizing same-sex marriage as a legal right.