logo
livingroom

decorative bar

biographies


corner Last update of this page: August 15th 2017 corner
Harvey Milk
(May 22, 1930 - November 27, 1978) U.S.A.

Harvey Milk

Gay political leader

separator

Born at Woodmere, Long Island, New York, to middle-class Russian-Jewish parents; he died in San Franscico. Milk attended college in upstate New York, served briefly in the Navy, but was discharged because of his homosexuality. He 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.

Harvey Milk

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. He was possibly the first American politician who came out.

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.

separator

Milk 3Harvey Milk played an essential role in the story of the emergence of the gay community in the Castro District of the 1970s. He envisioned a path to equal human rights for gay people everywhere and dedicated himself to lead our community in the struggle to attain that goal. He took advantage of every opportunity to make his name known and worked relentlessly for the issues he considered essential to the gay community. His dedication to the people of the Castro earned him the title "Mayor of Castro Street". It is probably true that he coined the phrase himself, but he loved the title and played the role well.

He pioneered in new forms of coalition politics, getting support from labor unions in exchange for getting the gay community to boycott Coors beer. He engineered a political alliance between the gay and Chinese communities. He achieved several important victories for the emerging gay political movement by leading the fight against anti-gay attacks from State Senator Briggs and others. But it was his charm, his sparkling eyes, his smile, his goodness and his warmth that endeared him to the people of the Castro and eventually to the entire city. Finally in 1977, he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

separator

Known as the "Mayor of Castro Street", Harvey Milk was the first openly-gay person elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Who enjoyed a broad base of support including sexual and ethnic minorities, environmentalists, and labor.

Harvey Milk

As one of the first wave of gay merchants who re-invented the Eureka Valley neighborhood in the early 1970's, Harvey Milk was a standout figure in the new "Castro Village" commercial district. He helped form the area's merchants association, and used his small camera shop, offering residents (gay and non-gay) assistance with municipal and other matters.

After several attempts, in which he was challenged by the gay and Democratic party establishment, he was elected Supervisor in 1976 and was instrumental in the passage of San Francisco's first gay civil rights ordinance. Mayor George Moscone had become his close political ally. Early in his term, Milk sided with Supervisor Dan White against the placement of a mental health facility in White's district; upon learning more about the issue, however, Milk switched his vote, ensuring a loss for White. From then on, White voted against Milk on every bill that came up.

newspaperOn 27th. November, 1978, Dan White, irate at not being reinstated to the seat he had just resigned, thirty minutes before the Mayor's press conference, Dan White avoided City Hall security by climbing through a window, went to Moscone's office, and shot the Mayor four times, including twice in the head. He quickly crossed the hall, reloading as he went, entered Milk's office, and shot Milk five times, including twice in the head.

The city mourned both politicians, and it seemed a murder conviction was a foregone conclusion. This over-confidence was answered with a simple manslaughter conviction. On the evening of November 27, 1978, just after Dan White turned himself in for assassinating Harvey Milk and George Moscone earlier in the day, Bay Area residents came together in an impromptu candlelight march from Castro Street to City Hall.

candles
City Hall, San Francisco, California, November 27, 1978. Photo c/o AP

Part of Dan White's defense centered around his instability due to eating too much junk food. It became known as the "Twinkie Defense." On 21st. May, 1979, the judge sentenced him to only seven years, eight months for manshaughter. 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, in an unprovoked attack, beating up by-passers and trashing the Elephant Walk gay bar, that was nearly destroyed. The evening came to be known as the "White Night Riot" - the first gay riot since the Stonewall Rebellion ten years earlier. Its owners sued the city, and in an historic judgment, were reimbursed for all damages incurred. White, after his release from prison, took his own life.

Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk inspired a new generation of gay activists and will be long remembered in San Francisco and the world. An opera and a film are based on Milk's life. The city planned to dedicate a 60-year-old streetcar painted in 1977 green and cream used by Milk in his honor.

separator

Amongst Milk's lovers we know about the businessman Joe Campbell, and Galen "Jack" McKinley, and finally, Jack Lira.

Joe Campbell

Jack McKinleyJoe Campbell travelled on the fringes of the Andy Warhol crowd, where he was dubbed the "Sugar Plum Fairy", the name rock 'n' roller Lou Reed later called Campbell in Reed's paeon to the New York hustling scene, Walk on the Wild Side. Campbell's trendy friends were amazed that Joe had spent nearly seven years with Milk. The staid businessman didn't seem enough - attractive enough, rich enough, and certainly not chic enough - to warrant the attentions of the dazzling "Sugar Plum Fairy".

Jack McKinley was a friend and lover of Harvey Milk's for many years. Jack's manic-depressive behavior, made worse by drinking and drugs, escalated to suicide attempts: jumping in front of cars, leaping into the San Francisco Bay, and threatening from a locked bathroom to slash his wrists. McKinley died on February 14, 1980 in New York City after falling eight stories. He was the same age as Harvey had been when they met in 1963: thirty-three. His ashes were scattered in the Hudson River as well as off the Golden Gate Bridge near where he had helped scatter Harvey Milk's ashes the previous year.

On January 9, 1978, Harvey Milk was sworn in as San Francisco's first openly gay City Supervisor, making him the first non-incumbent openly gay man to take public office in the United States. Also taking office that day were San Francisco's first Chinese American supervisor, the first black female supervisor, the first Latino supervisor, and the board's first single mother; it was also the first day for Dan White, who later would assassinate Milk and Mayor George Moscone.

Lira
Harvey Milk and Jack Lira pass The Castro Theater as they walk home from Milk's swearing-in as City Supervisor
San Francisco, California, January 9, 1978. Photo © Jerry Pritikin

The entire day was marked by Milk's flare for theatrics. Milk managed to turn his ceremonial swearing-in into a major media event when he and [then-partner] Jack Lira led a procession of 150 supporters from Castro Camera down the fifteen blocks to the wide front steps of City Hall.

"The formal inauguration," Shilts continued, "in the elaborately carved oak-paneled board chambers was marred only when Harvey turned to introduce Jack Lira. Dan White had used his introduction time to pay tribute to his grandmother, an Irish immigrant; Harvey relished the juxtaposition of introducing his male lover, but Lira had slipped out of the room even before the meeting started, afraid of the cameras and bright lights being trained upon him. 'It's well known that I'm a gay person. I have a loved one but he was too nervous to stay here and he left,' said Harvey. Milk had waited so many years for the day of his inauguration when he could stand as a homosexual to introduce the man he loved and the moment had fled him."

separator

Sources: This is an edited article found on the Web at http://www.best.com/~dgwynn/sf1970/scene/harvey.html and at The Knitting Circle, UK - http://lgbt-history-archive.tumblr.com/ - http://www.sbu.ac.uk/stafflag/people.html - et alii

Click on the letter M to go back to the list of names

corner © Matt & Andrej Koymasky, 1997 - 2017 corner