Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk was born on 22 May 1930 in Woodmere, New York. He graduated from the state teachers college in Albany in 1951 and served in the Navy until 1955. He moved to San Francisco in late 1972, opened a camera store on Castro Street, and soon began running for office.

He lost races for the Board of Supervisors in 1973 and 1975. Mayor George Moscone appointed him to the Board of Permit Appeals, and he lost a campaign for the state Assembly. He pressed for supervisors to be elected by district rather than citywide, and under the new system he won in 1977, taking office in January 1978 as one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. His agenda included a city anti-discrimination bill as well as day care and housing, and he built alliances beyond the gay community, including with the Teamsters union.

In 1978 he became a leading opponent of Proposition 6, the Briggs Initiative, which would have barred gay and lesbian people from working in California's public schools. He debated State Senator John Briggs, gave his "Hope Speech" at the Gay Freedom Day rally on 25 June 1978, and wrote to President Jimmy Carter that "your leadership is vital and necessary." Carter came out against the measure, and voters rejected it on 7 November 1978 by more than a million votes. Milk urged gay people to make themselves known. "Every gay person must come out," he said, and in a recording made in case he was killed he said that if every gay doctor came out, it "would do more to end prejudice overnight." The same tape said: "It's about giving those young people out there hope."

On 27 November 1978 Dan White shot and killed Milk and Mayor Moscone. On 21 May 1979 a jury convicted White of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder, and that night protesters rioted in what became known as the White Night riots. He received the maximum sentence for the charge, seven years and eight months. Milk's recorded words included the line "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." In 2009 President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the White House announcement described him as the "first openly gay elected official from a major city" and noted that he had urged gay people to come out.