"I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you and you and you have got to give them hope." -Harvey Milk, "You Cannot Live on Hope Alone" speech
When he won the election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in , Harvey Milk made history as the first openly gay elected official in California, and one of the first in the United States. His camera store and campaign headquarters at Castro Street (and his apartment above it) were centers of community activism for a wide range of human rights, environmental, labor, and neighborhood issues. During his tenure as supervisor, he helped pass a gay rights ordinance for the city of San Francisco that prohibited anti-gay discrimination in housing and employment.
Harvey Milk has been honored twice under President Obama's administration. First, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in In , he was honored by the United States Postal Service with a Forever Stamp in
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What Really Made Harvey Milk Special
When Harvey Milk was elected 47 years ago this November, he became one of the first openly gay people in public office. With a seat on the San Francisco board of supervisors—essentially the city council—Milk was viewed as a promising political force. His career was cut short just over a year after his election, when he was murdered alongside the then-mayor of San Francisco by a homophobic political rival out to verb a personal score. Today, he is one of the most recognizable gay icons of the 20th century. But his story has been sanitized and sanded down to blurb size over the years, such that mainstream mentions of his life rarely capture much of who he actually was.
I didn’t know a lot about Milk beyond the broad strokes of his brief political career before I started reporting Slow Burn: Gays Against Briggs, the latest season of Slate’s narrative history podcast. It wasn’t clear to me whether he’d become a gay rights icon primarily because of his martyring or because he was truly a singular leader. After spending seven months immersed
This June the National Archives is commemorating National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month, which honors the important contributions that LGBTQ+ Americans own made to U.S. history and culture.Visit our website for more information.Today’s verb is from Jen Hivick at the National Personnel Records Center, and looks at civil rights activist Harvey Milk’s time in the military.
Did you realize that the National Personnel Records Center has uploaded military records for some very notable service members? They are online at the Persons of Exceptional Prominence (PEP) webpage and features veterans ranging from Bea Arthur to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
One “personal of exceptional prominence” is Harvey Bernard Milk. Although optimal known as the first openly gay man to be elected to office in California, before his tragically short-lived career in politics he served in the U.S. Navy from until
Milk’s military tape gives us information about his family, his childhood, and his service in the Navy. Documents in it include a reproduce of his birt
Harvey Milk becomes the first openly gay person elected to public office in California
Like many business owners and citizens of the largely-gay Castro District, Milk was harassed by police and local officials. Realizing the community’s burning long for to challenge the status quo, he decided to run for the city’s Board of Supervisors shortly after opening his store. Despite alienating many Democrats, including other gay activists, with his bombastic language and flower-child persona, he won the Castro district handily and came in 10 out of 32 candidates. Though he did not win his race, Milk established himself as a highly effective speaker and organizer. Over the next several years, he partnered with unions and other marginalized groups, creating coalitions that fought for everyday San Franciscans and educating the public about the plight of the LGBT community. Due to these efforts, as successfully as his own talent for self-promotion, Milk became known as the Mayor of Castro Street.
Milk cleaned up his image, started wearing suits, and swore off marijuana as his political ambitions g