The empowering story of San Francisco’s first openly gay elected official, whose life came to a tragic end
San Francisco has long held a reputation as the ‘Gay Capital of the World’, with more of its citizens identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans than anywhere else in the United States. Every year the city hosts a huge pride celebration, with over 200 contingents taking part in the 2022 parade. A figure key in San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ past is a man called Harvey Milk – one of the first elected officials to be open about their homosexuality in the history of the United States. Milk’s career saw him fight passionately for LGBTQ+ rights, memorably campaigning against John Briggs’ Proposition 6 and introducing legislation which protected the rights of queer persons within San Francisco. However, on 27 November 1978 Milk was assassinated in a brutal killing which shocked and horrified the city that he loved so much.
Milk was born in the suburbs of New York on the 22 May 1930 to Jewish parents William Milk and Minerva Karns. The youngster struggled with his parents’ Judaism and would eventually drift away from the religion, though Milk’s biographer Lillian Faderman maintains that its cultural values remained important to him throughout his life. From a young age Milk was aware that he was homosexual. A keen lover of opera, it was in the standing room only section of the balcony at the Manhattan Opera House that Milk experienced his first sexual liaisons, according to his biographer Randy Shilts. However, Milk was conscious of the need to hide his homosexuality and any interests which he felt might label him as such. Therefore at school he hid his love of opera under his prowess as a sportsman.
As a young man he continued to explore his sexuality and the year before he went to college he frequented a cruising area of New York City’s Central Park. On one occasion he was caught topless and arrested with a group of other gay men. When the teenage Milk was questioned he proclaimed his innocence and argued that he had only removed his shirt in order to get a suntan. The ruse worked but the event angered Milk. Throughout his later political career he would campaign vigorously to curtail the harassment of gay men by police officers.
Graduating with a maths degree in 1951, Milk served for a short while in the United States Navy, including a stint during the Korean War as a diving officer. However, after a gruelling interview in which his superiors questioned him about his homosexuality (the result being a 152-page document detailing his trysts, the Bay Area Reporter newspaper revealed in 2020) he was discharged. What was the twenty-something Milk to do now? For the next two years he worked in both insurance and finance and for the most part continued to build his life in New York. But for Milk something was missing. At this time it has been argued he was effectively living two lives, remaining closeted about his homosexuality while also campaigning for the conservative Senator Barry Goldwater.
Yet things were about to change for Milk. Through his partner, Jack Galen McKinley, he became friends with the theatrical director Tom O’Horgan, who staged the first Broadway productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. Working for O’Horgan as a stage manager during the production of Hair, McKinley’s stories of San Francisco’s liberal homosexual social circle enticed Milk. O’Horgan’s influence, as well as the changing politics of the times, resulted in a powerful change in Milk and his personal politics underwent a seismic shift. After being fired from his job for taking part in an anti-war rally, Milk himself worked for O’Horgan as a production associate and immersed himself more fully in San Francisco’s gay scene.
It is important to emphasise how liberating the 1970s were for queer persons. The first pride marches were organised and over 1,000 gay organisations and clubs were founded throughout the course of the decade. In particular, San Francisco quickly became something of a haven for gay men and a hive of underground culture. This was the period of the Cockettes, a radical drag troupe who became one of the key attractions of the Nocturnal Dream Shows, popular experimental film nights at the Pagoda Palace. In 1972, the Twin Peaks Tavern on Castro Street became the first gay bar in the US not to black-out its windows. Even before all this, in 1964 Time magazine had referred to San Francisco as the “Gay Capital of America”.
Having fallen in love with San Francisco, in 1972 Milk made the decision to move there permanently. In 1969 he had met Scott Smith and the two quickly became lovers, opening a camera shop together on Castro Street – a well-known gay area. Milk thrived in the bustling gay sene but found himself increasingly angered by the political climate of the time. This was the period of the Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal. “I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up,” he later said. In 1973, he decided to act and ran for the position of city supervisor of San Francisco. His long-haired ‘hippie’ appearance damaged his credibility but Milk refused to have it cut, stating: “I entered the campaign with it, I’ll end it that way too.”
Milk was not successful in his bid. The established gay political circles felt that he was too much of a newcomer to San Francisco and not established enough. The perception of him as a hippie didn’t help much either – but Milk had no intention of giving up and would try once more, though again without success, in 1975.
However, by this time Milk had begun to establish himself as a leading force among San Francisco’s homosexual community, earning the nickname ‘the mayor of Castro Street’. He fought on the idea that homosexuals must be out and proud and he valiantly campaigned to improve gay rights. During this time he worked with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) union, encouraging gay bars to boycott Coors beer (the company was accused of being both anti-gay and anti-union), and in return the IBT pledged that more homosexual drivers would be hired. He also launched the Castro Street Fair and Castro Village Association, the first organisation of LGBTQ+ business owners in the United States. Castro Camera became a community hub, with Milk assisting a wide variety of groups and persons, and seeking to help wherever he could.
In 1977 Milk again tried for a position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, having successfully campaigned for an amendment which changed the elections to being district-focussed. This meant that Milk could now rely on the votes of the power base he had spent years building in the Castro Street area. However, he understood that in order to win he would also need to appeal to non-LGBTQ+ voters. To this end he pledged to create day-care centres for mothers, make low-income housing available and also reform the tax code, among other policies.
What thoughts ran through Milk’s head as he waited for the votes to come in that night? After his previous losses had he perhaps resigned himself to defeat? Or did he somehow know that come morning he would make history as the first openly gay elected official on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors? It was a historic election, noteworthy not just for Milk’s victory but also as it saw the first African American woman and Chinese American elected to the Board. Once elected Milk wasted no time and began campaigning for a slew of policies that would improve the rights of LGBTQ+ persons in the city. One of the key pieces of legislation that he sought to pass was a Gay Rights Bill which protected the gay and lesbian citizens of San Francisco from facing discrimination in both employment and housing.
Perhaps the most important moment of Milk’s time in office came when he fought against the Briggs Initiative, otherwise known as Proposition 6. Named after and spearheaded by California legislator John Briggs, this motion sought to ban gay and lesbian persons from working in schools. Briggs’ key supporter, Anita Bryant, had a track record of anti-LGBTQ+ lobbying and in 1977 had successfully campaigned to repeal Dade County legislation which prevented discrimination based on sexuality. Realising what was at stake, Milk fought hard to stop Proposition 6 passing. He wrote to President Jimmy Carter and demanded he “take a leadership role in defending the rights of gay people. As the President of a nation which includes 15-20 million lesbians and gay men.” Milk also encouraged closeted homosexuals to come out to their friends and family, stating: “You will hurt them if you come out, but think of how they will hurt you if they vote for Briggs.”
The Briggs campaign was fought primarily on the claim that LGBTQ+ persons were a threat to children – an argument that Milk successfully deconstructed in a television debate with fellow activist, Sally M Gearhart. In one memorable moment during the campaign, Milk gave a powerful speech in which he stated: “The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right.” After a tireless campaign by pro-LGBTQ+ activists, Milk had achieved just that. The Briggs Initiative was defeated by a vote of 58.4 percent to 41.6 percent.
One person who frequently attempted to block Milk’s legislation was fellow supervisor and ex-policeman and fireman Dan White. Indeed, when asked about the Gay Rights Bill, White purportedly remarked crassly: “This bill lets a man in a dress be a teacher. People are getting angry!” Despite White appearing to get on amiably with Milk at first, in April 1978 Milk had supported a motion for a drug rehabilitation centre to be built in White’s constituency. White appears to have viewed this as a gross betrayal and from then on he harboured a grudge against Milk, a grudge which his biographer Faderman says became “fanatical”.
At the start of November White resigned from his position on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, a decision he almost immediately regretted. When Mayor George Moscone refused to reinstate him, White suspected that Milk might have campaigned to prevent it. After purportedly falling into an increasingly depressed state, on the morning of 27 November White used a lower-storey window to enter City Hall. Making his way to Moscone’s office, White pulled out a gun and proceeded to shoot him. He then made his way to Milk’s office, where he shot him five times at close range. White was apprehended shortly afterwards. Having previously feared assassination, Milk had recorded a taped will in which he stated: “If I am killed, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”
That evening the city of San Francisco mourned openly, with thousands attending a candlelit vigil in memory of Moscone and Milk. By January Harry Britt, an openly gay man and activist himself, had been appointed to succeed Milk. That same month, the preliminary court hearing for the trial of White began. In a notorious turn of events, White’s legal team argued that he had been under increasing pressure and was suffering from mental health issues and depression. White was previously known for being health conscious and his lawyers argued that his excessive consumption of junk food prior to the shootings was evidence of his depressed state. This was derisively nicknamed ‘the Twinkie defence’. White’s conviction on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter angered citizens of San Francisco and they retaliated with a series of riots, known as the White Night Riots.
Even after his tragic death Milk’s story continued to inspire. In 2008 Gus Van Sant directed Milk, which brought his story to a brand new audience and saw Sean Penn win an Oscar for his portrayal of Milk. The same year, a statue of Milk was unveiled at San Francisco City Hall and in 2009 California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill announcing 22 May as Harvey Milk Day. The same year, President Barack Obama honoured Milk by granting him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, praising Milk’s “visionary courage and conviction”. The Harvey Milk Foundation, established by his nephew Stuart Milk and aide Anne Kronenberg, continues to commemorate his legacy and promote his values.
Today, Milk’s legacy and message remain as vital and important as ever. In a world where the rate of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime remains high, it is important to remember Harvey Milk as someone who fought hard for greater freedoms and rights for LGBTQ+ persons.
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