- Born
- 22 May 1930Woodmere, New York, USA
- Died
- 27 November 1978San Francisco, USA · aged 48
Harvey Milk
A San Francisco politician whose election and speeches made openly gay public life a source of hope.
Harvey Milk was born in Woodmere, New York, in 1930. He served in the US Navy and worked in teaching and finance before moving to San Francisco in 1972. His Castro Street camera shop became a base for neighbourhood organising.
After unsuccessful campaigns, Milk won a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1977, becoming California’s first openly gay man elected to public office. He built alliances beyond the gay community and argued that visibility could change the way families, neighbours and voters understood gay lives.
In office he supported a city ordinance against anti-gay discrimination and campaigned against the Briggs Initiative, which threatened gay and lesbian teachers’ jobs. California voters rejected the measure in November 1978. His speeches connected political rights with the need to give isolated people hope.
On 27 November 1978 former supervisor Dan White killed Milk and Mayor George Moscone at City Hall. Milk was 48. White’s subsequent manslaughter convictions prompted the White Night riots. Milk received the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2009; his brief career continued to shape the language of LGBTQ political representation.