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A half hour before the ring conference, White avoided metal detectors by entering City Hall through a basement window and went to Moscone's office, where witnesses heard shouting followed by gunshots. Sought after for the level of dater we attract, the personal service we offer and an unparalleled selection of the daters you want to meet. Gusto was acquitted of the first degree murder charge on May 21, 1979, but found guilty of of both victims, and he was sentenced to serve seven and two-thirds years. He acknowledged Milk's influence in his election by visiting Milk's election night headquarters, thanking Milk personally, and offering him a met as a city commissioner. This is where the beautiful public graffiti art of the is located. Lovely venues and our lovely Hosts to assist you with anything or anyone.
Milk in 1978 In office January 8, 1978 — November 27, 1978 Preceded by District created Succeeded by Constituency 5th district Personal details Born Harvey Bernard Milk 1930-05-22 May 22, 1930 , U. Died November 27, 1978 1978-11-27 aged 48 , U. Although he was the most pro- politician in the United States at the time, politics and activism were not his early interests; he was neither open about his sexuality nor civically active until he was 40, after his experiences in the. In 1972, Milk moved from to the of amid a migration of gay and bisexual men. He took advantage of the growing political and economic power of the neighborhood to promote his interests and unsuccessfully ran three times for political office. Milk's theatrical campaigns earned him increasing popularity, and in 1977 he won a seat as a city supervisor. His election was made possible by a key component of a shift in San Francisco politics. Milk served almost eleven months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent ordinance for San Francisco. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor were by , who was another city supervisor. White had recently resigned to pursue a private business enterprise, but that endeavor eventually failed and he sought to get his old job back. White was sentenced to seven years in prison for , which was later reduced to five years. He was released in 1983 and committed suicide by inhalation two years later. Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community. He imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us. Harvey Milk right and his older brother Robert in 1934 Milk was born in the New York City suburb of , to William Milk and Minerva Karns. He was the younger son of parents and the grandson of Morris Milk, a department store owner who helped to organize the first synagogue in the area. As a child, Harvey was teased for his protruding ears, big nose, and oversized feet, and tended to grab attention as a class clown. While he was in school, he played football and developed a passion for. In his teens, he knew that he had homosexual tendencies but kept it a closely guarded secret. Milk graduated from in , in 1947 and attended New York State College for Teachers in now the from 1947 to 1951, majoring in mathematics. He also wrote for the college newspaper. Early career After graduation, Milk joined the during the. He served aboard the as a. He later transferred to to serve as a diving instructor. In 1955, he was discharged from the Navy at the rank of. Milk dressed for his brother's wedding in 1954 Milk's early career was marked by frequent changes; in later years he would take delight in talking about his metamorphosis from a middle-class Jewish boy. He began teaching at on. In 1956, he met Joe Campbell, at the beach, a popular location for gay men in. Campbell was seven years younger than Milk, and Milk pursued him passionately. Even after they moved in together, Milk wrote Campbell romantic notes and poems. Growing bored with their New York lives, they decided to move to , Texas, but they were unhappy there and moved back to New York, where Milk got a job as an actuarial statistician at an insurance firm. Campbell and Milk separated after almost six years; it would be his longest relationship. Milk tried to keep his early romantic life separate from his family and work. However, he decided to remain in New York, where he secretly pursued gay relationships. In 1962 Milk became involved with , who was 10 years younger. Though Milk courted Rodwell ardently, waking him every morning with a call and sending him notes, Milk was uncomfortable with Rodwell's involvement with the New York , a gay-rights organization. When Rodwell was arrested for walking in Riis Park, and charged with inciting a riot and with indecent exposure the law required men's swimsuits to extend from above the navel to below the thigh , he spent three days in jail. The relationship soon ended as Milk became alarmed at Rodwell's tendency to agitate the police. Milk abruptly stopped working as an insurance actuary and became a researcher at the firm. He was frequently promoted despite his tendency to offend the older members of the firm by ignoring their advice and flaunting his success. Although he was skilled at his job, co-workers sensed that Milk's heart was not in his work. He started a romantic relationship with Jack Galen McKinley and recruited him to work on conservative 's. Their relationship was troubled. When McKinley first began his relationship with Milk in late 1964, McKinley was 16 years old. He was prone to depression and sometimes threatened to commit if Milk did not show him enough attention. To make a point to McKinley, Milk took him to the hospital where Milk's ex-lover, Joe Campbell, was himself recuperating from a suicide attempt, after his lover left him. Milk had remained friendly with Campbell, who had entered the art scene in , but Milk did not understand why Campbell's despondency was sufficient cause to consider suicide as an option. Castro Street Since the end of World War II, the major port city of San Francisco had been home to a sizable number of gay men who had been expelled from the military and decided to stay rather than return to their hometowns and face ostracism. By 1969 the believed San Francisco had more gay people per capita than any other American city; when the asked the Institute to survey homosexuals, the Institute chose San Francisco as its focus. Milk and McKinley were among the thousands of gay men attracted to San Francisco. McKinley was a stage manager for , a director who started his career in experimental theater, but soon graduated to much larger Broadway productions. They arrived in 1969 with the Broadway touring company of. McKinley was offered a job in the New York City production of , and their tempestuous relationship came to an end. The city appealed to Milk so much that he decided to stay, working at an investment firm. In 1970, increasingly frustrated with the political climate after the , Milk let his hair grow long. When told to cut it, he refused and was fired. Milk drifted from California to Texas to New York, without a steady job or plan. The time he had spent with the cast of wore away much of Milk's conservatism. Craig Rodwell read the description of the formerly uptight man and wondered if it could be the same person. Milk and Smith returned to San Francisco, where they lived on money they had saved. Changing politics In the late 1960s, the SIR and the DOB began to work against police persecution of gay bars and in San Francisco. Mayor Alioto asked the police to target the parks, hoping the decision would appeal to the Archdiocese and his Catholic supporters. In 1971, 2,800 gay men were arrested for in San Francisco. By comparison, New York City recorded only 63 arrests for the same offense that year. Any arrest for a morals charge required registration as a. Congressman , Assemblyman , and other California politicians recognized the growing clout and organization of homosexuals in the city, and courted their votes by attending meetings of gay and lesbian organizations. Brown pushed for legalization of sex between consenting adults in 1969 but failed. SIR was also pursued by popular moderate Supervisor in her bid to become mayor, opposing Alioto. Ex-policeman worked for 10 years to change the conservative views of the , and also actively appealed to the gay community, which responded by raising significant funds for his campaign for sheriff. Though Feinstein was unsuccessful, Hongisto's win in 1971 showed the political clout of the gay community. SIR had become powerful enough for political maneuvering. Alice befriended liberal politicians to persuade them to sponsor bills, proving successful in 1972 when obtained Feinstein's support for an ordinance outlawing employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Alice chose Stokes to run for a relatively unimportant seat on the community college board. Though Stokes received 45,000 votes, he was quiet, unassuming, and did not win. Foster, however, shot to national prominence by being the first openly gay man to address a political convention. His speech at the ensured that his voice, according to San Francisco politicians, was the one to be heard when they wanted the opinions, and especially the votes, of the gay community. Milk became more interested in political and civic matters when he was faced with civic problems and policies he disliked. Milk fumed about government priorities when a teacher came into his store to borrow a projector because the equipment in the schools did not function. Milk decided that the time had come to run for city supervisor. Milk, here with his sister-in-law in front of Castro Camera in 1973, had been changed by his experience with the counterculture of the 1960s. Milk received an icy reception from the gay political establishment in San Francisco. Jim Foster, who had by then been active in gay politics for 10 years, resented that the newcomer had asked for his endorsement for a position as prestigious as city supervisor. You don't get to dance unless you put up the chairs. I've never seen you put up the chairs. Some gay bar owners, still battling police harassment and unhappy with what they saw as a timid approach by Alice to established authority in the city, decided to endorse him. At first, his inexperience showed. He tried to do without money, support, or staff, and instead relied on his message of sound financial management, promoting individuals over large corporations and government. He also ran on a platform, opposing in private sexual matters and favoring the. Milk's fiery, flamboyant speeches and savvy media skills earned him a significant amount of press during the 1973 election. He earned 16,900 votes—sweeping the Castro District and other liberal neighborhoods and coming in 10th place out of 32 candidates. Had the elections been reorganized to allow districts to elect their own supervisors, he would have won. Mayor of Castro Street From early in his political career, Milk displayed an affinity for building coalitions. The wanted to strike against beer distributors— in particular —who refused to sign the union contract. An organizer asked Milk for assistance with gay bars; in return, Milk asked the union to hire more gay drivers. A few days later, Milk canvassed the gay bars in and surrounding the Castro District, urging them to refuse to sell the beer. With the help of a coalition of Arab and Chinese grocers the Teamsters had also recruited, the boycott was successful. As Castro Street's presence grew, so did Milk's reputation. On Castro Street he finally found it. In 1973, two gay men tried to open an antique shop, but the Eureka Valley Merchants Association EVMA attempted to prevent them from receiving a business license. Milk and a few other gay business owners founded the Castro Village Association, with Milk as the president. He often repeated his philosophy that gays should buy from gay businesses. Milk organized the in 1974 to attract more customers to the area. More than 5,000 attended, and some of the EVMA members were stunned; they did more business at the Castro Street Fair than on any previous day. Serious candidate Although he was a newcomer to the Castro District, Milk had shown leadership in the small community. He was starting to be taken seriously as a candidate and decided to run again for supervisor in 1975. He reconsidered his approach and cut his long hair, swore off marijuana, and vowed never to visit another again. Milk's campaigning earned the support of the teamsters, firefighters, and construction unions. Castro Camera became the center of activity in the neighborhood. Milk would often pull people off the street to work his campaigns for him—many discovered later that they just happened to be the type of men Milk found attractive. Milk favored support for small businesses and the growth of neighborhoods. As blue-collar jobs were replaced by the service industry, Alioto's weakened political base allowed for new leadership to be voted into office in the city. Moscone had been instrumental in repealing the earlier that year in the California State Legislature. He acknowledged Milk's influence in his election by visiting Milk's election night headquarters, thanking Milk personally, and offering him a position as a city commissioner. Milk came in seventh place in the election, only one position away from earning a supervisor seat. Liberal politicians held the offices of the mayor, district attorney, and sheriff. Despite the new leadership in the city, there were still conservative strongholds. In one of Moscone's first acts as mayor, he appointed a police chief to the embattled SFPD. He chose , against the wishes of the SFPD. Most of the force disliked Gain for criticizing the police in the press for racial insensitivity and alcohol abuse on the job, instead of working within the command structure to change attitudes. By request of the mayor, Gain made it clear that gay police officers would be welcomed in the department; this became national news. Police under Gain expressed their hatred of him, and of the mayor for betraying them. Race for State Assembly Keeping his promise to Milk, newly elected mayor George Moscone appointed him to the Board of Permit Appeals in 1976, making him the first openly gay city commissioner in the United States. Milk, however, considered seeking a position in the. The district was weighted heavily in his favor, as much of it was based in neighborhoods surrounding Castro Street, where Milk's sympathizers voted. In the previous race for supervisor, Milk received more votes than the currently seated assemblyman. However, Moscone had made a deal with the assembly speaker that another candidate should run—. Furthermore, by order of the mayor, neither appointed nor elected officials were allowed to run a campaign while performing their duties. By the time of Milk's 1975 campaign, he had decided to cut his hair and wear suits. Here, Milk far right is campaigning with longshoremen in San Francisco during his 1976 race for the. Milk spent five weeks on the Board of Permit Appeals before Moscone was forced to fire him when he announced he would run for the California State Assembly. Rick Stokes replaced him. Milk's firing, and the backroom deal made between Moscone, the assembly speaker, and Agnos, fueled his campaign as he took on the identity of a political underdog. He railed that high officers in the city and state governments were against him. Toklas Club made no endorsement in the primary — neither Milk nor Agnos — while other gay-aligned clubs and groups endorsed Agnos or did dual endorsements. Milk's role as a representative of San Francisco's gay community expanded during this period. On September 22, 1975, President , while visiting San Francisco, walked from his hotel to his car. In the crowd, raised a gun to shoot him. A former who had been walking by grabbed her arm as the gun discharged toward the pavement. The bystander was , who had left Milk's ex-lover Joe Campbell years before, prompting Campbell's suicide attempt. The national spotlight was on him immediately. On psychiatric disability leave from the military, Sipple refused to call himself a hero and did not want his sexuality disclosed. Milk, however, took advantage of the opportunity to illustrate his cause that public perception of gay people would be improved if they came out of the closet. For once we can show that gays do heroic things, not just all that ca-ca about molesting children and hanging out in bathrooms. Several days later , a columnist at , exposed Sipple as gay and a friend of Milk's. The announcement was picked up by national newspapers, and Milk's name was included in many of the stories. Sipple, however, was besieged by reporters, as was his family. His mother, a staunch in Detroit, now refused to speak to him. Although he had been involved with the gay community for years, even participating in Gay Pride events, Sipple sued the Chronicle for invasion of privacy. President Ford sent Sipple a note of thanks for saving his life. Milk said that Sipple's sexual orientation was the reason he received only a note, rather than an invitation to the. Milk's continuing campaign, run from the storefront of Castro Camera, was a study in disorganization. Although the older Irish grandmothers and gay men who volunteered were plentiful and happy to send out mass mailings, Milk's notes and volunteer lists were kept on scrap papers. Any time the campaign required funds, the money came from the cash register without any consideration for accounting. The campaign manager's assistant was an 11-year-old neighborhood girl. Milk himself was hyperactive and prone to fantastic outbursts of temper, only to recover quickly and shout excitedly about something else. Many of his rants were directed at his lover, Scott Smith, who was becoming disillusioned with the man who was no longer the laid-back hippie he had fallen in love with. If the candidate was manic, he was also dedicated and filled with good humor, and he had a particular genius for getting media attention. He spent long hours registering voters and shaking hands at bus stops and movie theater lines. He took whatever opportunity came along to promote himself. He thoroughly enjoyed campaigning, and his success was evident. He distributed his campaign literature anywhere he could, including among one of the most influential political groups in the city, the , an organization that Milk attended regularly. Milk's volunteers even took thousands of brochures and because the Peoples Temple leader, , was a politically powerful individual in San Francisco, Milk encouraged Temple members to work his phones, spoke at the Temple and later wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter defending Jones character. Milk's relationship with the Temple was not entirely similar to other politicians' in Northern California. I'll take his workers, but, that's the game Jim Jones plays. If they ask you to do something, do it, and then send them a note thanking them for asking you to do it. You talk about how you're gonna throw the bums out, but how are you gonna fix things—other than beat me? You shouldn't leave your audience on a down. The fledgling gay rights movement had yet to meet organized opposition in the U. In 1977 a few well-connected gay activists in Miami, Florida were able to pass a civil rights ordinance that made discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal in. A well-organized group of conservative responded, headed by singer. Their campaign was titled , and Bryant claimed the ordinance infringed her right to teach her children Biblical morality. Bryant and the campaign gathered 64,000 signatures to put the issue to a county-wide vote. Jim Foster, then the most powerful political organizer in San Francisco, went to Miami to assist gay activists there as election day neared, and a nationwide of orange juice was organized. The message of the Save Our Children campaign was influential, and the result was an overwhelming defeat for gay activists; in the largest turnout in any special election in the history of Dade County, 70% voted to repeal the law. Just politics Christian conservatives were inspired by their victory, and saw an opportunity for a new, effective political cause. Gay activists were shocked to see how little support they received. An impromptu demonstration of over 3,000 Castro residents formed the night of the Dade County ordinance vote. Milk led marchers that night on a five-mile 8 km course through the city, constantly moving, aware that if they stopped for too long there would be a riot. Anita's going to create a national gay force. California State Senator saw an opportunity in the Christian fundamentalists' campaign. He was hoping to be elected governor of California in 1978, and was impressed with the voter turnout he saw in Miami. When Briggs returned to , he wrote a bill that would ban gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools throughout California. When the police response was considered inadequate, groups of gays patrolled the neighborhood themselves, on alert for attackers. Weeks later, 250,000 people attended the 1977 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade, the largest attendance at any Gay Pride event to that point. In November 1976, voters in San Francisco decided to reorganize supervisor elections to choose supervisors from neighborhoods instead of voting for them in citywide ballots. Harvey Milk quickly qualified as the leading candidate in District 5, surrounding Castro Street. What San Francisco is today, and what it is becoming, reflects both the energy and organization of the gay community and its developing effort toward integration in the political processes of the American city best known for innovation in life styles. Seventeen candidates from the Castro District entered the next race for supervisor; more than half of them were gay. The Castro Village Association had grown to 90 businesses; the local bank, formerly the smallest branch in the city, had become the largest and was forced to build a wing to accommodate its new customers. Milk's most successful opponent was the quiet and thoughtful lawyer Rick Stokes, who was backed by the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club. Stokes had been open about his homosexuality long before Milk had, and had experienced more severe treatment, once hospitalized and forced to endure to 'cure' him. Milk, however, was more expressive about the role of gay people and their issues in San Francisco politics. I represent the gay street people—the 14-year-old runaway from. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need a piece of the pie! He advanced important neighborhood issues at every opportunity. Milk used the same manic campaign tactics as in previous races: human billboards, hours of handshaking, and dozens of speeches calling on gay people to have hope. This time, even The San Francisco Chronicle endorsed him for supervisor. Milk had recently taken a new lover, a young man named Jack Lira, who was frequently drunk in public, and just as often escorted out of political events by Milk's aides. Since the race for the California State Assembly, Milk had been receiving increasingly violent death threats. Milk's swearing-in made national headlines, as he became the first non-incumbent openly gay man in the United States to win an election for public office. Well, here we are. Sworn in with Milk were also a single mother , a Chinese American , and an African American woman —all firsts for the city. Milk sitting at the mayor's desk in 1978 Milk's energy, affinity for pranking, and unpredictability at times exasperated Board of Supervisors President Dianne Feinstein. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club if he wanted the city's gay votes—a quarter of San Francisco's voting population. However, Milk also became Moscone's closest ally on the Board of Supervisors. The biggest targets of Milk's ire were large corporations and real estate developers. He fumed when a parking garage was slated to take the place of homes near the downtown area, and tried to pass a commuter tax so office workers who lived outside the city and drove into work would have to pay for city services they used. Milk was often willing to vote against Feinstein and other more tenured members of the board. In one controversy early in his term, Milk agreed with fellow Supervisor Dan White, whose district was located two miles south of the Castro, that a mental health facility for troubled adolescents should not be placed there. After Milk learned more about the facility, he decided to switch his vote, ensuring White's loss on the issue—a particularly poignant cause that White championed while campaigning. White did not forget it. He opposed every initiative and issue Milk supported. Milk began his tenure by sponsoring a civil rights bill that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation. Only Supervisor White voted against it; Mayor Moscone enthusiastically signed it into law with a light blue pen that Milk had given him for the occasion. Another bill Milk concentrated on was designed to solve the number one problem according to a recent citywide poll: dog excrement. Within a month of being sworn in, he began to work on a city ordinance to require dog owners to scoop their pets' feces. He invited the press to to explain why it was necessary, and while cameras were rolling, stepped in the offending substance, seemingly by mistake. His staffers, however, knew he had been at the park for an hour before the press conference looking for the right place to walk in front of the cameras. It earned him the most fan mail of his tenure in politics and went out on national news releases. Milk had grown tired of Lira's drinking and considered breaking up with him when Lira called a few weeks later and demanded Milk come home. When Milk arrived, he found Lira had hanged himself. Already prone to severe depression, Lira had attempted suicide previously. One of the longest notes he left for Milk indicated he was upset about the Anita Bryant and John Briggs campaigns. Briggs Initiative Further information: John Briggs was forced to drop out of the 1978 race for California governor, but received enthusiastic support for Proposition 6, dubbed the. The proposed law would have made firing gay teachers—and any public school employees who supported gay rights—mandatory. Briggs' messages supporting Proposition 6 were pervasive throughout California, and Harvey Milk attended every event Briggs hosted. Milk campaigned against the bill throughout the state as well, and swore that even if Briggs won California, he would not win San Francisco. In their numerous debates, which toward the end had been honed to quick back-and-forth banter, Briggs maintained that homosexual teachers wanted to abuse and recruit children. An estimated 250,000 to 375,000 attended San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade; newspapers claimed the higher numbers were due to John Briggs. Organizers asked participants to carry signs indicating their hometowns for the cameras, to show how far people came to live in the Castro District. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country... We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets... We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives. Because of Anita Bryant and Dade County, the entire country was educated about homosexuality to a greater extent than ever before. The first step is always hostility, and after that you can sit down and talk about it. On November 7, 1978, the proposition lost by more than a million votes, astounding gay activists on election night. In San Francisco, 75 percent voted against it. Within days, White requested that his resignation be withdrawn and he be reinstated, and Mayor Moscone initially agreed. However, further consideration—and intervention by other supervisors—convinced Moscone to appoint someone more in line with the growing ethnic diversity of White's district and the liberal leanings of the Board of Supervisors. On November 18 and 19, news broke of the mass suicide of 900 members of the. The cult had relocated from San Francisco to Guyana. California Representative was in to check on the remote community, and he was killed by gunfire at an airstrip as he tried to escape the tense situation. One day I'm on the front page and the next I'm swept right off. A half hour before the press conference, White avoided metal detectors by entering City Hall through a basement window and went to Moscone's office, where witnesses heard shouting followed by gunshots. White shot Moscone in the shoulder and chest, then twice in the head. White then quickly walked to his former office, reloading his police-issue revolver with along the way, and intercepted Milk, asking him to step inside for a moment. As President of the Board of Supervisors, it is my duty to inform you that both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed, and the suspect is Supervisor Dan White. Within an hour, White called his wife from a nearby diner; she met him at a church and was with him when he turned himself in. Many left flowers on the steps of City Hall, and that evening 25,000 to 40,000 formed a spontaneous candlelight march from Castro Street to City Hall. The next day, the bodies of Moscone and Milk were brought to the City Hall rotunda where mourners paid their respects. Six thousand mourners attended a service for Mayor Moscone at. Two memorials were held for Milk; a small one at and a more boisterous one at the. In the wake of the Jonestown suicides, Moscone had recently increased security at City Hall. Rumors about the murders of Moscone and Milk were fueled by the coincidence of Dan White's name and Jones' suicide preparations. President expressed his shock at both murders and sent his condolences. Dan White was charged with two counts of murder and held without bail, eligible for the death penalty owing to the recent passage of a statewide proposition that allowed death or life in prison for the murder of a public official. The 32-year-old White, who had been in the Army during the , had run on a tough anti-crime platform in his district. He was to have received an award the next week for rescuing a woman and child from a 17-story burning building when he was a firefighter in 1977. Milk and White at first got along well. White had voted to support a center for gay seniors, and to honor 's 25th anniversary and pioneering work. Harvey Milk's hard work and accomplishments on behalf of all San Franciscans earned him widespread respect and support. His life is an inspiration to all people committed to equal opportunity and an end to bigotry. The plaque covering Milk's ashes in front of 575 Castro Street After Milk's vote for the mental health facility in White's district, however, White refused to speak with Milk and communicated with only one of Milk's aides. Other acquaintances remembered White as very intense. He was an extremely competitive man, obsessively so... White's first campaign manager quit in the middle of the campaign, and told a reporter that White was an egotist and it was clear that he was antigay, though he denied it in the press. When Milk's friends looked in his closet for a suit for his casket, they learned how much he had been affected by the recent decrease in his income as a supervisor. All of his clothes were coming apart and all of his socks had holes. His remains were cremated and his ashes were split. His closest friends scattered most of the ashes in. Other ashes were encapsulated and buried beneath the sidewalk in front of 575 Castro Street, where Castro Camera had been located. There is a memorial to Milk at the , ground floor, San Francisco, California. Trial and conviction Further information: and Dan White's arrest and trial caused a sensation and illustrated severe tensions between the liberal population and the city police. The San Francisco Police were mostly working-class Irish descendants who intensely disliked the growing gay immigration as well as the liberal direction of the city government. The jury for White's trial consisted of white middle-class San Franciscans who were mostly Catholic; gays and ethnic minorities were excused from the jury pool. Some of the members of the jury cried when they heard White's tearful recorded confession, at the end of which the interrogator thanked White for his honesty. Schmidt said that White's mental deterioration was demonstrated and exacerbated by his junk food binge the night before the murders, since he was usually known to have been health-food conscious. Area newspapers quickly dubbed it the. White was acquitted of the first degree murder charge on May 21, 1979, but found guilty of of both victims, and he was sentenced to serve seven and two-thirds years. With the sentence reduced for time served and good behavior, he would be released in five. He cried when he heard the verdict. White Night riots Rioters outside , May 21, 1979, reacting to the verdict for. Acting Mayor Feinstein, Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver, and Milk's successor Harry Britt condemned the jury's decision. Pandemonium rapidly escalated as rocks were hurled at the front doors of the building. Milk's friends and aides tried to stop the destruction, but the mob of more than 3,000 ignored them and lit police cars on fire. They shoved a burning newspaper dispenser through the broken doors of City Hall, then cheered as the flames grew. That's why this is happening. The , as they became known, lasted several hours. Later that evening, several police cruisers filled with officers wearing riot gear arrived at the Elephant Walk Bar on Castro Street. Harvey Milk's and a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Warren Hinckle, watched as officers stormed into the bar and began to beat patrons at random. After a 15-minute melee, they left the bar and struck out at people walking along the street. The chief of police finally ordered the officers out of the neighborhood. By morning, 61 police officers and 100 rioters and gay residents of the Castro had been hospitalized. After the verdict, District Attorney Joseph Freitas faced a furious gay community to explain what had gone wrong. The prosecutor admitted to feeling sorry for White before the trial, and neglected to ask the interrogator who had recorded White's confession and who was a childhood friend of White's and his police softball team coach about his biases and the support White received from the police because, he said, he did not want to embarrass the detective in front of his family in court. Nor did Freitas question White's frame of mind, lack of a history of mental illness, or bring into evidence city politics, suggesting that revenge may have been a motive. Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver testified on the last day of the trial that White and Milk were not friendly, yet she had contacted the prosecutor and insisted on testifying. It was the only testimony the jury heard about their strained relationship. Aftermath The murders of Milk and Moscone and White's trial changed city politics and the California legal system. In 1980, San Francisco ended district supervisor elections, fearing that a Board of Supervisors so divisive would be harmful to the city and that they had been a factor in the assassinations. A grassroots neighborhood effort to restore district elections in the mid-1990s proved successful, and the city returned to neighborhood representatives in 2000. As a result of Dan White's trial, California voters changed the law to reduce the likelihood of acquittals of accused who knew what they were doing but claimed their capacity was impaired. Diminished capacity was abolished as a defense to a charge, but courts allowed evidence of it when deciding whether to incarcerate, commit, or otherwise punish a convicted defendant. Dan White served a little more than five years for the double homicide of Moscone and Milk. On October 21, 1985 a year and a half after his release from prison , White was found dead by carbon monoxide poisoning in a running car in his ex-wife's garage. He was 39 years old. At the onset of each campaign, an issue was added to Milk's public political philosophy. His 1973 campaign focused on the first point, that as a small business owner in San Francisco—a city dominated by large corporations that had been courted by municipal government—his interests were being overlooked because he was not represented by a large financial institution. Although he did not hide the fact that he was gay, it did not become an issue until his race for the California State Assembly in 1976. It was brought to the fore in the supervisor race against Rick Stokes, as it was an extension of his ideas of individual freedom. Milk strongly believed that neighborhoods promoted unity and a small-town experience, and that the Castro should provide services to all its residents. He opposed the closing of an elementary school; even though most gay people in the Castro did not have children, Milk saw his neighborhood having the potential to welcome everyone. He told his aides to concentrate on fixing and boasted that 50 new stop signs had been installed in District 5. Responding to city residents' largest complaint about living in San Francisco—dog feces—Milk made it a priority to enact the ordinance requiring dog owners to take care of their pets' droppings. He also provided a means to integrate the disparate voices of his various constituencies. 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. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone. In the last year of his life, Milk emphasized that gay people should be more visible to help to end the discrimination and. Although Milk had not come out to his mother before her death many years before, in his final statement during his taped prediction of his assassination, he urged others to do so: I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects... I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help. However, Milk's assassination has become entwined with his political efficacy, partly because he was killed at the zenith of his popularity. He had died, and with him a great deal of the Castro's optimism, idealism, and ambition seemed to die as well. The Castro could find no one to take his place in its affections, and possibly wanted no one. Where Market and Castro streets intersect in San Francisco flies an enormous , situated in Harvey Milk Plaza. The San Francisco Gay Democratic Club changed its name to the Harvey Milk Memorial Gay Democratic Club in 1978 it is currently named the and boasts that it is the largest Democratic organization in San Francisco. In New York City, is a school program for at-risk youth that concentrates on the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students and operates out of the. In July 2016, US advised Congress that he intended to name the second ship of the 's ,. All ships of the class are to be named after civil rights leaders. In 1982, freelance reporter completed his first book: a biography of Milk, titled. Shilts wrote the book while unable to find a steady job as an openly gay reporter. It was just a really brief, provincial, localized current events story that the mayor and a city council member in San Francisco were killed. It didn't have much reverberation. The film was directed by and starred as Milk and as Dan White, and won two for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor. He believed that no sacrifice was too great a price to pay for the cause of human rights. Milk's nephew accepted for his uncle. Shortly after, Stuart co-founded the with with the support of , co-recipient of 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom and now a member of the Foundation's Advisory Board. Since 2003, the story of Harvey Milk has been featured in three exhibitions created by the , a San Francisco—based museum, archives, and research center, to which the estate of Scott Smith donated Milk's personal belongings that were preserved after his death. On May 22, 2014, the issued a honoring Harvey Milk, the first openly political official to receive this honor. The stamp features a photo taken in front of Milk's Castro Camera store and was unveiled on what would have been his 84th birthday. Harvey was a prophet... Something very special is going to happen in this city and it will have Harvey Milk's name on it. In November 2017 plans were presented for a stepped memorial plaza in the Castro district designed by American architecture firm. Sipple, who was wounded in the head in Vietnam, was also diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia. He held no ill will toward Milk, however, and remained in contact with him. The incident brought him so much attention that, later in life while drinking, he stated that he regretted having grabbed Moore's gun. Eventually Sipple regained contact with his mother and brother, but continued to be rejected by his father. He kept the letter written by Gerald Ford, framed, in his apartment, until he died of pneumonia in 1989. If they're a legitimate minority, then so are nail biters, dieters, fat people, short people, and murderers. As the special election drew near, a Florida state senator read the aloud to the senate, and the governor went on record against the civil rights ordinance. Feinstein pointed him toward commercial developers at near where he and his wife set up a walk-up restaurant called The Hot Potato. Not amused, his landlord tripled the rent for the storefront and the apartment above, where Milk lived. July 24, 2008, at the. Retrieved on September 7, 2008. Douglass Elementary in the Castro District was renamed the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy in 1996 December 18, 2008, at the. Retrieved September 8, 2008. It is located at 1 Court, named for the first openly gay man to run for public office in the United States. Retrieved September 25, 2008. On what would have been Milk's 78th birthday, a bust of his likeness was unveiled in at the top of the grand staircase. On June 2, 2008 a bust of Harvey Milk was accepted into the Civic Art Collection during a meeting of the Full Commission. Designed by the , Firmin, Hendrickson Sculpture Group with the principal sculptor. The work was unveiled during a gala party at San Francisco's City Hall on May 22, 2008, what would have been Milk's 78th birthday Engraved in the pedestal is a quotation from one of the audiotapes Milk recorded in the event of his assassination, which he openly predicted several times before his death. You gotta give 'em hope. Retrieved on September 8, 2008. Published May 22, 2012. Retrieved May 23, 2012. Retrieved April 14, 2018. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. Retrieved 5 July 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2010. Retrieved on October 8, 2008. Retrieved 2 July 2018. Retrieved January 18, 2009. Biography Resource Center Online. Reproduced in , Farmington Hills, Mich. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. San Francisco: Ray Broshears. Retrieved April 25, 2017. Retrieved September 6, 2008. DVD, Pacific Arts, 1984. Retrieved on September 6, 2008. Retrieved September 11, 2008. Viewed August 17, 2008. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed. Retrieved on September 9, 2008. The Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club website. Retrieved September 8, 2008. April 20, 2008, at the. Hetrick Martin Institute, 2008. Retrieved on September 7, 2008. San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved November 27, 2016. Paris: Actes Sud , 95 pages. Retrieved February 22, 2009. Retrieved on October 8, 2008. Retrieved on October 8, 2008. Retrieved August 12, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2011. October 15, 2009, at the. Retrieved October 12, 2009. The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved March 22, 2015. Retrieved on July 9. Retrieved November 1, 2013. Retrieved May 23, 2014. Retrieved April 14, 2018. Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, St. San Francisco's Castro, Arcadia Publishing. Left Out: the Politics of Exclusion: Essays, 1964—1999, Basic Books. Out In the Castro: Desire, Promise, Activism, Leyland Publications. Making Gay History, HarperCollins Publishers. The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, St. Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation, ABC-CLIO. Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, Vince Emery Productions. Political offices Preceded by District Created January 8, 1978 — November 27, 1978 Succeeded by.
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