Harvey Milk

Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Milk was born and raised in New York, where he acknowledged his homosexuality as an adolescent, but chose to pursue sexual relationships with secrecy and discretion well into his adult years.

Milk graduated from Bay Shore High School in Bay Shore, New York, in 1947 and attended New York State College for Teachers in Albany (now the State University of New York at Albany) from 1947 to 1951, majoring in mathematics.

He also wrote for the college newspaper.

One classmate remembered, "He was never thought of as a possible queer—that's what you called them then—he was a man's man".

After graduation, Milk joined the United States Navy during the Korean War.

He served aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) as a diving officer.

He later transferred to Naval Station, San Diego to serve as a diving instructor.

In 1955, he resigned from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, forced to accept an "other than honorable" discharge and leave the service rather than face a court-martial because of his homosexuality.

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 George W. Hewlett High School on Long Island.

In 1956, he met Joe Campbell at the Jacob Riis Park beach, a popular location for gay men in Queens.

Milk pursued Campbell passionately.

Even after they moved in together, Milk wrote Campbell romantic notes and poems.

Seeking a warmer climate with milder winters, Milk and Campbell left New York in 1957 and moved to Dallas, Texas; after they struggled to find employment and were disappointed with the city's social scene compared to New York, they moved back to the latter.

In New York, Milk worked as a public school teacher in Long Island and then a stock analyst in Manhattan.

His experience in the counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and the expression of sexuality.

In 1961, Campbell and Milk separated after almost six years.

Milk tried to keep his early romantic life separate from his family and work.

Once again bored and single in New York, he thought of moving to Miami to marry a lesbian friend to "have a front and each would not be in the way of the other".

Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera store.

Although he had been restless, holding an assortment of jobs and changing addresses frequently, he settled in the Castro, a neighborhood that at the time was experiencing a mass immigration of gay men and lesbians.

He was compelled to run for city supervisor in 1973, though he encountered resistance from the existing gay political establishment.

His campaign was compared to theater; he was brash, outspoken, animated, and outrageous, earning media attention and votes, although not enough to be elected.

He campaigned again in the next two supervisor elections, dubbing himself the "Mayor of Castro Street".

Voters responded enough to warrant his running for the California State Assembly as well.

Taking advantage of his growing popularity, he led the gay political movement in fierce battles against anti-gay initiatives.

Milk was elected city supervisor in 1977 after San Francisco reorganized its election procedures to choose representatives from neighborhoods rather than through city-wide ballots.

Milk served almost eleven months in office, during which he sponsored a bill banning discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Supervisors passed the bill by a vote of 11–1, and it was signed into law by Mayor George Moscone.

On November 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk's bill.

Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the LGBT community.

In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significant openly LGBT official ever elected in the United States".

Anne Kronenberg, his final campaign manager, wrote of him: "What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary. He imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us."

Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Milk was born in the New York City suburb of Woodmere, to William Milk and Minerva Karns.

He was the younger son of Lithuanian Jewish parents and the grandson of Morris Milk, a department store owner who helped to organize the first synagogue in the area.

As a child, Milk 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 opera.

Under his name in the high school yearbook, it read, "Glimpy Milk—and they say WOMEN are never at a loss for words".