Before Barack Obama, there was Harvey Milk.
A politician who brought a message of hope and empowerment to a place that had suffered under years of conservative rule. Who broke down a major barrier for a group of long-persecuted Americans. Who knew how to reach out to sometimes hostile and different groups to build a coalition for change.
30 years ago today Harvey Milk, the first openly homosexual person elected to office in America, was assassinated in San Francisco City Hall by a fellow Supervisor, Dan White. White went on to kill Milk’s close ally and another great San Francisco liberal, Mayor George Moscone.
As the new Gus Van Sant/Sean Penn biopic hits theaters this week, it seemed worthwhile to take a look back at Harvey Milk, and remind ourselves why he matters to ALL of us, 30 years later. Especially when we’ve had our own November tragedy surrounding gay rights.
The genius and the lasting importance of Harvey Milk is that he matched his advocacy of equal rights with a progressive approach to government and movement building. He is rightly seen as one of THE leading gay rights activists of the 20th century. But to stop there is to miss the full picture of what he did. Milk was a populist at heart, someone who deeply believed that government should be responsive to the people, that a nation in which power was held by the few and not by the many was an unfair and unjust place.
Milk sought to help gays attain the equal rights they deserved – but he also wanted to help ALL people obtain the freedoms they were owed. Milk was a transformative politician for San Francisco, a figure who helped take a town governed by centrist Republicans and turned it into the progressive stronghold we know it as today. Barack Obama would understand exactly what Harvey was doing.
In 1978 – his only year in office – Milk continued to work for change. He helped secure passage of one of the first gay rights laws anywhere in America in a close 6-5 vote on the Board of Supervisors. He also fought real estate developers and demanded greater civilian oversight of the police.
It was in the summer of 1978, at the Gay Freedom Day rally, that he gave perhaps his most famous speech – the “hope speech.” Shortly before the 2008 election the speech was set to animation and uploaded to YouTube.
Somewhere in Des Moines or San Antonio there is a young gay person who all the sudden realizes that he or she is gay; knows that if their parents find out they will be tossed out of the house, their classmates will taunt the child, and the Anita Bryant’s and John Briggs’ are doing their part on TV.
And that child has several options: staying in the closet, and suicide. And then one day that child might open the paper that says “Homosexual elected in San Francisco” and there are two new options: the option is to go to California, or stay in San Antonio and fight.
Two days after I was elected I got a phone call and the voice was quite young. It was from Altoona, Pennsylvania. And the person said “Thanks”. And you’ve got to elect gay people, so that thousand upon thousands like that child know that there is hope for a better world; there is hope for a better tomorrow. Without hope, not only gays, but those who are blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s: without hope the us’s give up. I know that you can’t live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you, and you have got to give them hope.
Milk also recognized that his high profile made him a target. He routinely received death threats. They rattled and unnerved him, especially as by 1978 the backlash against the gay rights movement was in full swing. Milk didn’t let them stop him. But he also understood what would happen if he were shot. Milk made a recording to be played in the event of his assassination that included the phrase: “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet open every closet door in America.”
Unfortunately, a bullet did enter his brain. And it came from a fellow Supervisor, Dan White, a conservative who had resigned his seat a week earlier due to money problems but wanted it back. White had resented Milk, resented the gays and the hippies and all the social changes that had taken place in San Francisco that to White, Milk represented. White then shot and killed Mayor Moscone. All this happened on November 27, 1978 – 30 years ago today.
Milk wanted his assassination, should it occur, to be a mobilizing moment. An opportunity to rally a city and a nation for progressive change. “Don’t mourn, organize” might have been something he’d have agreed with. San Francisco’s first reaction was indeed to mourn. That night, 30 years ago today, thousands of San Franciscans marched in a silent candlelit vigil from Castro Street, down Market Street to City Hall. They were there to mourn, but also to remind themselves that Harvey’s spirit and his legacy would live on.
Last February I had the opportunity to participate in a reenactment of that march. The “Milk” filmmakers had been in SF for a few weeks shooting on location and they wanted to recreate that moment, and put out a casting call for extras. My wife and I dressed up in the best 1970s clothes we had and drove up to SF for the all-night shoot. It was a cold evening, but an inspiring one.
I wasn’t even alive when Milk was killed, nor were many in that crowd. But some were. Several had been in that march 30 years earlier. I talked with many of them and they were feeling a mixture of emotions – elation, sorrow, amazement. We got our candles and marched down Market Street as directed, but as soon as we were on the move, the mood changed. It wasn’t a film shoot any longer. We all felt like we were there to honor Harvey Milk, and that the cameras were incidental. The march was totally silent – but empowered. As we left Market Street that night there was a sense of determination to ensure that progressive change and gay rights would animate our movement in 2008 just as they animated Harvey Milk’s movement in 1978.
We have faced our own tragedy this November. The passage of Proposition 8 is a devastating blow to all of us. It reminds us that bigots and homophobes still have power and influence in our country.
But we’re going to beat them. Because we’re going to remember Harvey Milk this week and remember what he taught us.
He taught us you’ve gotta give ’em hope. By insisting that we do not accept the passage of Prop 8, by organizing protests and a movement to repeal it, we are giving a new generation of LGBT Americans hope. We’re showing that even though a political bullet has been fired through the California Constitution, we’re going to make damn sure that it opens every closet door in America.
Milk also taught us to build coalitions. The No on 8 campaign forgot that lesson. They failed to do the outreach to all Californians – African American, Latino, Asian American groups had been pleading with the No on 8 campaign for months to be involved but were routinely ignored, only contacted in the final weeks if at all.
Milk would never have made that mistake. Milk fully understood that gay rights is something that all people must embrace. Coalitions must be made not just because it’s the winning strategy, but also because it’s the right strategy. The empowering strategy. The strategy that takes a movement for equality and turns it into a movement that, as in San Francisco, can reshape an entire politics.
We are going to repeal Prop 8 the right way – by listening to the lessons Harvey Milk taught us.
Already over 300,000 people have signed a petition to repeal Prop 8 that the Courage Campaign (where I work) launched shortly after Election Day. We were animated by the same feelings of loss and determination that San Franciscans felt the night Milk was killed.
Sign the petition to repeal Prop 8 if you haven’t already done so. Make sure your friends and family do as well.
And if they need convincing, remind them of Harvey Milk. A man who understood the value of hope. Of building coalitions. Of empowering the people to make their OWN change.
