LGBTQ+ Spotlight: Harvey Milk

Born in New York, Harvey Milk had a quiet childhood - upon his graduation, he voluntarily enlisted into the Navy for the Korean War. He was discharged in 1955 as a lieutenant, junior grade, at the age of 25. The next year, he began a six-year same-sex relationship, his longest. He would end a later relationship in 1962 as that partner was a participant in the radical gay liberation organization, the Mattachine Society, which used direct-action strategies that antagonized the police. This was anathema to Harvey Milk, at the time a conservative who worked as an insurance actuary, and then a researcher for a Wall Street investment bank. He would later recruit another future partner to the 1964 Presidential campaign of the Republican Barry Goldwater.

In 1969, that partner and Milk moved to San Francisco, the centre of the nation's LGBT subculture at the time. With the end of World War II, the port city of San Francisco hosted many gay men who were expelled from the military as it drew down who feared returning home as dishonourable dischargees. Although that relationship, too, ended, Milk chose to settle down in San Francisco, working for an investment firm. However, after the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, Milk joined the hippie subculture, being fired from the firm for wearing his hair long. He thus became a drifter, moving from California, to Texas, and then New York. In 1973 he returned, not to conservatism, but to San Francisco, to start a camera store. That store led him to take an interest in local policy, but it was the blunt deflections of Republican Attorney-General John Mitchell during the Watergate hearings that convinced him he "had to become involved or shut up."
As a political newcomer, Milk was opposed by the Democratic gay establishment. Gay politicians in the area who had been putting together networks over several years resented Milk, believing that he had not yet earned his place as an election nominee. Nevertheless, he chose to ran as a Democrat in the 1973 city election. His culturally progressive platform was popular, but he had neither funding nor staff members, coming 10th of 32 candidates. Nevertheless, he now had credibility as a local gay opinion leader. The Teamsters, a leading American trade union, were planning a strike against beer distributors, particularly Coors, and they approached Milk to negotiate for gay bars to participate in a boycott. In turn, Milk convinced the Teamsters to recruit more gay drivers. With the support of ethnic grocers recruited by the Teamsters to join the boycott, it was successful in pressuring Coors' competitors into joining the desired union contract, and ended Coors' dominance of the Californian beer market.

In 1977, Milk was elected city commissioner, making him the first openly-gay man to win an American election without incumbency. He sponsored a successful local bill that outlawed discrimination of sexual orientation, "the most stringent and encompassing in the nation." His last victory was against the Briggs Initiative, which made it mandatory to fire public school employees for being gay or even supportive of gay rights, reuniting him with organized labour. Thanks largely to Milk's state-wide counter-campaign, the proposition went from polling at 61% support to failing on 58.4% opposition. Just twenty days later, Milk would be shot and killed by one of his fellow election-winners, Dan White. It was an untimely end he had presaged before his election; "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door".

Read more:
A contemporaneous obituary; on his electoral career: https://www.advocate.com/politics/2018/11/27/harvey-milks-original-advocate-obituary-1979
On LGBTQ union activism at the Coors beer boycott: https://www.liberationnews.org/the-coors-boycott-the-lgbt-movement-and-the-peoples-counter-offensive-against-the-right/
An interview of Harvey Milk by Juana Samayoa, on the Briggs Initiative (Proposition 6): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVlxq7wqgeU
Harvey Milk's "Hope Speech", on gay pride: http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~jklumpp/ARD/MilkSpeech.pdf
A recitation of the "Hope Speech" by Ian McKellan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAOjMQcCu2o