Harvey Milk Day

Today, 22 May, was Harvey Milk's birthday. He was born in 1930. In 1976 he successfully ran for a spot on the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco; he was the first openly gay man to win an election for public office in the United States.

Last night, 21 May, was another significant anniversary in this arc of history: the 30th anniversary of the "White Night Riots" in San Francisco. The previous year, on 27 November 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a former city supervisor. White was acquitted of murder but found guilty of voluntary manslaughter by his all-white jury of peers, receiving a mere seven and two-thirds years sentence.

When the verdict was announced the community was outraged. Rallies became protests became a night of rioting in a gay backlash that had not been seen since the days of the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969.

This bit of history is powerful, emotional stuff for me. My homo awareness was still very limited at the time. I may have heard about Harvey's death in college. When White's verdict I definitely heard about it and his notorious "twinkie defense". Naturally, I also heard about the absurdly small sentence and probably heard about the riots, but also probably not feeling terribly involved personally. I was just starting graduate school at the time.

Later those events grew in importance. I read Randy Shilts' book "The Mayor of Castro Street : The Life and Times of Harvey Milk". Some time later I saw the documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk" (the entire 87 minute film is available to watch free at hulu.com). I cried.

That film begins with the unforgettable moment when Diane Feinstein, then also a Supervisor, announced the murders of Milk and Moscone. I can easily remember still the cries of shock and disbelief that came from the people attending the press conference. I still cry.

Via Joe.My.God, here is an interesting, contemporary news-film clip about the riot. I've watched it once today, and that's probably enough for me for awhile.



Posted on May 22, 2009 at 18.43 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook

2 Responses

Subscribe to comments via RSS

  1. Written by chris
    on Saturday, 23 May 2009 at 10.40
    Permalink

    Last night, 21 November, was another significant anniversary in this arc of history: the 30th anniversary of the "White Night Riots" in San Francisco.

    I think you mean 21 May

  2. Written by jns
    on Saturday, 23 May 2009 at 11.03
    Permalink

    I certainly did! As you know my relationship with time's passing is sometimes rather flexible. I've fixed it now. Thanks.

Subscribe to comments via RSS

Leave a Reply

To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.

I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.