Advertise Here

Direct your United Way Donations to the TCC!

Who Was Harvey Milk and why is he important?

Part 1. The Times of Harvey Milk
By Luke Gilleran

(The following is part one of a two part article celebrating the contributions of Harvey Milk to the LGBT cause, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of his assassination in San Francisco’s City Hall, November 27th, 1978.)

How do you describe Harvey Milk in a sentence or two to people who don’t know of him, or his contribution to civil rights? In most cases he is referred to as “the first openly-gay elected official in the United States,” which by today’s standards, lacks newsworthiness. And after a public life of only five years in which he won only one of three election campaigns, and served only eleven months in office, yet his memorial service was attended by every member of the California Supreme Court, the year following his assassination 250,000 gays and lesbians marched on Washington D.C. in his memory; Time Magazine included Milk in their end-of-millennium, “Time’s 100 Most Important People of the Century;” a statue of his likeness was recently placed in San Francisco’s City Hall; and weeks ago the California legislature approved a bill that would have made Milk’s birthday a state day of recognition (it was subsequently vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger). Exactly who was Harvey Milk, and why is he important?

In the book, The Mayor of Castro Street, author Randy Shilts deftly uses Milk’s biography as the prototypical gay life, and in doing so his book serves as one of the best and most detailed accounts of the gay experience in the 1930’s through the 1970’s. In his Author’s Note which begins the book, Shilts says, “There are times, rare times, when the forces of social change collide with a series of dramatic events to produce moments which are later called historic… The story of Harvey Milk is, to a large extent, the story of the gay movement in San Francisco, and, ultimately the nation”. Shilts knew that to appreciate Harvey Milk’s contribution to Civil Rights one has to understand “the times of Harvey Milk”.

The gay experience has been described by psychologists as the most difficult of all minority experiences as it most separates the person from the rest of society. Other minorities, possess three reliable social lifelines to family, peers and church. From the 1930’s until recently, when a gay person’s secret was discovered, instantly those institutions turned from most trusted and significant sources of love and support, to sources of devastating rejection. Historically many with feelings of same sex attraction desperately tried to stay hidden and led lives characterized by stark fear, loneliness, and self-loathing, in most cases. Recent events underscore that the role the church can play in making the gay experience difficult, is as relevant today as ever. In the past, for those few who accepted their sexual orientation, an element of the loneliness stemmed from the inability to find the like-minded who also took great pains to stay hidden.

After World War II gay bars emerged, yet in the 1950’s, patronizing a gay bar—if one could be found—placed a person in jeopardy of police raids, harassment, and entrapment. In many states, New York and California included, it was a crime to knowingly serve a drink to a homosexual, and the establishment could be closed down as a result (ultimately it would be these police sorties that many years later would anger patrons of the Stonewall). Those arrested during raids often avoided prosecution as the chief goal of law enforcement was to harass gays and “keep them in their place.” Nonetheless, many gays were destined to live lives of shame and unemployment when, following a ride in a paddy wagon, employers and families were notified of the reason for the arrest. In California, being arrested for engaging in a “homosexual act” meant having to register as a sex offender, and as the fear of gay bars grew, many retreated to cruising parks to meet one another, but plainclothesmen prowled the parks too, entrapping gays into acts of “solicitation for deviant purposes”. Suicides were often the postscript of the fear and shame of these arrests, and just as with the victims of black lynchings in the South, the true number of gay suicides resulting from being found out to be homosexual will most likely never be known.

From the 1930’s to the 1960’s, entrapment of gays was common in San Francisco. From time to time, police in plain clothes would stake out theaters known to be popular homosexual cruising spots, and entice gays into performing oral sex. After a brief period of sexual contact, the policeman would suggest going outside to find a more comfortable and private place to continue. In the darkness of the theatre the gay patron would not notice the other man had covered his genitals with mercurochrome. Vice squadders waiting in the lobby immediately arrested anyone who emerged with telltale red on their lips and mouth. San Francisco was a disembarking and returning port for soldiers going to and from stations in the Pacific theatre of operations, and the city had a large population of transient military men strolling the streets in uniform. Those more enterprising G.I.’s donned their tightest blues and memorized the license plates of cars that slowed and whose male drivers gazed longingly. With help from police with access to motor vehicle and voting registers, the driver’s address was traced and within a week he received a letter extorting money by indicating family and employer would be notified of the driver’s inclinations if the money was not forthcoming. San Francisco also was the default dumping ground for thousands of soldiers drummed out of the military for admitting to or being suspected of being gay. Thousands of suspected homosexuals fired from State Department jobs during the McCarthy era witch hunts, flocked to San Francisco hoping to find some acceptance.

The chaos of the 1960’s provided cover under which gays, particularly in San Francisco could begin to come forward out of darkness. New gay organizations were above ground and political in nature. Gay leaders emerged giving voice to this new “force,” and slowly advancing the radical notion that simply curtailing harassment was not enough, and that gays also had rights. Gays from all over the world packed their bags and took off for what was now the epicenter of the gay world. Harvey Milk was one of these new emigrants.

As the gay population in San Francisco grew, gay leaders struggled to galvanize gays into a cohesive cultural force and determine the best way to obtain acceptance. The prominent leaders who preceded Milk believed the best way to gain rights was to approach liberal straight politicians and have them work on behalf of gays to make inroads in the political process. They felt the world lacked readiness for gay politicians and that working behind the scenes to gain favor with accepting “friends” was the best approach. Harvey Milk disagreed. He felt the current approach of gay leaders would result in only “crumbs” and gays would have to rise up and take what they wanted just as the blacks did in the Montgomery.

But first he would have to convince gays of their worthiness, and convince the straight community it was in their best interest to give gays what they asked for. Milk was the first to recognize a gay “community” that voted and purchased as a group. Moreover, he recognized the potential leverage this would provide in seeking equality. The stage was set, the audience had filed in and Harvey Milk relished the potential of what was to become his theatre. Harvey Milk would transform what had been a social movement into a political one by showing gays their power and how to use it.

The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, Part 2, “Power to the People” discusses the specific contributions of Harvey Milk to LGBT civil rights. Click here to read it now.