harvey milk

Born in 1930, in many ways Harvey Milk seemed like the all-American boy living the American Dream. From a family of Jewish Lithuanian heritage, Milk was a popular and athletic high school and college student. After college, he served in the US Navy during the Korean War as a specialist diver and instructor, receiving an honorable discharge with the rank of lieutenant in 1955. Thereafter, he found it difficult to settle down until he eventually found professional success on Wall Street. It wasn’t until he was almost 40 years old that Milk joined the counterculture that had largely passed him by throughout most of the 1960s. Becoming a hippie at a time when most hippies were setting their headbands and beads aside, Milk came out as gay and turned his back on the conventional life that he had publicly led.

Moving to San Francisco in 1972, Milk shifted character once more. Suddenly seeking election to public office (after only a few months of living in the city), he soon ditched the hippie look for the smart attire of a professional politician. With enormous drive and energy - and some questionable methods - he strove to become the first openly gay person to be elected to public office, which he achieved in 1977 when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

His death the following year, at the hands of a former city supervisor, generated anger and sadness amongst the many people - gays, lesbians, and others in his district - who he sought to represent. He has gone down in history as an icon of the LGBT struggle in the United States; but less well know is his connection to one of the darkest chapters in the history of San Francisco - the People’s Temple of Jim Jones.

harvey milk

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