Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Politics and gay activism were not his early interests; he was not open about his homosexuality and did not participate in civic matters until around the age of 40, after his experiences in the counterculture of the 1960s.
Milk moved from New York City to settle in San Francisco in 1972 amid a migration of gay men to the Castro District. He took advantage of the growing political and economic power of the neighborhood to promote his interests, and ran unsuccessfully for political office three times. His theatrical campaigns earned him increasing popularity, and Milk won a seat as a city supervisor in 1977.
Milk served almost 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, another city supervisor who had recently resigned but wanted his job back. Milk's election was made possible by and was a key component of a shift in San Francisco politics.
The controversial director John Dew originally suggested the idea for a stage work based on the life of Harvey Milk to David Gockley, at the time General Director of Houston Grand Opera. Gockley then approached the composer Stewart Wallace and his librettist Michael Korie who were looking for new opera subject, having previously collaborated on the dance opera Kabbalah and the two-act opera Where's Dick which had its world premiere at Houston Grand Opera in 1989. According to Gockley, Dew's original conception to stage the work as a musical was "very, very weird, with strange dreamlike drag ballets and the like. He had a distorted idea of the subject." Gockley's relationship with Dew subsequently deteriorated in 1992 when Dew went to Houston to direct the premiere of Robert Moran's opera, Desert of Roses. When both the opera company and Wallace found Dew's concept unacceptable, Harvey Milk took form as an opera instead. The production, jointly commissioned by Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, and San Francisco Opera, premiered on January 21, 1995 in Houston. It was directed by Christopher Alden with set designs by Paul Steinberg and choreography by Ross Petty.
Harvey Milk formed in 1992, naming themselves after Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected in a major U.S. city. Originally a trio of Creston Spiers, Stephen Tanner, and Paul Trudeau, the band released one album, My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment of What My Love Could Be, before Trudeau left in 1996. They disbanded in 1998 but reformed in 2006.
On June 3, 2008, Harvey Milk released Life... The Best Game in Town. The band toured the eastern and southern US as well as Germany, England, Belgium, France and Scotland during the Summer of 2008. Life... The Best Game in Town was voted as the best album of 2008 in Rock-A-Rolla magazine writer's poll, although guitarist/vocalist Creston Spiers sees it as the band's worst album.
"More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion."
"If a bullet should go through my head let that bullet go through every closet door."
"Hope will never be silent"
"all young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential."
"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."
"My name is Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you."
"It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions."
"If I do a good job, people won't care if I am green or have three heads."
"Never take an elevator in city hall."
"Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight."
"I have tasted freedom. I will not give up that which I have tasted."
"The fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, THAT my friends, is true perversion."
"All over the country, they're reading about me, and the story doesn't center on me being gay. It's just about a gay person who is doing his job."
"Hope will never be silent."
"Coming out is the most political thing you can do."
Later that year, civil rights pioneer HarveyMilk endorsed Carter in a column in the Bay Area Reporter, calling him a “man who believes that the government has no business in a person’s bedroom.” Milk ...
She writes about running out of film and stopping at the Castro Camera store, where owner HarveyMilk urged her to merge politics and aesthetics into social action ... are testament to Milk's advice.
The latter drink, named after slain San Francisco politician HarveyMilk, comes in a glass milk carton with a red and white straw. "It looks like it's a milk carton that you would have in elementary school, but it's glass," Orman-Ristaino said.
Rob Epstein, the two-time Oscar-winning co-director of “The Times of HarveyMilk,” told TheWrap, “We stay, we tell stories, and we resist through our work.
It’s time to open up the voting for the next category in The Oregonian’s Readers Choice Awards. the best food cart in the Portland area ... The 10 spots below had the most nods ... Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024 ... Cookie McCakeface ... HarveyMilk St., 11.30 a.m.-3.30 p.m.
USPS pays homage to Betty White with postage stamp feature ... In more recent years it has honored HarveyMilk, one of the nation's first openly gay elected officials before he was assassinated in 1978 as well as deaf studies pioneer Robert Panara.
The night culminated in a special screening of Gus Van Sant’s Milk, honouring Penn’s Oscar-winning portrayal of activist Harvey Milk, a role that embodied his commitment to telling impactful stories.
source. @Scott_Wiener on X ... source. @ClarenceforGA on X ... source. @Metis65 on X ... source. @typesfaster on X ... source ... Homosexuals are indeed overrepresented among sex offenders and conservatives will often point out that gay icon HarveyMilk was a pederast ... ....
