Harvey Milk day is marked this Thursday 22nd May and passed the US senate in 2010. Have you heard of Harvey Milk? What about Stuart Milk or the Milk Foundation?
Harvey Milk was an LGBTI hero and leader in the civil rights movement. There are many brave people who have paved the way for us today and some; Harvey for example gave their life to fight for equal rights.
I only heard about Harvey Milk a handful of years ago. I learned he was one of the first openly gay officials elected, this was in the USA and the year was 1977. He didn't complete a year in office because he was assassinated within his first year in office. His nephew Stuart Milk was 17 at the time and following in his uncle's bold footsteps moved to ensure that his legacy was not lost and his support of all marginalized groups continued to prosper locally, nationally and globally. While Harvey Milk championed civil right for the LGBTI community he was also a civil and human rights activist.
A commitment to serving a broad constituency, not just LGBT people, helped make Milk an effective and popular supervisor. His ambitious reform agenda included protecting gay rights—he sponsored an important anti-discrimination bill—as well as establishing day care centers for working mothers, the conversion of military facilities in the city to low-cost housing, reform of the tax code to attract industry to deserted warehouses and factories, and other issues. He was a powerful advocate for strong, safe neighborhoods, and pressured the mayor’s administration to improve services for the Castro such as library services, and community policing. In addition, he spoke out on state and national issues of interest to LGBT people, women, racial and ethnic minorities and other marginalized communities
Stuart commenced the Milk Foundation alongside Harvey's campaign manager Anne Kronenberg.
This quote from Harvey wraps his view up much more clearly than I could.
In one of his eloquent speeches, Milk spoke of the American ideal of equality, proclaiming, “Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. … We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I’m going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out.”
Harvey Milk was fully aware that his life was at risk. He received up to daily death threats and he prepared himself for the thought that he may be assassinated.
One of his tapes contained the now-famous statement, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” His nephew, Stuart Milk, a teenager at the time, and close with his uncle, came out, along with countless others across the nation, on the day his uncle was killed. Shortly after Milk’s death, people marching for gay rights in Washington, D.C., chanted “Harvey Milk lives!”
His murderer was sentence to less than 8 years prison.
All quotes on this page come from Milk Foundation Website Learn more about Harvey Milk and his legacy Here
Give Harvey a thought on Thursday and a thank you for all he gave.
A
Adele Fisher Copyright 2014
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