Milk's early career was marked by frequent changes in later years he would take delight in talking about his metamorphosis from a middle-class Jewish boy. In 1955, he resigned from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, forced to accept an "other than honorable" discharge and leave the service rather than face a court-martial because of his homosexuality. He later transferred to Naval Station, San Diego to serve as a diving instructor. He served aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) as a diving officer. Early careerĪfter graduation, Milk joined the United States Navy during the Korean War. One classmate remembered, "He was never thought of as a possible queer-that's what you called them then-he was a man's man". Milk graduated from Bay Shore High School in Bay Shore, New York, in 1947 and attended New York State College for Teachers in Albany (now the State University of New York at Albany) from 1947 to 1951, majoring in mathematics. Under his name in the high school yearbook, it read, "Glimpy Milk-and they say WOMEN are never at a loss for words". While he was in school, he played football and developed a passion for opera. As a child, Harvey was teased for his protruding ears, big nose, and oversized feet, and tended to grab attention as a class clown. He was the younger son of Lithuanian Jewish parents and the grandson of Morris Milk, a department store owner who helped to organize the first synagogue in the area. Milk was born in the New York City suburb of Woodmere, to William Milk and Minerva Karns. Harvey Milk (right) and his older brother Robert in 1934 He imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us." Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Anne Kronenberg, his final campaign manager, wrote of him: "What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary. In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significant openly LGBT official ever elected in the United States". On November 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk’s bill.ĭespite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community. The Supervisors passed the bill by a vote of 11–1, and it was signed into law by Mayor George Moscone.
Milk served almost eleven months in office, during which he sponsored a bill banning discrimination in public accommodations, housing, and employment on the basis of sexual orientation. Milk was elected city supervisor in 1977 after San Francisco reorganized its election procedures to choose representatives from neighborhoods rather than through city-wide ballots. Taking advantage of his growing popularity, he led the gay political movement in fierce battles against anti-gay initiatives. Voters responded enough to warrant his running for the California State Assembly as well. He campaigned again in the next two supervisor elections, dubbing himself the "Mayor of Castro Street". His campaign was compared to theater he was brash, outspoken, animated, and outrageous, earning media attention and votes, although not enough to be elected.
He was compelled to run for city supervisor in 1973, though he encountered resistance from the existing gay political establishment. Although he had been restless, holding an assortment of jobs and moving house frequently, he settled in The Castro, a neighborhood that was experiencing a mass immigration of gay men and lesbians. Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972 and opened a camera store. His experience in the counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and the expression of sexuality.
Milk was born and raised in New York where he acknowledged his homosexuality as an adolescent, but chose to pursue sexual relationships with secrecy and discretion well into his adult years. Harvey Bernard Milk (– November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.