January 9: Harvey Milk Inaugurated

Harvey Milk was inaugurated as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on this date in 1978, after three unsuccessful runs for office. He was one of the first openly gay activists to achieve political office in America, and tens of thousands of his supporters marched down Market Street from the Castro to City Hall to celebrate. A veteran of the Korean War, Milk had arrived in San Francisco in 1970 as a producer with a touring company of the musical Hair, fallen in love with the city, and opened a camera store on Castro Street that became a center of gay community activism. As a member of the Board of Supervisors, Milk wrote a significant anti-discrimination ordinance and helped defeat Proposition 6, which would have banned lesbians and gays from teaching in California’s public schools. Only eleven months after his inauguration, Milk was shot dead (along with the city’s mayor) by former Supervisor Dan White, who used a homophobic defense and was sentenced to less than eight years for the two murders. The light sentence fomented riots in the streets of San Francisco.

“This is not my victory -- it’s yours. If a gay man can win, it proves that there is hope for all minorities who are willing to fight.”—Harvey Milk