On This Day: Harvey Milk Murdered

Harvey Milk, the first openly gay American to hold a prominent elected office, served on the San Francisco City Board of Supervisors alongside Dan White, a clean-cut Vietnam veteran and former firefighter.

The two had a friendly relationship at first, but that had changed when Milk opposed a zoning bill pushed by White, and White became the only supervisor to vote against Milk’s gay-rights ordinance. Furthermore, as Milk’s work in the gay rights movement made him a national icon, White’s career sputtered and sent him into depression.

In November 1978, White resigned from his seat, saying that the supervisor salary was not enough to support his family. Progressive Mayor George Moscone told White that he would consider reappointing him if he chose to return; when White did ask to return several days later, Moscone refused to reappoint him, due in part to a request by Milk.

Feeling angry and betrayed, White decided to take revenge on Moscone and Milk. On Nov. 27, 1978, he carried a loaded .38 revolver to City Hall with the intent to kill the two men.

He entered City Hall through a side door to avoid a weapons search. Moscone’s secretary let White into Moscone’s office, where White shot him four times, the final two shots fired in the head as Moscone lay on the floor.

White then walked down the hall to Milk’s office and asked, “Harvey, can I see you a minute?” Milk followed White into his former office, where White shot him five times, again finishing with point-blank shots to the head.

Dianne Feinstein, president of the Board of Supervisors, announced the deaths on the steps on City Hall. The city was horrified. That night, 40,000 walked through the streets and held candlelight vigils.

“At suppertime, we were alerted again by KSAN that there would be a candlelight vigil at Market and Castro,” writes “Uncle Donald,” a Castro Street resident. “When we arrived, the crowd was already huge. Considering that there had been no planning, this was phenomenal. It assured us that we were not alone. We WERE community and we WERE supported by our fellow citizens.”

Harvey Milk owned a camera shop on San Francisco’s Castro Street, a center of gay culture. During the 1970s, he made a name for himself advocating for the rights of gays and small business owners, earning the nickname “The Mayor of Castro Street.”

He ran several times for public office and won an election for city supervisor in 1977, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. The flamboyant Milk was not only open about his sexuality, but proud. He wanted to set an example to homosexuals across the country that they should not be ashamed.

“There was a time when it was impossible for people—straight or gay—even to imagine a Harvey Milk,” writes Time’s John Cloud. “The funny thing about Milk is that he didn’t seem to care that he lived in such a time. After he defied the governing class of San Francisco in 1977 to become a member of its board of supervisors, many people—straight and gay—had to adjust to a new reality he embodied: that a gay person could live an honest life and succeed.”

In his 11 months as supervisor, Milk pushed through a city ordinance outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation. “You could just see that people stood a little taller,” said Walter Caplan, Milk’s lawyer, to NPR. “There were always gay teachers, gay nurses, gay health-care people who lived quiet little lives and feared for losing the security of the jobs that they had.”

He also led the opposition to Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative, which would have required the firing of all homosexual public school teachers. It was in opposition to the Briggs Initiative that he gave his most famous speech.

“And you’ve got to elect gay people, so that thousand upon thousands like that child know that there is hope for a better world; there is hope for a better tomorrow,” he said. “Without hope, not only gays, but those who are blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s: without hope the us’s give up. I know that you can’t live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you, and you have got to give them hope.”

Milk received many death threats during his political career, prompting him in 1977 to record a will to be read if he was assassinated. “If a bullet should enter my brain,” he said, “let that bullet destroy every closet door.”

White turned himself into police the day of the shootings. During his trial for murder, White’s lawyers argued that he had diminished capacity due to depression. As evidence for his depression, they said that he had been eating a large amount of junk food in the weeks leading up to the shootings, which was uncommon for the physically-fit White. The defense used by White would become known derisively as the “Twinkie defense.”

The jury, comprised mostly of conservatives, showed sympathy to White and convicted him only of manslaughter. The gay community was outraged, marching through the streets in protest.

White served five years in prison and was released in 1984. Still depressed, he was unable to get his life back in order and committed suicide on Oct. 21, 1985.

Nine days earlier, Jim Jones, head of the Peoples Temple church, led a mass suicide of hundreds of church members and ordered the assassination of San Francisco-area Congressman Leo Ryan. Jones had close ties to many in the San Francisco political establishment, and had supported Moscone in his campaign for mayor.

There was initially suspicion that the Milk and Moscone murders were related to Jones. “When word of the deaths first came down, first thoughts were of the Peoples Temple story,” reported Rick Davis of NBC News “Reports that there was an assassination squad with a hit list naming city politicians.”