(Harvey Milk)

If Harvey Milk was alive today, he’d be turning 78 years old. 

Harvey Bernard Milk (22 May 1930 – 27 November 1978) was an American politician and gay rights activist, and the first openly gay city supervisor of San Francisco, California. He was, according to Time magazine, “the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet”.

As the self-described “Mayor of Castro Street” he was active during a time of substantial change in San Francisco politics and increasing visibility of gay and lesbian people in American society. He was assassinated in 1978, along with Mayor George Moscone, by then recently-resigned city supervisor Dan White, whose relatively mild sentence for the murders led to the White Night Riots and eventually the abolition of diminished capacity defense in California.

Harvey Milk was named in the “Heroes & Icons” section of Time magazine’s Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century. Many institutions and organizations are named for Milk, including the Harvey Milk Recreational Arts Centre, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, the Harvey Milk Institute, the Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library,and the Harvey Milk Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgendered Democratic Club in San Francisco.

Outside of San Francisco, there are a number of alternative schools named for Milk in the United States, including Harvey Milk High School in New York City. Oakes College at the University of California, Santa Cruz has an on-campus apartment building named Harvey Milk.

In February 2007, the city of San Francisco agreed to erect a bust of Harvey Milk in City Hall in tribute to his service and memorialize his life’s work. A lengthy process to choose a design took place and a gala installation event is planned for this evening to coincide with Milk’s birthday.

In April 2008, the California Assembly passed a bill that would declare May 22nd “Harvey Milk Day”. We are now waiting for the Senate to pass it.

Director Gus Van Sant’s film titled Milk was filmed on location in San Francisco in January 2008. It stars Sean Penn as Milk, Josh Brolin as White, Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, Victor Garber as Moscone, Lucas Grabeel as Danny Nicoletta and James Franco as Smith. Reportedly Tom Ammiano will portray himself. It is set for a November 2008 release.