Harvey Milk

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(Redirected from Glimpy Milch)

Image:Milk, Harvey (600).jpg Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) an American politician and gay rights activist, was the first openly gay city supervisor of San Francisco, California. He and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in 1978.

1 Biography
2 Musical and Dramatic Portrayals of Milk's Life
3 References
4 External links

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Biography

Of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, Harvey Milk was not born Glimpy Milch, as it is widely reported. Harvey's given name was Harvey Bernard Milk. Milch was his grandfather's surname; Milk is the English translation of German Milch. Glimpy was Harvey's nickname because as a child and adolescent, he was considered goofy-looking due to his large ears, nose, and feet. He was born in Woodmere, Long Island, New York. He graduated from Albany State College in 1951 and joined the United States Navy; he was honorably discharged, although he later told voters in campaigns that he was a victim of one of the many anti-gay purges of the armed services.

Like many gay people of the time, Milk later moved to San Francisco in 1972, where he settled with his lover Scott Smith and opened a camera store, Castro Camera, in the Castro gay village. He emerged as a community leader, founding the Castro Valley Association of local merchants, and represented the neighborhood businesses in dealing with the city government.

Despite a national climate of hostility against gay people, Milk ran for office three times unsuccessfully. He emerged as a figurehead for San Francisco's large gay community, and was known as the "Mayor of Castro Street," a title which he, himself, coined. He was elected San Francisco City Supervisor (i.e. councilman) in 1977, the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the US.

In his eleven months as a Supervisor, he sponsored a gay rights bill for the City as well as – famously – a pooper-scooper ordinance. He was also instrumental in defeating Proposition 6, backed by State Senator Briggs, which would have allowed openly gay men and lesbians who were teachers to be fired based on their sexuality. Milk debated Briggs on the issue publicly, revealing his wit and character to a statewide and national audience. In November 1978, Proposition 6 was soundly voted down by Californians. Image:Harvey milk.jpg Milk was assassinated on November 27, 1978 at City Hall, together with Mayor George Moscone, by former Supervisor Dan White. White had resigned only days before, following the enactment of Milk's gay rights bill, which he had opposed. White had hoped to be reappointed by Mayor Moscone, which Moscone was disinclined to do. White entered City Hall through an open basement window in order to avoid detection of the gun he was carrying and 10 extra rounds of ammunition he carried in his pocket. After making his way to the Mayor’s office, confronting Moscone and shooting him repeatedly, White reloaded his weapon and made his way to the opposite side of City Hall, where he confronted Milk, shooting him in the chest. After Milk fell, White fired an additional round, at pointblank range, into Milk’s head. White denied premeditation.

A huge throng turned out for Milk's and Moscone's funeral cortège, along a route decorated with rainbow flags.

White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and sentenced to seven years and eight months, a sentence widely denounced as lenient and motivated by homophobia. Lawyers had prevented anyone they deemed "pro-gay" from serving on the jury, and had brought in a psychologist to show evidence of the depression - namely that the consumption of junk food was out of character for the normally health-conscious White (leading to a common misunderstanding that junk food was blamed — see Twinkie defense). White only served one year of parole, the first nine months of which he spent hiding in LA. He then returned to San Francisco against Mayor Dianne Feinstein's public wishes, where he committed suicide in the garage of his wife's house by asphyxiation from car exhaust.

Milk had foreseen his risk of assassination and had recorded several audio tapes to be played in that event. On one of the tapes, he made his famous quotation, "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country."

After the sentence, the gay community erupted into the White Night Riots; more than 160 people ended up in hospital.

Harvey Milk is widely regarded as a martyr for the gay community and the gay rights movement. Many Queer community institutions are named for Milk, including the Harvey Milk Institute and the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Democratic Club in San Francisco, as well as a number of Queer-positive alternative schools in the United States, including Harvey Milk School in New York City. A diner at the University of Warwick in the UK was named Harvey's in his honour, and the Leeds University Union named a nightclub the Harvey Milk Bar (although it has since been renamed).

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Musical and Dramatic Portrayals of Milk's Life

A number of pieces of music have taken Harvey Milk as their subject. Blue Gene Tyranny's Harvey Milk (Portrait) (1978) is a piece for magnetic tape which manipulates a recording of a speech Milk gave in 1978.

In the early 1990s an indie rock band named Harvey Milk was formed in Athens, Georgia.

In 1995 the opera Harvey Milk by composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie was premiered by the San Francisco Opera, and in 1996 it was recorded on CD under Donald Runnicles with the opera orchestra and chorus.

The life of this politician is depicted in the Academy Award winning documentary film, The Times of Harvey Milk in 1984.

The 1999 film Execution of Justice based on the 1983 play (of the same title) written by Emily Mann re-lives the assassination.

In 2000 a TV film, American Justice: It's Not My Fault - Strange Defenses examined the assassination with archival footage of Milk and White.

Director Bryan Singer will direct The Mayor of Castro Street, a feature film biography of Milk's life, scheduled for release in 2007.

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References

Shilts, Randy, The Mayor of Castro Street. 1982.
Turner, Wallace, "San Francisco Mayor is Slain; City Supervisor Also Killed; Ex-Official Gives Up to Police." The New York Times. November 28, 1978. A1.

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