Harvey Milk

Shot on 27 November 1978 in San Francisco City Hall by former supervisor Dan White weeks after the Briggs Initiative campaign; the first openly gay elected official in California was killed at his desk.

Overview

Milk, a camera store owner turned Castro district organizer, won a supervisor seat in 1977 after three attempts, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, and campaigned statewide against the Briggs Initiative to ban gay teachers, defeating it at the polls that November. His taped will, recorded in case of assassination, asked for the movement to continue. White killed him minutes after killing Mayor Moscone. The light sentence for the double killing triggered the White Night riots at city hall, and the California statute on diminished capacity was rewritten in response. Milk posthumous legend grew through the film Milk, the state holiday in his name, and the 2009 Medal of Freedom, his recorded words that if a bullet should enter his brain, let it destroy every closet door becoming the epitaph of the movement.