Harvey Milk
Milk was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977, one of the first openly gay elected officials in America, and was shot dead in City Hall a year later along with Mayor Moscone. When his killer got a manslaughter verdict the city rioted. Four years after that the same neighbourhood was the epicentre of the AIDS epidemic, and buried a generation while the federal government looked away.
Part of San Francisco
38 moments in this segment.
- - Harvey Milk as a boy, standing beside his brother Robert. A family snapshot of the two Milk brothers, Robert on the left and Harvey on the right, taken decades before Harvey Milk moved to California. The image is filed under New York State, where the family lived. It was contributed to the public record by his nephew Stuart Milk; the photographer was an unnamed family member.
- - Harvey Milk in Navy dress uniform at his brother's wedding. A family snapshot of Milk during his service in the United States Navy, taken at his brother's wedding. It comes from the family's own holdings, supplied by his nephew Stuart Milk, and shows him two decades before he entered San Francisco politics.
- - Straightened portrait of Milk in his Navy dress blues. A corrected version of the family photograph taken at his brother's wedding, with the tilt of the original scan removed. Milk's Navy years are documented almost entirely through images kept by his relatives.
- - Don Amador with Harvey Milk. Gay rights organiser Don Amador is pictured alongside Harvey Milk, the Castro camera-shop owner who would become the first openly gay man elected to office in California. The snapshot comes from Amador's own collection.
- - Don Amador, Tony Karnes and Harvey Milk together. Don Amador stands with his husband Tony Karnes, at left, and Harvey Milk. The photograph comes from Amador and Karnes's personal archive of San Francisco gay political life in the 1970s.
- - Harvey Milk with activist Don Amador. The two men are pictured together during the 1970s, the decade in which Milk moved to San Francisco, opened a camera shop on Castro Street and began running for public office. Amador, a disability and gay rights organiser, took the photograph himself. It survives as one of the informal records of the network around Milk before his election.
- - Harvey Milk and Audrey Milk outside Castro Camera. Harvey Milk stands with his sister-in-law Audrey in front of Castro Camera, the shop on Castro Street that doubled as the base for his political organising. The snapshot was taken by a family member and supplied to the archive by Stuart Milk. It dates from the year Milk opened the store and first ran for office.
- - Newspaper advertisement for Harvey Milk's run for supervisor. A campaign advertisement placed by the Committee to Elect Harvey Milk, printed in the San Francisco Chronicle on 29 October 1975. This was Milk's second unsuccessful run for the Board of Supervisors; he would not win a seat until 1977. Buying newspaper space was one of the few ways an outsider candidate could reach voters citywide.
- - Harvey Milk campaigning alongside longshoremen. Milk, at the far right of the group, canvasses with dock workers during his 1976 run for the California State Assembly. The alliance with the longshoremen's union was central to his political method, which built support for gay candidates through organised labour rather than around it. Photographed by Daniel Nicoletta.
- - Blue campaign sign reading Harvey Milk Supervisor Five. Designed by Jim Rivaldo for Milk's run for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, with white lettering on a plain blue ground. The campaign was fought in the newly created district five, and it was the one that finally put him in office.
- - Examiner front page on Harvey Milk's election to the board. The San Francisco Examiner marks Milk's victory in the Board of Supervisors race under the headline calling him an unofficial supervisor finally given real power. Text by W. E. Barnes with photographs by Judith Calson, running on page A-1. Milk is pictured with his dog.
- - Harvey Milk addresses a crowd through a megaphone. Milk speaks at a San Francisco protest on 7 June 1977, called after voters in Dade County, Florida repealed that county's gay rights ordinance. The Dade County campaign galvanised gay organising across the country, and San Francisco's response helped build the base that elected Milk to the Board of Supervisors later that year. Photographed by Jerry Pritikin.
- - Harvey Milk celebrates winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors. Robert McLeod's photograph, run on the front page of the San Francisco Examiner the morning after the vote. Milk, at right, had lost several earlier campaigns before taking the District 5 seat, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country.
- - Harvey Milk in front of his camera shop, November 1977. Harvey Milk photographed in front of his camera shop in November 1977, the month he won election as city supervisor. The shop on Castro Street doubled as the organising base for his campaigns and for the neighbourhood's growing political machine. The picture was distributed by the Associated Press.
- - Harvey Milk outside his Castro Street camera shop. Harvey Milk stands in front of the camera shop he ran on Castro Street, photographed in November 1977 as he prepared to take his seat on the Board of Supervisors. The shop doubled as the organising centre for his campaigns and for the neighbourhood's politics. The picture was distributed by the Associated Press.
- - The Examiner front page the morning after Harvey Milk's election. The front page of the San Francisco Examiner for 9 November 1977, the day after the city's district elections sent Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors. Milk became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. The page was published without a copyright notice and is in the public domain.
- - Examiner front page the morning after the City Hall killings. The upper portion of the Examiner's cover for November 28, 1978, the morning after Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were shot at City Hall. Former supervisor Dan White was charged with the killings. The clipping survives as a record of how the city's own press carried the news.
- - Cover of San Francisco Chronicle November 28 1978. Upper part of the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on November 28, 1978 - the morning after the double assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.
- - Harvey Milk seated at Mayor Moscone's desk. Photographed by Daniel Nicoletta in 1978, the year Milk served as a city supervisor. Both men were killed at City Hall that November, which has made this image one of the most widely reproduced portraits of Milk.
- - Harvey Milk sitting at the mayor's desk in City Hall. Supervisor Harvey Milk occupies Mayor George Moscone's desk while standing in for him for a day. Milk had taken office earlier that year as one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, and both men were shot dead in City Hall in November 1978. The photograph is by Daniel Nicoletta, who documented Milk closely.
- - Harvey Milk sits at the mayor's desk standing in for Moscone. Harvey Milk takes George Moscone's chair during a mayor-for-a-day turn at City Hall, months into his term as city supervisor. Photographer Daniel Nicoletta was a friend and former employee at Milk's Castro Street camera shop and documented much of his political life. Both men would be shot dead in that building later the same year.
- - Harvey Milk seated at the mayor's desk for a day. Milk stands in for Mayor George Moscone in a ceremonial turn at City Hall, months before both men were shot dead in that building. The photograph is by Daniel Nicoletta, who documented Milk closely through his years in the Castro and in office.
- - Close portrait of Harvey Milk in his year as supervisor. A tight crop taken from Daniel Nicoletta's photograph of Milk at Mayor Moscone's desk, isolating the supervisor's face. Nicoletta's images remain the standard portraits of Milk in the single year he held elected office.
- - Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone shake hands over the gay rights bill. Supervisor Harvey Milk grips Mayor George Moscone's hand moments after Moscone signed San Francisco's gay rights ordinance. The photograph was made for the San Francisco Examiner by Bob McLeod. Both men would be shot dead in City Hall later that same year.
- - 1979 White Night Riots San Francisco, Gay Rights, Harvey Milk. From the Kinolibrary Archive Film collections. To order the clip clean and high res or to find out more visit Clip ref XR17 1979 White Night Riots San Francisco, Gay Rights, Harvey Milk
- - White Night Riots - This Forgotten Day in S.F.. May 21, 1979: On this day, at 5:28pm in the Hall of Justice, the trial of Dan White came to a shocking end as the jury's verdict was read. Tweet host Michael Callahan, @MCallahanTV.
- - Dan White News Footage Of Arrest, Trial & The White Night Riots. Dan White was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on November 27, 1978, at City Hall. In a controversial verdict that led to the coining of the legal slang "Twinkie defense," White was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder
- - Minisode 44: The White Night Riots. This minisode is a continuation of last week’s episode, the assassination of Harvey Milk. STEPHANIE talks about the White Night Riots in the aftermath of the Dan White ruling. ALSO MENTIONED: Blue wall of silence, the gay agenda, Cleve Jones, Herstory on the Rocks podcast, cringe emoji, Dead Kenne
- - From The Archive: Early days of AIDS crisis in San Francisco in 1982. On this World AIDS Day, we take a look back at the growing AIDS crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area with this story from December 10, 1982. Story: #aids #hiv #worldaidsday
- - The Times Of Harvey Milk 1984. Join us on Facebook:
- - THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK Trailer (1984) - The Criterion Collection. Out on Blu-ray and DVD on March 22th, 2011! Learn more: The Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk, was as groundbreaking as its subject. One of the first feature documentaries to address gay life in America, it's a work of advocacy itse
- - 1985 "AIDS: An Incredible Epidemic" by San Francisco General Hospital. Doctors from Ward 5B and Ward 5A at San Francisco General Hospital were at the front line of the AIDS crisis. In 1985 they produced a VHS video to share information about symptoms of AIDS and what health care workers would experience as they worked with patients. The San Francisco History Center at
- - The San Francisco District Under Threat From an AIDS Epidemic. New Wave AIDS (Oct 1995) Welcome to Castro, San Francisco, USA, centre of the gay universe. It offers sexual liberation to all gay men and women. It also provides the ideal conditions for a fatal virus which turned into an epidemic in 1981. Subscribe to Journeyman here:
- - Harvey Milk is Assassinated | Josh Brolin & Sean Penn in Milk (2008) | N. Relive the horrifying moment, based on a true story, when Dan White (Josh Brolin) brutally assassinates Harvey Milk (Sean Penn). Sean Penn won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role. Sean Penn stars in 2025's One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Milk (2009) SYNOPSIS: n
- - The Castro in San Francisco - History & Culture. Learn More About Gay Lifestyle and Everything About Castro St. @ www.castropedia.com The castro once know as "little scandanavia" and Eureka Valley has transformed into one of the most thriving and vibrant gay communities in the United States. Find out the history and the current culture of the
- - Watching The Castro transform in the 1970s. James "Robbie" Robinson talks about moving into The Castro in 1970, going into business with a friend at a barbershop there. The neighborhood was not yet the mecca of LGBT culture that it is today, and he describes the process of gay businesses slowly starting to establish themselves.
- - Andrew Sullivan remembers the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. CNN's Anderso Cooper speaks with writer and journalist Andrew Sullivan who was on the front lines of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
- - Harvey Milk Biography - First LGBT Politician (Documentary). Harvey served less than a year in public office before his brutal assassination but his life profoundly changed a city state nation and a global community. His courage passion and sense of justice rocked a country and stirred the very core of a put down and pushed out community bringing forward new
