Stonewall, Harvey Milk, Jim Jones and HM related individuals

Stonewall riots

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A black and white photograph of The Stonewall Inn, showing half of a sign that was placed in the window by the Mattachine Society several days following the riots

 The Stonewall Inn, taken September 1969. The sign in the window reads: "We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village—Mattachine".[1]
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community[note 1] against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for gay and lesbian rights in the United States.[2][3]
American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries.[note 2][4] Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.
Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was owned by the Mafia.[5][6] It catered to an assortment of patrons, but it was known to be popular with the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, representatives of a newly self-aware transgender community, effeminate young men, male prostitutes, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn, and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.
After the Stonewall riots, gays and lesbians in New York City faced gender, race, class, and generational obstacles to becoming a cohesive community. Within six months, two gay activist organizations were formed in New York, concentrating on confrontational tactics, and three newspapers were established to promote rights for gays and lesbians. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York commemorating the anniversary of the riots. Similar marches were organized in other cities. Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots.[7]

Contents
  [hide] 1 Background 1.1 Homosexuality in 20th-century America
1.2 Homophile activism and the Compton's Cafeteria riots
1.3 Greenwich Village
1.4 Stonewall Inn
2 Riots 2.1 Police raid
2.2 "The last straw"
2.3 Escalation
2.4 Open rebellion
2.5 "Intolerable situation"
3 Aftermath 3.1 Gay Liberation Front
3.2 Gay Activists Alliance
3.3 Gay Pride
4 Legacy 4.1 Unlikely community
4.2 Rejection of gay subculture
4.3 Lasting impact
5 See also
6 Notes
7 Citations
8 Bibliography
9 External links
Background[edit]
Homosexuality in 20th-century America[edit]
Following the social upheaval of World War II, many people in the United States felt a fervent desire to "restore the prewar social order and hold off the forces of change", according to historian Barry Adam.[8] Spurred by the national emphasis on anti-communism, Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted hearings searching for communists in the U.S. government, the U.S. Army, and other government-funded agencies and institutions, leading to a national paranoia. Anarchists, communists, and other people deemed un-American and subversive were considered security risks. Homosexuals were included in this list by the U.S. State Department in 1950, on the theory that they were susceptible to blackmail. Under Secretary of State James E. Webb noted in a report, "It is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons."[9] Between 1947 and 1950, 1,700 federal job applications were denied, 4,380 people were discharged from the military, and 420 were fired from their government jobs for being suspected homosexuals.[10]
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and police departments kept lists of known homosexuals, their favored establishments, and friends; the U.S. Post Office kept track of addresses where material pertaining to homosexuality was mailed.[11] State and local governments followed suit: bars catering to homosexuals were shut down, and their customers were arrested and exposed in newspapers. Cities performed "sweeps" to rid neighborhoods, parks, bars, and beaches of gays. They outlawed the wearing of opposite gender clothes, and universities expelled instructors suspected of being homosexual.[12] Thousands of gay men and women were publicly humiliated, physically harassed, fired, jailed, or institutionalized in mental hospitals. Many lived double lives, keeping their private lives secret from their professional ones.
In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a sociopathic personality disturbance. A large-scale study of homosexuality in 1962 was used to justify inclusion of the disorder as a supposed pathological hidden fear of the opposite sex caused by traumatic parent–child relationships. This view was widely influential in the medical profession.[13] In 1956, however, the psychologist Evelyn Hooker performed a study that compared the happiness and well-adjusted nature of self-identified homosexual men with heterosexual men and found no difference.[14] Her study stunned the medical community and made her a hero to many gay men and lesbians,[15] but homosexuality remained in the DSM until 1973.
Homophile activism and the Compton's Cafeteria riots[edit]
In response to this trend, two organizations formed independently of each other to advance the cause of homosexuals and provide social opportunities where gays and lesbians could socialize without fear of being arrested. Los Angeles area homosexuals created the Mattachine Society in 1950, in the home of communist activist Harry Hay.[16] Their objectives were to unify homosexuals, educate them, provide leadership, and assist "sexual deviants" with legal troubles.[17] Facing enormous opposition to its radical approach, in 1953 the Mattachine shifted their focus to assimilation and respectability. They reasoned that they would change more minds about homosexuality by proving that gays and lesbians were normal people, no different from heterosexuals.[18][19] Soon after, several women in San Francisco met in their living rooms to form the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) for lesbians.[20] Although the eight women who created the DOB initially came together to be able to have a safe place to dance, as the DOB grew they developed similar goals to the Mattachine, and urged their members to assimilate into general society.[21]
One of the first challenges to government repression came in 1953. An organization named ONE, Inc. published a magazine called ONE. The U.S. Postal Service refused to mail its August issue which concerned homosexuals in heterosexual marriages, on the grounds that the material was obscene despite it being covered in brown paper wrapping. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which in 1958 ruled that ONE, Inc. could mail its materials through the Postal Service.[22]
Homophile organizations—as gay groups were called—grew in number and spread to the East Coast. Gradually, members of these organizations grew bolder. Frank Kameny founded the Mattachine of Washington, D.C. He had been fired from the U.S. Army Map Service for being a homosexual, and sued unsuccessfully to be reinstated. Kameny wrote that homosexuals were no different from heterosexuals, often aiming his efforts at mental health professionals, some of whom attended Mattachine and DOB meetings telling members they were abnormal.[23] In 1965, Kameny, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement,[24] organized a picket of the White House and other government buildings to protest employment discrimination. The pickets shocked many gay people, and upset some of the leadership of Mattachine and the DOB.[25][26] At the same time, demonstrations in the Civil Rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War all grew in prominence, frequency, and severity throughout the 1960s, as did their confrontations with police forces.[27]
On the outer fringes of the few small gay communities were people who challenged gender expectations. They were effeminate men and masculine women, or biological men who dressed and lived as women and biological women who dressed as men, either part or full-time. Contemporary nomenclature classified them as transvestites, and they were the most visible representatives of sexual minorities. They belied the carefully crafted image portrayed by the Mattachine Society and DOB that asserted homosexuals were respectable, normal people.[28] The Mattachine and DOB considered the trials of being arrested for wearing clothing of the opposite gender as a parallel to the struggles of homophile organizations: similar but distinctly separate. Gay and transgender people staged a small riot in Los Angeles in 1959 in response to police harassment.[29] In 1966, drag queens, hustlers, and transvestites were sitting in Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco when the police arrived to arrest men dressed as women. A riot ensued, with the patrons of the cafeteria slinging cups, plates, and saucers, and breaking the plate glass windows in the front of the restaurant, and returning several days later to smash the windows again after they were replaced.[30] Professor Susan Stryker classifies the Compton's Cafeteria riot as an "act of antitransgender discrimination, rather than an act of discrimination against sexual orientation" and connects the uprising to the issues of gender, race, and class that were being downplayed by homophile organizations.[28] It marked the beginning of transgender activism in San Francisco.[30]
Greenwich Village[edit]

A color photograph of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village

Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.
The New York neighborhoods of Greenwich Village and Harlem were home to a sizable homosexual population after World War I, when many[citation needed] men and women who had served in the military took advantage of the opportunity to settle in larger cities. The enclaves of gays and lesbians, described by a newspaper story as "short haired women and long haired men", developed a distinct subculture through the following two decades.[31] Prohibition inadvertently benefited gay establishments, as drinking alcohol was pushed underground along with other behaviors considered immoral. New York City passed laws against homosexuality in public and private businesses, but because alcohol was in high demand, speakeasies and impromptu drinking establishments were so numerous and temporary that authorities were unable to police them all.[32]
The social repression of the 1950s resulted in a cultural revolution in Greenwich Village. A cohort of poets, later named the Beat poets, wrote about the evils of the social organization at the time, glorifying anarchy, drugs, and hedonistic pleasures over unquestioning social compliance, consumerism, and closed mindedness. Of them, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs—both Greenwich Village residents—also wrote bluntly and honestly about homosexuality. Their writings attracted sympathetic liberal-minded people, as well as homosexuals looking for a community.[33]
By the early 1960s, a campaign to rid New York City of gay bars was in full effect by order of Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., who was concerned about the image of the city in preparation for the 1964 World's Fair. The city revoked the liquor licenses of the bars, and undercover police officers worked to entrap as many homosexual men as possible.[34] Entrapment usually consisted of an undercover officer who found a man in a bar or public park, engaged him in conversation; if the conversation headed toward the possibility that they might leave together—or the officer bought the man a drink—he was arrested for solicitation. One story in the New York Post described an arrest in a gym locker room, where the officer grabbed his crotch, moaning, and a man who asked him if he was all right was arrested.[35] Few lawyers would defend cases as undesirable as these, and some of those lawyers kicked back their fees to the arresting officer.[36]
The Mattachine Society succeeded in getting newly elected Mayor John Lindsay to end the campaign of police entrapment in New York. They had a more difficult time with the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA). While no laws prohibited serving homosexuals, courts allowed the SLA discretion in approving and revoking liquor licenses for businesses that might become "disorderly".[37] Despite the high population of gays and lesbians who called Greenwich Village home, very few places existed, other than bars, where they were able to congregate openly without being harassed or arrested. In 1966 the New York Mattachine held a "sip-in" at a Greenwich Village bar named Julius, which was frequented by gay men, to illustrate the discrimination homosexuals faced.[38]
None of the bars frequented by gays and lesbians were owned by gay people. Almost all of them were owned and controlled by organized crime, who treated the regulars poorly, watered down the liquor, and overcharged for drinks. However, they also paid off police to prevent frequent raids.[39]
Stonewall Inn[edit]
Main article: Stonewall Inn

A color digital map of the Greenwich Village neighborhood surrounding the Stonewall Inn in relation to the diagonal streets that make small triangular and other oddly shaped city blocks

 Location of the Stonewall Inn in relation to Greenwich Village
The Stonewall Inn, located at 51 and 53 Christopher Street, along with several other establishments in the city, was owned by the Genovese family.[5] In 1966, three members of the Mafia invested $3,500 to turn the Stonewall Inn into a gay bar, after it had been a restaurant and a nightclub for heterosexuals. Once a week a police officer would collect envelopes of cash as a payoff; the Stonewall Inn had no liquor license.[40][41] It had no running water behind the bar—used glasses were run through tubs of water and immediately reused.[39] There were no fire exits, and the toilets overran consistently.[42] Though the bar was not used for prostitution, drug sales and other "cash transactions" took place. It was the only bar for gay men in New York City where dancing was allowed;[43] dancing was its main draw since its re-opening as a gay club.[44]
Visitors to the Stonewall in 1969 were greeted by a bouncer who inspected them through a peephole in the door. The legal drinking age was 18, and to avoid unwittingly letting in undercover police (who were called "Lily Law", "Alice Blue Gown", or "Betty Badge"[45]), visitors would have to be known by the doorman, or look gay. The entrance fee on weekends was $3, for which the customer received two tickets that could be exchanged for two drinks. Patrons were required to sign their names in a book to prove that the bar was a private "bottle club", but rarely signed their real names. There were two dance floors in the Stonewall; the interior was painted black, making it very dark inside, with pulsing gel lights or black lights. If police were spotted, regular white lights were turned on, signaling that everyone should stop dancing or touching.[45] In the rear of the bar was a smaller room frequented by "queens"; it was one of two bars where effeminate men who wore makeup and teased their hair (though dressed in men's clothing) could go.[46] Only a few transvestites, or men in full drag, were allowed in by the bouncers. The customers were "98 percent male" but a few lesbians sometimes came to the bar. Younger homeless adolescent males, who slept in nearby Christopher Park, would often try to get in so customers would buy them drinks.[47] The age range of the clientele was between the upper teens and early thirties, and the racial mix was evenly distributed among white, black, and Hispanic.[46][48] Because of its even mix of people, its location, and the attraction of dancing, the Stonewall Inn was known by many as "the gay bar in the city".[49]
Police raids on gay bars were frequent—occurring on average once a month for each bar. Many bars kept extra liquor in a secret panel behind the bar, or in a car down the block, to facilitate resuming business as quickly as possible if alcohol was seized.[5] Bar management usually knew about raids beforehand due to police tip-offs, and raids occurred early enough in the evening that business could commence after the police had finished.[50] During a typical raid, the lights were turned on, and customers were lined up and their identification cards checked. Those without identification or dressed in full drag were arrested; others were allowed to leave. Some of the men, including those in drag, used their draft cards as identification. Women were required to wear three pieces of feminine clothing, and would be arrested if found not wearing them. Employees and management of the bars were also typically arrested.[50] The period immediately before June 28, 1969 was marked by frequent raids of local bars—including a raid at the Stonewall Inn on the Tuesday before the riots[51]—and the closing of the Checkerboard, the Tele-Star, and two other clubs in Greenwich Village.[52][53]
Riots[edit]
Police raid[edit]

A color digital illustration of the layout of the Stonewall Inn in 1969: a rectangular building with the front along Christopher Street; the entrance opens to a lobby where patrons could go to the larger part of the bar to the right that also featured a larger dance floor. From that room was an entrance to a smaller room with a smaller dance floor and smaller bar. The toilets are located near the rear of the building

 Layout of the Stonewall Inn, 1969[54]
At 1:20 in the morning on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, and Detective Charles Smythe and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced "Police! We're taking the place!"[55][note 3] Two undercover policewomen and two undercover policemen had entered the bar earlier that evening to gather visual evidence, as the Public Morals Squad waited outside for the signal. Once inside, they called for backup from the Sixth Precinct using the bar's pay telephone. The music was turned off and the main lights were turned on. Approximately 200 people were in the bar that night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were confused. A few who realized what was happening began to run for doors and windows in the bathrooms, but police barred the doors. Michael Fader remembered, "Things happened so fast you kind of got caught not knowing. All of a sudden there were police there and we were told to all get in lines and to have our identification ready to be led out of the bar."[55]
The raid did not go as planned. Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification, and have female police officers take customers dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex, upon which any men dressed as women would be arrested. Those dressed as women that night refused to go with the officers. Men in line began to refuse to produce their identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station, after separating those cross-dressing in a room in the back of the bar. Maria Ritter, who was known as Steve to her family, recalled, "My biggest fear was that I would get arrested. My second biggest fear was that my picture would be in a newspaper or on a television report in my mother's dress!"[56] Both patrons and police recalled that a sense of discomfort spread very quickly, spurred by police who began to assault some of the lesbians by "feeling some of them up inappropriately" while frisking them.[57]


When did you ever see a fag fight back?... Now, times were a-changin'. Tuesday night was the last night for bullshit.... Predominantly, the theme (w)as, "this shit has got to stop!"
—anonymous Stonewall riots participant[1]
The police were to transport the bar's alcohol in patrol wagons. Twenty-eight cases of beer and nineteen bottles of hard liquor were seized, but the patrol wagons had not yet arrived, so patrons were required to wait in line for about 15 minutes.[56] Those who were not arrested were released from the front door, but they did not leave quickly as usual. Instead, they stopped outside and a crowd began to grow and watch. Within minutes, between 100 and 150 people had congregated outside, some after they were released from inside the Stonewall, and some after noticing the police cars and the crowd. Although the police forcefully pushed or kicked some patrons out of the bar, some customers released by the police performed for the crowd by posing and saluting the police in an exaggerated fashion. The crowd's applause encouraged them further: "Wrists were limp, hair was primped, and reactions to the applause were classic."[58]
When the first patrol wagon arrived, Inspector Pine recalled that the crowd—most of whom were homosexual—had grown to at least ten times the number of people who were arrested, and they all became very quiet.[59] Confusion over radio communication delayed the arrival of a second wagon. The police began escorting Mafia members into the first wagon, to the cheers of the bystanders. Next, regular employees were loaded into the wagon. A bystander shouted, "Gay power!", someone began singing "We Shall Overcome", and the crowd reacted with amusement and general good humor mixed with "growing and intensive hostility".[60] An officer shoved a transvestite, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse as the crowd began to boo. Author Edmund White, who had been passing by, recalled, "Everyone's restless, angry, and high-spirited. No one has a slogan, no one even has an attitude, but something's brewing."[61] Pennies, then beer bottles, were thrown at the wagon as a rumor spread through the crowd that patrons still inside the bar were being beaten.
A scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs was escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped repeatedly and fought with four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. Described as "a typical New York butch" and "a dyke—stone butch", she had been hit on the head by an officer with a billy club for, as one witness claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight.[62] Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown,[note 4] sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you guys do something?" After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon,[63] the crowd became a mob and went "berserk": "It was at that moment that the scene became explosive".[64]
"The last straw"[edit]
The police tried to restrain some of the crowd, and knocked a few people down, which incited bystanders even more. Some of those handcuffed in the wagon escaped when police left them unattended (deliberately, according to some witnesses).[note 5][65] As the crowd tried to overturn the police wagon, two police cars and the wagon—with a few slashed tires—left immediately, with Inspector Pine urging them to return as soon as possible. The commotion attracted more people who learned what was happening. Someone in the crowd declared that the bar had been raided because "they didn't pay off the cops", to which someone else yelled "Let's pay them off!"[66] Coins sailed through the air towards the police as the crowd shouted "Pigs!" and "Faggot cops!" Beer cans were thrown and the police lashed out, dispersing some of the crowd, who found a construction site nearby with stacks of bricks. The police, outnumbered by between 500 and 600 people, grabbed several people, including folk singer Dave Van Ronk—who had been attracted to the revolt from a bar two doors away from the Stonewall. Though Van Ronk was not gay, he had experienced police violence when he participated in antiwar demonstrations: "As far as I was concerned, anybody who'd stand against the cops was all right with me, and that's why I stayed in.... Every time you turned around the cops were pulling some outrage or another."[66] Ten police officers—including two policewomen—barricaded themselves, Van Ronk, Howard Smith (a writer for The Village Voice), and several handcuffed detainees inside the Stonewall Inn for their own safety.
Multiple accounts of the riot assert that there was no pre-existing organization or apparent cause for the demonstration; what ensued was spontaneous.[note 6] Michael Fader explained,

We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place, and it was not an organized demonstration.... Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us.... All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. It was the police who were doing most of the destruction. We were really trying to get back in and break free. And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren't going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it's like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that's what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we're going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren't going to go away. And we didn't.[67]

A black and white photograph showing the backs of three uniformed police officers and a man with short-cropped hair in a suit pushing back a crowd of young men with longer hair dressed in jeans and contemporary clothing for the late 1960s, arguing and defying the police; other people in the background on a stoop are watching

 This photograph appeared in the front page of The New York Daily News on Sunday, June 29, 1969, showing the "street kids" who were the first to fight with the police.
The only photograph taken during the first night of the riots shows the homeless youth that slept in nearby Christopher Park, scuffling with police.[68] The Mattachine Society newsletter a month later offered its explanation of why the riots occurred: "It catered largely to a group of people who are not welcome in, or cannot afford, other places of homosexual social gathering.... The Stonewall became home to these kids. When it was raided, they fought for it. That, and the fact that they had nothing to lose other than the most tolerant and broadminded gay place in town, explains why."[69]
Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Witnesses attest that "flame queens", hustlers, and gay "street kids"—the most outcast people in the gay community—were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a parking meter used as a battering ram on the doors of the Stonewall Inn.[70] Sylvia Rivera, who was in full drag and had been in the Stonewall during the raid, remembered: "You've been treating us like shit all these years? Uh-uh. Now it's our turn!... It was one of the greatest moments in my life."[71] The mob lit garbage on fire and stuffed it through the broken windows as the police grabbed a fire hose. Because it had no water pressure, the hose was ineffective in dispersing the crowd, and seemed only to encourage them.[note 7] When demonstrators broke through the windows—which had been covered by plywood by the bar owners to deter the police from raiding the bar—the police inside unholstered their pistols. The doors flew open and officers pointed their weapons at the angry crowd, threatening to shoot. The Village Voice writer Howard Smith, in the bar with the police, took a wrench from the bar and stuffed it in his pants, unsure if he might have to use it against the mob or the police. He watched someone squirt lighter fluid into the bar; as it was lit and the police took aim, sirens were heard and fire trucks arrived. The onslaught had lasted 45 minutes.[72]
Escalation[edit]
The Tactical Police Force (TPF) of the New York City Police Department arrived to free the police trapped inside the Stonewall. One officer's eye was cut, and a few others were bruised from being struck by flying debris. Bob Kohler, who was walking his dog by the Stonewall that night, saw the TPF arrive: "I had been in enough riots to know the fun was over.... The cops were totally humiliated. This never, ever happened. They were angrier than I guess they had ever been, because everybody else had rioted ... but the fairies were not supposed to riot ... no group had ever forced cops to retreat before, so the anger was just enormous. I mean, they wanted to kill."[73] With larger numbers, police detained anyone they could and put them in patrol wagons to go to jail, though Inspector Pine recalled, "Fights erupted with the transvestites, who wouldn't go into the patrol wagon". His recollection was corroborated by another witness across the street who said, "All I could see about who was fighting was that it was transvestites and they were fighting furiously".[74]
The TPF formed a phalanx and attempted to clear the streets by marching slowly and pushing the crowd back. The mob openly mocked the police. The crowd cheered, started impromptu kick lines, and sang to the tune of The Howdy Doody Show theme song: "We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hairs".[75] Lucian Truscott reported in The Village Voice: "A stagnant situation there brought on some gay tomfoolery in the form of a chorus line facing the line of helmeted and club-carrying cops. Just as the line got into a full kick routine, the TPF advanced again and cleared the crowd of screaming gay power[-]ites down Christopher to Seventh Avenue."[76] One participant who had been in the Stonewall during the raid recalled, "The police rushed us, and that's when I realized this is not a good thing to do, because they got me in the back with a night stick". Another account stated, "I just can't ever get that one sight out of my mind. The cops with the [nightsticks] and the kick line on the other side. It was the most amazing thing.... And all the sudden that kick line, which I guess was a spoof on the machismo ... I think that's when I felt rage. Because people were getting smashed with bats. And for what? A kick line."[77]

A color photograph of Christopher Park in winter, showing the wrought iron entrance arch in the foreground and the brick pavement surrounded by five and six story brick buildings; in the center background are four white statue figures: two males standing, one with his hand on the other's shoulder, and two females seated on a park bench, one woman with her hand touching the other's thigh. All are dressed in jeans and loose clothing

 Christopher Park, where many of the demonstrators met after the first night of rioting to talk about what had happened, now features a sculpture of four white figures by George Segal that commemorates the milestone.[78]
Craig Rodwell, owner of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop reported watching police chase participants through the crooked streets, only to see them appear around the next corner behind the police. Members of the mob stopped cars, overturning one of them to block Christopher Street. Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke, in their column printed in Screw, declared that "massive crowds of angry protesters chased [the police] for blocks screaming, 'Catch them!' "[76]
By 4:00 in the morning the streets had nearly been cleared. Many people sat on stoops or gathered nearby in Christopher Park throughout the morning, dazed in disbelief at what had transpired. Many witnesses remembered the surreal and eerie quiet that descended upon Christopher Street, though there continued to be "electricity in the air".[79] One commented: "There was a certain beauty in the aftermath of the riot.... It was obvious, at least to me, that a lot of people really were gay and, you know, this was our street."[80] Thirteen people had been arrested. Some in the crowd were hospitalized,[note 8] and four police officers were injured. Almost everything in the Stonewall Inn was broken. Inspector Pine had intended to close and dismantle the Stonewall Inn that night. Pay phones, toilets, mirrors, jukeboxes, and cigarette machines were all smashed, possibly in the riot and possibly by the police.[72][81]
Open rebellion[edit]
During the siege of the Stonewall, Craig Rodwell called The New York Times, The New York Post, and The New York Daily News to inform them what was happening. All three papers covered the riots; The New York Daily News placed coverage on the front page. News of the riot spread quickly throughout Greenwich Village, fueled by rumors that it had been organized by the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, or triggered by "a homosexual police officer whose roommate went dancing at the Stonewall against the officer's wishes".[52] All day Saturday, June 28, people came to stare at the burned and blackened Stonewall Inn. Graffiti appeared on the walls of the bar, declaring "Drag power", "They invaded our rights", "Support gay power", and "Legalize gay bars", along with accusations of police looting, and—regarding the status of the bar—"We are open".[52][82]
The next night, rioting again surrounded Christopher Street; participants remember differently which night was more frantic or violent. Many of the same people returned from the previous evening—hustlers, street youths, and "queens"—but they were joined by "police provocateurs", curious bystanders, and even tourists.[83] Remarkable to many was the sudden exhibition of homosexual affection in public, as described by one witness: "From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were in the streets."[84]


You know, the guys there were so beautiful—they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago  – Allen Ginsberg

Thousands of people had gathered in front of the Stonewall, which had opened again, choking Christopher Street until the crowd spilled into adjoining blocks. The throng surrounded buses and cars, harassing the occupants unless they either admitted they were gay or indicated their support for the demonstrators.[85] Sylvia Rivera saw a friend of hers jump on a nearby car trying to drive through; the crowd rocked the car back and forth, terrifying its occupants. Another of Rivera's friends, Marsha P. Johnson, climbed a lamppost and dropped a heavy bag onto the hood of a police car, shattering the windshield.[86] As on the previous evening, fires were started in garbage cans throughout the neighborhood. More than a hundred police were present from the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Precincts, but after 2:00 a.m. the TPF arrived again. Kick lines and police chases waxed and waned; when police captured demonstrators, whom the majority of witnesses described as "sissies" or "swishes", the crowd surged to recapture them.[87] Street battling ensued again until 4:00 a.m.[86]
Beat poet and longtime Greenwich Village resident Allen Ginsberg lived on Christopher Street, and happened upon the jubilant chaos. After he learned of the riot that had occurred the previous evening, he stated, "Gay power! Isn't that great!... It's about time we did something to assert ourselves", and visited the open Stonewall Inn for the first time. While walking home, he declared to Lucian Truscott, "You know, the guys there were so beautiful—they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago".[88]
"Intolerable situation"[edit]
Activity in Greenwich Village was sporadic on Monday and Tuesday, partly due to rain. Police and Village residents had a few altercations, as both groups antagonized each other. Craig Rodwell and his partner Fred Sargeant took the opportunity the morning after the first riot to print and distribute 5,000 leaflets, one of them reading: "Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bars". The leaflets called for gays to own their own establishments, for a boycott of the Stonewall and other Mafia-owned bars, and for public pressure on the mayor's office to investigate the "intolerable situation".[89][90]
Not everyone in the gay community considered the revolt a positive development. To many older gays and many members of the Mattachine Society that had worked throughout the 1960s to promote homosexuals as no different from heterosexuals, the display of violence and effeminate behavior was embarrassing. Randy Wicker, who had marched in the first gay picket lines before the White House in 1965, said the "screaming queens forming chorus lines and kicking went against everything that I wanted people to think about homosexuals ... that we were a bunch of drag queens in the Village acting disorderly and tacky and cheap."[91] Others found the closing of the Stonewall Inn, termed a "sleaze joint", as advantageous to the Village.[92]
On Wednesday, however, The Village Voice ran reports of the riots, written by Howard Smith and Lucian Truscott, that included unflattering descriptions of the events and its participants: "forces of faggotry," "limp wrists" and "Sunday fag follies".[93][note 9] A mob descended upon Christopher Street once again and threatened to burn down the offices of The Village Voice. Also in the mob of between 500 and 1,000 were other groups that had had unsuccessful confrontations with the police, and were curious how the police were defeated in this situation. Another explosive street battle took place, with injuries to demonstrators and police alike, looting in local shops, and arrests of five people.[94][95] The incidents on Wednesday night lasted about an hour, and were summarized by one witness: "The word is out. Christopher Street shall be liberated. The fags have had it with oppression."[96]
Aftermath[edit]
The feeling of urgency spread throughout Greenwich Village, even to people who had not witnessed the riots. Many who were moved by the rebellion attended organizational meetings, sensing an opportunity to take action. On July 4, 1969, the Mattachine Society performed its annual picketing in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, called the Annual Reminder. Organizers Craig Rodwell, Frank Kameny, Randy Wicker, Barbara Gittings, and Kay Lahusen, who had all participated for several years, took a bus along with other picketers from New York City to Philadelphia. Since 1965, the pickets had been very controlled: women wore skirts and men wore suits and ties, and all marched quietly in organized lines.[97] This year Rodwell remembered feeling restricted by the rules Kameny had set. When two women spontaneously held hands, Kameny broke them apart, saying, "None of that! None of that!" Rodwell, however, convinced about ten couples to hold hands. The hand-holding couples made Kameny furious, but they earned more press attention than all of the previous marches.[98][99] Participant Lilli Vincenz remembered, "It was clear that things were changing. People who had felt oppressed now felt empowered."[98] Rodwell returned to New York City determined to change the established quiet, meek ways of trying to get attention. One of his first priorities was planning Christopher Street Liberation Day.[100]
Gay Liberation Front[edit]
Although the Mattachine Society had existed since the 1950s, many of their methods now seemed too mild for people who had witnessed or been inspired by the riots. Mattachine recognized the shift in attitudes in a story from their newsletter entitled, "The Hairpin Drop Heard Around the World".[101][note 10] When a Mattachine officer suggested an "amicable and sweet" candlelight vigil demonstration, a man in the audience fumed and shouted, "Sweet! Bullshit! That's the role society has been forcing these queens to play."[102] With a flyer announcing: "Do You Think Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet Your Sweet Ass We Are!",[102] the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was soon formed, the first gay organization to use "gay" in its name. Previous organizations such as the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and various homophile groups had masked their purpose by deliberately choosing obscure names.[103]
The rise of militancy became apparent to Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings—who had worked in homophile organizations for years and were both very public about their roles—when they attended a GLF meeting to see the new group. A young GLF member demanded to know who they were and what their credentials were. Gittings, nonplussed, stammered, "I'm gay. That's why I'm here."[104] The GLF borrowed tactics from and aligned themselves with black and antiwar demonstrators with the ideal that they "could work to restructure American society".[105] They took on causes of the Black Panthers, marching to the Women's House of Detention in support of Afeni Shakur, and other radical New Left causes. Four months after they formed, however, the group disbanded when members were unable to agree on operating procedure.[106]
Gay Activists Alliance[edit]
Within six months of the Stonewall riots, activists started a city-wide newspaper called Gay; they considered it necessary because the most liberal publication in the city—The Village Voice—refused to print the word "gay" in GLF advertisements seeking new members and volunteers.[107] Two other newspapers were initiated within a six-week period: Come Out! and Gay Power; the readership of these three periodicals quickly climbed to between 20,000 and 25,000.[108][109]
GLF members organized several same-sex dances, but GLF meetings were chaotic. When Bob Kohler asked for clothes and money to help the homeless youth who had participated in the riots, many of whom slept in Christopher Park or Sheridan Square, the response was a discussion on the downfall of capitalism.[110] In late December 1969, several people who had visited GLF meetings and left out of frustration formed the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). The GAA was to be entirely focused on gay issues, and more orderly. Their constitution started, "We as liberated homosexual activists demand the freedom for expression of our dignity and value as human beings".[111] The GAA developed and perfected a confrontational tactic called a zap, where they would catch a politician off guard during a public relations opportunity, and force him or her to acknowledge gay and lesbian rights. City councilmen were zapped, and Mayor John Lindsay was zapped several times—once on television when GAA members made up the majority of the audience.[112]
Raids on gay bars had not stopped after the Stonewall riots. In March 1970, Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine raided the Zodiac and 17 Barrow Street. An after-hours gay club with no liquor or occupancy licenses called The Snake Pit was soon raided, and 167 people were arrested. One of them was Diego Vinales, an Argentinian national so frightened that he might be deported as a homosexual that he tried to escape the police precinct by jumping out a two-story window, impaling himself on a 14-inch (36 cm) spike fence.[113] [114]The New York Daily News printed a graphic photo of the young man's impalement on the front page. GAA members organized a march from Christopher Park to the Sixth Precinct in which hundreds of gays, lesbians, and liberal sympathizers peacefully confronted the TPF.[108] They also sponsored a letter-writing campaign to Mayor Lindsay in which the Greenwich Village Democratic Party and Congressman Ed Koch sent pleas to end raids on gay bars in the city.[115]
The Stonewall Inn lasted only a few weeks after the riot. By October 1969 it was up for rent. Village residents surmised it was too notorious a location, and Rodwell's boycott discouraged business.[116]
Gay Pride[edit]
Christopher Street Liberation Day on June 28, 1970 marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street and the first Gay Pride march in U.S. history, covering the 51 blocks to Central Park. The march took less than half the scheduled time due to excitement, but also due to wariness about walking through the city with gay banners and signs. Although the parade permit was delivered only two hours before the start of the march, the marchers encountered little resistance from onlookers.[117] The New York Times reported (on the front page) that the marchers took up the entire street for about 15 city blocks.[118] Reporting by The Village Voice was positive, describing "the out-front resistance that grew out of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn one year ago".[119]


There was little open animosity, and some bystanders applauded when a tall, pretty girl carrying a sign "I am a Lesbian" walked by. – The New York Times coverage of Gay Liberation Day, 1970[118]

Gay Pride marches took place simultaneously in Los Angeles and Chicago.[120][121] The next year, Gay Pride marches took place in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin, and Stockholm.[119] By 1972 the participating cities included Atlanta, Buffalo, Detroit, Washington D.C., Miami, and Philadelphia,[122] as well as San Francisco.
Frank Kameny soon realized the pivotal change brought by the Stonewall riots. An organizer of gay activism in the 1950s, he was used to persuasion, trying to convince heterosexuals that gay people were no different than they were. When he and other people marched in front of the White House, the State Department and Independence Hall only five years earlier, their objective was to look as if they could work for the U.S. government.[123] Ten people marched with Kameny then, and they alerted no press to their intentions. Although he was stunned by the upheaval by participants in the Annual Reminder in 1969, he later observed, "By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country. A year later there was at least fifteen hundred. By two years later, to the extent that a count could be made, it was twenty-five hundred."[124]
Similar to Kameny's regret at his own reaction to the shift in attitudes after the riots, Randy Wicker came to describe his embarrassment as "one of the greatest mistakes of his life".[125] The image of gays retaliating against police, after so many years of allowing such treatment to go unchallenged, "stirred an unexpected spirit among many homosexuals".[125] Kay Lahusen, who photographed the marches in 1965, stated, "Up to 1969, this movement was generally called the homosexual or homophile movement.... Many new activists consider the Stonewall uprising the birth of the gay liberation movement. Certainly it was the birth of gay pride on a massive scale."[126] David Carter, in his article “What made Stonewall different,” explained that even though there were several uprisings before Stonewall, the reason why Stonewall was so historical was because thousands of people were involved, the riot lasted a long time (six days), it was the first to get major media coverage, and it sparked the formation of many gay’s rights groups.[127]
Legacy[edit]
Unlikely community[edit]
Within two years of the Stonewall riots there were gay rights groups in every major American city, as well as Canada, Australia, and Western Europe.[128] People who joined activist organizations after the riots had very little in common other than their same-sex attraction. Many who arrived at GLF or GAA meetings were taken aback by the number of gay people in one place.[129] Race, class, ideology, and gender became frequent obstacles in the years after the riots. This was illustrated during the 1973 Stonewall rally when, moments after Barbara Gittings exuberantly praised the diversity of the crowd, feminist activist Jean O'Leary protested what she perceived as the mocking of women by cross-dressers and drag queens in attendance. During a speech by O'Leary, in which she claimed that drag queens made fun of women for entertainment value and profit, Sylvia Rivera and Lee Brewster jumped on the stage and shouted "You go to bars because of what drag queens did for you, and these bitches tell us to quit being ourselves!"[130] Both the drag queens and lesbian feminists in attendance left in disgust.[131]
O'Leary also worked in the early 1970s to exclude trans people from gay rights issues because she felt that rights for trans people would be too difficult to attain. Sylvia Rivera left gay activism in the 1970s to work on issues for transgender people and cross-dressers. The initial disagreements between participants in the movements, however, often evolved after further reflection. O'Leary later regretted her stance against the drag queens attending in 1973: "Looking back, I find this so embarrassing because my views have changed so much since then. I would never pick on a transvestite now."[131] "It was horrible. How could I work to exclude transvestites and at the same time criticize the feminists who were doing their best back in those days to exclude lesbians?"[132]
O'Leary was referring to the Lavender Menace, a description by second wave feminist Betty Friedan for attempts by members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to distance themselves from the perception of NOW as a haven for lesbians. As part of this process, Rita Mae Brown and other lesbians who had been active in NOW were forced out. They staged a protest in 1970 at the Second Congress to Unite Women, and earned the support of many NOW members, finally gaining full acceptance in 1971.[133]
The growth of lesbian feminism in the 1970s at times so conflicted with the gay liberation movement that some lesbians refused to work with gay men. Many lesbians found men's attitudes patriarchal and chauvinistic, and saw in gay men the same misguided notions about women as they saw in heterosexual men.[134] The issues most important to gay men—entrapment and public solicitation—were not shared by lesbians. In 1977 a Lesbian Pride Rally was organized as an alternative to sharing gay men's issues, especially what Adrienne Rich termed "the violent, self-destructive world of the gay bars".[134] Veteran gay activist Barbara Gittings chose to work in the gay rights movement, rationalizing "It's a matter of where does it hurt the most? For me it hurts the most not in the female arena, but the gay arena."[134]
Throughout the 1970s gay activism had significant successes. One of the first and most important was the "zap" in May 1970 by the Los Angeles GLF at a convention of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). At a conference on behavior modification, during a film demonstrating the use of electroshock therapy to decrease same-sex attraction, Morris Kight and GLF members in the audience interrupted the film with shouts of "Torture!" and "Barbarism!"[135] They took over the microphone to announce that medical professionals who prescribed such therapy for their homosexual patients were complicit in torturing them. Although 20 psychiatrists in attendance left, the GLF spent the hour following the zap with those remaining, trying to convince them that homosexuals were not mentally ill.[135] When the APA invited gay activists to speak to the group in 1972, activists brought John E. Fryer, a gay psychiatrist who wore a mask, because he felt his practice was in danger. In December 1973—in large part due to the efforts of gay activists—the APA voted unanimously to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.[136][137]
Gay men and lesbians came together to work in grassroots political organizations responding to organized resistance in 1977. A coalition of conservatives named Save Our Children staged a campaign to repeal a civil rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida. Save Our Children was successful enough to influence similar repeals in several American cities in 1978. However, the same year a campaign in California called the Briggs Initiative, designed to force the dismissal of homosexual public school employees was defeated.[138] Reaction to the influence of Save Our Children and the Briggs Initiative in the gay community was so significant that it has been called the second Stonewall for many activists, marking their initiation into political participation.[139]
Rejection of gay subculture[edit]
The Stonewall riots marked such a significant turning point that many aspects of prior gay and lesbian culture, such as bar culture formed from decades of shame and secrecy, were forcefully ignored and denied. Historian Martin Duberman writes, "The decades preceding Stonewall ... continue to be regarded by most gays and lesbians as some vast neolithic wasteland".[140] Historian Barry Adam notes, "Every social movement must choose at some point what to retain and what to reject out of its past. What traits are the results of oppression and what are healthy and authentic?"[141] In conjunction with the growing feminist movement of the early 1970s, roles of butch and femme that developed in lesbian bars in the 1950s and 1960s were rejected, because as one writer put it: "all role playing is sick".[142] Lesbian feminists considered the butch roles as archaic imitations of masculine behavior.[143] Some women, according to Lillian Faderman, were eager to shed the roles they felt forced into playing. The roles returned for some women in the 1980s, although they allowed for more flexibility than before Stonewall.[144]
Author Michael Bronski highlights the "attack on pre-Stonewall culture", particularly gay pulp fiction for men, where the themes often reflected ambivalence about being gay or self-hatred. Many books ended unsatisfactorily and drastically, often with suicide, and writers portrayed their gay characters as alcoholics and deeply unhappy. These books, which he describes as "an enormous and cohesive literature by and for gay men",[145] have not been reissued and are lost to later generations. Dismissing the reason simply as political correctness, Bronski writes, "gay liberation was a youth movement whose sense of history was defined to a large degree by rejection of the past".[146]
Lasting impact[edit]

A color photograph of the Stonewall taken recently, showing a smaller plate glass window in a portion of the 1969 building

 The Stonewall, a bar in part of the building where the Stonewall Inn was located. The building and the surrounding streets have been declared a National Historic Landmark.
The riots spawned from a bar raid became a literal example of gays and lesbians fighting back, and a symbolic call to arms for many people. Historian David Carter remarks in his book about the Stonewall riots that the bar itself was a complex business that represented a community center, an opportunity for the Mafia to blackmail its own customers, a home, and a place of "exploitation and degradation".[147] The true legacy of the Stonewall riots, Carter insists, is the "ongoing struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality".[148] Historian Nicholas Edsall writes,

Stonewall has been compared to any number of acts of radical protest and defiance in American history from the Boston Tea Party on. But the best and certainly a more nearly contemporary analogy is with Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955, which sparked the modern civil rights movement. Within months after Stonewall radical gay liberation groups and newsletters sprang up in cities and on college campuses across America and then across all of northern Europe as well.[149]
Before the rebellion at the Stonewall Inn, homosexuals were, as historians Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney write,

a secret legion of people, known of but discounted, ignored, laughed at or despised. And like the holders of a secret, they had an advantage which was a disadvantage, too, and which was true of no other minority group in the United States. They were invisible. Unlike African Americans, women, Native Americans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Asians, Hispanics, or any other cultural group which struggled for respect and equal rights, homosexuals had no physical or cultural markings, no language or dialect which could identify them to each other, or to anyone else ... But that night, for the first time, the usual acquiescence turned into violent resistance ... From that night the lives of millions of gay men and lesbians, and the attitude toward them of the larger culture in which they lived, began to change rapidly. People began to appear in public as homosexuals, demanding respect.[150]
Historian Lillian Faderman calls the riots the "shot heard round the world", explaining, "The Stonewall Rebellion was crucial because it sounded the rally for that movement. It became an emblem of gay and lesbian power. By calling on the dramatic tactic of violent protest that was being used by other oppressed groups, the events at the Stonewall implied that homosexuals had as much reason to be disaffected as they."[151]
Joan Nestle co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974, and credits "its creation to that night and the courage that found its voice in the streets".[101] Cautious, however, not to attribute the start of gay activism to the Stonewall riots, Nestle writes,

I certainly don't see gay and lesbian history starting with Stonewall ... and I don't see resistance starting with Stonewall. What I do see is a historical coming together of forces, and the sixties changed how human beings endured things in this society and what they refused to endure.... Certainly something special happened on that night in 1969, and we've made it more special in our need to have what I call a point of origin ... it's more complex than saying that it all started with Stonewall.[152]
The events of the early morning of June 28, 1969 were not the first instances of homosexuals fighting back against police in New York City and elsewhere. Not only had the Mattachine Society been active in major cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, but similarly marginalized people started the riot at Compton's Cafeteria in 1966, and another riot responded to a raid on Los Angeles' Black Cat Tavern in 1967.[153] However, several circumstances were in place that made the Stonewall riots memorable. The location of the raid was a factor: it was across the street from The Village Voice offices, and the narrow crooked streets gave the rioters advantage over the police.[122] Many of the participants and residents of Greenwich Village were involved in political organizations that were effectively able to mobilize a large and cohesive gay community in the weeks and months after the rebellion. The most significant facet of the Stonewall riots, however, was the commemoration of them in Christopher Street Liberation Day, which grew into the annual Gay Pride events around the world.[122]
The middle of the 1990s was marked by the inclusion of bisexuals as a represented group within the gay community when they successfully sought to be included on the platform of the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Despite also requesting to be included, transgender people were instead afforded trans-inclusive language on the march's list of demands.[154] The transgender community continued to find itself simultaneously welcome and at odds with the gay community as attitudes about binary and fluid sexual orientation and gender developed and came increasingly into conflict.[28][155] In 1994, New York City celebrated "Stonewall 25" with a march that went past the United Nations Headquarters and into Central Park. Estimates put the attendance at 1.1 million people.[156] Sylvia Rivera led an alternate march in New York City in 1994 to protest the exclusion of transgender people from the events.[7] Attendance at Gay Pride events has grown substantially over the decades. Most large American cities have some kind of Pride demonstration, as do most large cities around the world. Pride events in some cities mark the largest annual celebration of any kind.[7] The growing trend towards commercializing marches into parades—with events receiving corporate sponsorship—has caused concern about taking away the autonomy of the original grassroots demonstrations that put inexpensive activism in the hands of individuals.[7]
In June 1999 the U.S. Department of the Interior designated 51 and 53 Christopher Street, the street itself, and the surrounding streets as a National Historic Landmark, the first of significance to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. In a dedication ceremony, Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior John Berry stated, "Let it forever be remembered that here—on this spot—men and women stood proud, they stood fast, so that we may be who we are, we may work where we will, live where we choose and love whom our hearts desire."[157]
On June 1, 2009, President Barack Obama declared June 2009 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, citing the riots as a reason to "commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans".[158] The year marked the 40th anniversary of the riots, giving journalists and activists cause to reflect on progress made since 1969. Frank Rich in The New York Times noted that no federal legislation exists to protect the rights of gay Americans. An editorial in the Washington Blade compared the scruffy, violent activism during and following the Stonewall riots to the lackluster response to failed promises given by President Obama; for being ignored, wealthy LGBT activists reacted by promising to give less money to Democratic causes.[159] Two years later, the Stonewall Inn served as a rallying point for celebrations after the New York Senate voted to pass same-sex marriage. The act was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 24, 2011.[160]
Obama also referenced the Stonewall riots in a call for full equality during his second inaugural address on January 21, 2013:

"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall. . . . Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
This was a historic moment, being the first time that a president mentioned gay rights or the word "gay" in an inaugural address.[161][162]
See also[edit]

Portal icon LGBT portal
Portal icon New York City portal
Portal icon 1960s portal
List of pre-Stonewall LGBT actions in the United States
Stormé DeLarverie
Marsha P. Johnson
Sylvia Rivera
FilmsAfter Stonewall, a documentary of the years from Stonewall to century's end
Before Stonewall, a documentary of the decades leading up to Stonewall
Stonewall, a fictionalized presentation of the events leading up to the riots
Stonewall Uprising, a documentary presentation using archival footage, photographs, documents and witness statements
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ At the time, the term "gay" was commonly used to refer to all LGBT people. Bisexuals, transsexuals and transvestites also took part in the riots.
2.Jump up ^ Except for Illinois, which decriminalized sodomy in 1961, homosexual acts, even between consenting adults acting in private homes, were a criminal offense in every U.S. state at the time the Stonewall riots occurred: "An adult convicted of the crime of having sex with another consenting adult in the privacy of his or her home could get anywhere from a light fine to five, ten, or twenty years—or even life—in prison. In 1971, twenty states had 'sex psychopath' laws that permitted the detaining of homosexuals for that reason alone. In Pennsylvania and California sex offenders could be committed to a psychiatric institution for life, and [in] seven states they could be castrated." (Carter, p. 15) Castration, emetics, hypnosis, electroshock therapy and lobotomies were used by psychiatrists to attempt to cure homosexuals through the 1950s and 1960s.(Katz, pp. 181–197.)(Adam, p. 60.)
3.Jump up ^ Stonewall employees do not recall being tipped off that a raid was to occur that night, as was the custom. According to Duberman (p. 194), there was a rumor that one might happen, but since it was much later than raids generally took place, Stonewall management thought the tip was inaccurate. Days after the raid, one of the bar owners complained that the tipoff had never come, and that the raid was ordered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, who objected that there were no stamps on the liquor bottles, indicating the alcohol was bootlegged. David Carter presents information (p. 96–103) indicating that the Mafia owners of the Stonewall and the manager were blackmailing wealthier customers, particularly those who worked on Wall Street. They appeared to be making more money from extortion than they were from liquor sales in the bar. Carter deduces that when the police were unable to receive kickbacks from blackmail and the theft of negotiable bonds (facilitated by pressuring gay Wall Street customers), they decided to close the Stonewall Inn permanently.
4.Jump up ^ Accounts of people who witnessed the scene, including letters and news reports of the woman who fought with police, conflicted. Where witnesses claim one woman who fought her treatment at the hands of the police caused the crowd to become angry, some also remembered several "butch lesbians" had begun to fight back while still in the bar. At least one was already bleeding when taken out of the bar (Carter, p. 152–153). Craig Rodwell (in Duberman, p. 197) claims the arrest of the woman was not the primary event that triggered the violence, but one of several simultaneous occurrences: "there was just ... a flash of group—of mass—anger".
5.Jump up ^ Witness Morty Manford stated, "There's no doubt in my mind that those people were deliberately left unguarded. I assume there was some sort of relationship between the bar management and the local police, so they really didn't want to arrest those people. But they had to at least look like they were doing their jobs." (Marcus, p. 128.)
6.Jump up ^ In the years since the riots occurred, the death of gay icon Judy Garland earlier in the week on June 22, 1969 has been attributed as a significant factor in the riots, but no participants in Saturday morning's demonstrations recall Garland's name being discussed. No print accounts of the riots by reliable sources cite Garland as a reason for the riot, although one sarcastic account by a heterosexual publication suggested it. (Carter, p. 260.) Although Sylvia Rivera recalls she was saddened and amazed by the turnout at Garland's funeral on Friday, June 27, she said that she did not feel like going out much but changed her mind later. (Duberman, p. 190–191.) Bob Kohler used to talk to the homeless youth in Sheridan Square, and said, "When people talk about Judy Garland's death having anything much to do with the riot, that makes me crazy. The street kids faced death every day. They had nothing to lose. And they couldn't have cared less about Judy. We're talking about kids who were fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Judy Garland was the middle-aged darling of the middle-class gays. I get upset about this because it trivializes the whole thing." (Deitcher, p. 72.)
7.Jump up ^ Rivera was handed a Molotov cocktail (there were no eyewitness accounts of Molotov cocktails the first night although many fires were set), that she identified only because she had seen them on the news: "I'm like, 'What am I supposed to do with this?' And this guy said, 'Well, I'm going to light it, and you're going to throw it.' And I'm like, 'Fine. You light it, I throw it, 'cause if it blows up, I don't want it to blow up on me.' It's hard to explain, except that it had to happen one day...." (Deitcher, p. 67.)
8.Jump up ^ One protester needed stitches to repair a knee broken by a night stick; another lost two fingers in a car door. Witnesses recollect that some of the most "feminine boys" were beaten badly. (Duberman, p. 201–202.)
9.Jump up ^ Carter (p. 201) attributes the anger at The Village Voice reports to its focus on the effeminate behavior of the participants, with the exclusion of any kind of bravery. Author Edmund White insists that Smith and Truscott were trying to assert their own heterosexuality by referring to the events and people in derogatory terms.
10.Jump up ^ "Hairpin drop" was gay slang that meant to drop hints about one's sexual orientation. (LaFrank, p. 17.)
Citations[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Carter, p. 143.
2.Jump up ^ National Park Service (2008). "Workforce Diversity: The Stonewall Inn, National Historic Landmark National Register Number: 99000562". US Department of Interior. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
3.Jump up ^ "Obama inaugural speech references Stonewall gay-rights riots". © 2013 North Jersey Media Group Inc. All rights reserved. January 21, 2013. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
4.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 15.
5.^ Jump up to: a b c Duberman, p. 183.
6.Jump up ^ Carter, pp. 79–83.
7.^ Jump up to: a b c d "Pride Marches and Parades", in Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America, Marc Stein, ed. (2004), Charles Scribner's Sons.
8.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 56.
9.Jump up ^ Edsall, p. 277.
10.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 58.
11.Jump up ^ Edsall, p. 278.
12.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 59.
13.Jump up ^ Edsall, p. 247.
14.Jump up ^ Edsall, p. 310.
15.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 58–59.
16.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 24–25.
17.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 62–63.
18.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 63–64.
19.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 42–43.
20.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 21.
21.Jump up ^ Gallo, pp. 1–5, 11.
22.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 47–48.
23.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 80–88.
24.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 71.
25.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 105–108.
26.Jump up ^ DiGuglielmo, Joey (October 20, 2011). Steps to Stonewall, Washington Blade. Retrieved on November 5, 2012.
27.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 72–73.
28.^ Jump up to: a b c Stryker, Susan (Winter, 2008). "Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity", Radical History Review, p. 145–157.
29.Jump up ^ Faderman and Timmons, pp. 1–2
30.^ Jump up to: a b Boyd, Nan Alamilla (2004). "San Francisco" in the Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History in America, Ed. Marc Stein. Vol. 3. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 71–78.
31.Jump up ^ Edsall, p. 253–254.
32.Jump up ^ Edsall, p. 255–256.
33.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 68–69.
34.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 29–37.
35.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 46.
36.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 116–117.
37.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 48.
38.Jump up ^ Jackson, Sharyn (June 17, 2008). "Before Stonewall: Remembering that, before the riots, there was a Sip-In". The Village Voice. Retrieved on September 8, 2008.
39.^ Jump up to: a b Duberman, p. 181.
40.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 185.
41.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 68.
42.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 80.
43.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 182.
44.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 71.
45.^ Jump up to: a b Duberman, p. 187.
46.^ Jump up to: a b Duberman, p. 189.
47.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 188.
48.Jump up ^ Deitcher, p. 70.
49.Jump up ^ Carter p. 74.
50.^ Jump up to: a b Duberman, p. 192–193.
51.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 124–125.
52.^ Jump up to: a b c Teal, p. 4.
53.Jump up ^ Eskow, Dennis. "4 Policemen Hurt in 'Village' Raid: Melee Near Sheridan Square Follows Action at Bar", The New York Times, June 29, 1969, p. 33.
54.Jump up ^ Carter, photo spread, p. 1.
55.^ Jump up to: a b Carter, p. 137.
56.^ Jump up to: a b Carter, p. 142.
57.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 141.
58.Jump up ^ Teal, p. 2.
59.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 147.
60.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 147–148.
61.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 148.
62.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 196.
63.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 152.
64.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 151.
65.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 154.
66.^ Jump up to: a b Carter, p. 156.
67.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 160.
68.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 162.
69.Jump up ^ Teal, p. 13.
70.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 163–165.
71.Jump up ^ Deitcher, p. 67.
72.^ Jump up to: a b Teal, p. 3.
73.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 175.
74.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 174.
75.Jump up ^ Teal, p. 5.
76.^ Jump up to: a b Teal, p. 6.
77.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 178.
78.Jump up ^ "Christopher Park: Gay Liberation Monument", New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Retrieved on September 27, 2008.
79.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 180.
80.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 181.
81.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 202.
82.Jump up ^ "Police Again Rout Village Youths: Outbreak by 400 Follows a Near-Riot Over Raid", The New York Times, June 30, 1969, p. 22.
83.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 184.
84.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 185.
85.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 186.
86.^ Jump up to: a b Duberman, p. 204–205.
87.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 191.
88.Jump up ^ Teal, p. 7.
89.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 205.
90.Jump up ^ Teal, p. 8–9.
91.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 207.
92.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 206.
93.Jump up ^ Truscott, Lucian (July 3, 1969). "Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square". The Village Voice. p. 1. Retrieved June 20, 2010.
94.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 208–209.
95.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 203–205.
96.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 205.
97.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 105–107.
98.^ Jump up to: a b Carter, p. 216–217.
99.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 210.
100.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 211.
101.^ Jump up to: a b LaFrank, p. 17.
102.^ Jump up to: a b Teal, p. 19.
103.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 31.
104.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 136.
105.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 216.
106.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 220–221.
107.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 40.
108.^ Jump up to: a b Carter, p. 242.
109.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 235.
110.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 220.
111.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 50–51.
112.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 245–246.
113.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 238–239.
114.Jump up ^ Karla Jay, Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation
115.Jump up ^ Teal, p. 106–108.
116.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 252.
117.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 62–64.
118.^ Jump up to: a b Fosburgh, Lacey (June 29, 1970). "Thousands of Homosexuals Hold A Protest Rally in Central Park", The New York Times, p. 1.
119.^ Jump up to: a b LaFrank, p. 20.
120.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. 278–279.
121.Jump up ^ De la Croix, Sukie (2007). Gay power: A History of Chicago Pride, Chicago Free Press. Retrieved on June 1, 2009.
122.^ Jump up to: a b c Armstrong, Elizabeth A., Crage, Suzanna M. (October 2006). "Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth", American Sociological Review, 71 (5) pp. 724–752. doi 10.1177/000312240607100502
123.Jump up ^ Cain, p. 91–92.
124.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 251.
125.^ Jump up to: a b Clendinen, p. 25.
126.Jump up ^ LaFrank, p. 21.
127.Jump up ^ Carter, David. "What made Stonewall Different." The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide 16.4 (2009): 11-3. GenderWatch. Web.
128.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 82.
129.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 152–155.
130.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 171–172.
131.^ Jump up to: a b Duberman, p. 236.
132.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 156.
133.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 90–91.
134.^ Jump up to: a b c Faderman, p. 211–212.
135.^ Jump up to: a b Williams & Retter, p. 121.
136.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 146–147.
137.Jump up ^ Cain, p. 65.
138.Jump up ^ Cain, p. 275.
139.Jump up ^ Fejes, p. 214.
140.Jump up ^ Duberman, p. xv.
141.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 93.
142.Jump up ^ Adam, p. 94.
143.Jump up ^ Faderman, p. 232.
144.Jump up ^ Faderman, pp. 210, 266.
145.Jump up ^ Bronski, p. 16.
146.Jump up ^ Bronski, p. 12.
147.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 264.
148.Jump up ^ Carter, p. 266.
149.Jump up ^ Edsall, p. 333.
150.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 12.
151.Jump up ^ Faderman, p. 195.
152.Jump up ^ Deitcher, p. 74.
153.Jump up ^ Witt et al., p. 210
154.Jump up ^ Schalger, Neil, (ed.) (1997). Gay and Lesbian Almanac, St. James Press. ISBN 1-55862-358-2 p. 22–23
155.Jump up ^ Thompson, Kara (2004). "Transsexuals, Transvestites, Transgender People, and Cross-Dressers" in Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History in America, Ed. Marc Stein. Vol. 3. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004. p. 203–208.
156.Jump up ^ LaFrank, p. 22.
157.Jump up ^ Dunlap, David (June 26, 1999). "Stonewall, Gay Bar That Made History, Is Made a Landmark", The New York Times. Retrieved September 27, 2008.
158.Jump up ^ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, 2009, The White House (June 1, 2009). Retrieved on June 2, 2009.
159.Jump up ^ Naff, Kevin (June 26, 2009). "Alas, Poor Activism, We Knew Her Well"[dead link], Washington Blade. Retrieved on July 6, 2009.
160.Jump up ^ Zraick, Karen (June 25, 2011). NY legalizes gay marriage 42 years after Stonewall Yahoo!. Retrieved June 25, 2011.
161.Jump up ^ Robillard, Kevin (January 21, 2013). "First inaugural use of the word 'gay'". Politico. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
162.Jump up ^ "Obama Inauguration Speech Makes History With Mention Of Gay Rights Struggle, Stonewall Uprising". Huffington Post. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
Bibliography[edit]
Adam, Barry (1987). The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement, G. K. Hall & Co. ISBN 0-8057-9714-9
Bronski, Michael (ed.) (2003). Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps, St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-25267-6
Cain, Paul (2007). Leading the Parade: Conversations with America's Most Influential Lesbians and Gay Men, Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN 0-8108-5913-0
Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1
Clendinen, Dudley, and Nagourney, Adam (1999). Out for Good, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81091-3
Deitcher, David (ed.) (1995). The Question of Equality: Lesbian and Gay Politics in America Since Stonewall, Scribner. ISBN 0-684-80030-6
Duberman, Martin (1993). Stonewall, Penguin Books. ISBN 0-525-93602-5
Edsall, Nicholas (2003). Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World, University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-2211-9
Faderman, Lillian (1991). Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America, Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-017122-3
Faderman, Lillian and Stuart Timmons (2006). Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02288-X.
Fejes, Fred (2008). Gay Rights and Moral Panic: The Origins of America's Debate on Homosexuality, Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 1-4039-8069-1
Gallo, Marcia (2006). Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement, Seal Press. ISBN 1-58005-252-5
Katz, Jonathan (1976). Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. Thomas Y. Crowell Company. ISBN 0-690-01165-2
LaFrank, Kathleen (ed.) (January 1999). "National Historic Landmark Nomination: Stonewall", U.S. Department of the Interior: National Park Service.
Marcus, Eric (2002). Making Gay History, HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-093391-7
Teal, Donn (1971). The Gay Militants, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-11279-3
Williams, Walter and Retter, Yvonne (eds.) (2003). Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States: A Documentary History, Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30696-6
Witt, Lynn, Sherry Thomas and Eric Marcus (eds.) (1995). Out in All Directions: The Almanac of Gay and Lesbian America. New York, Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-67237-8.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stonewall Inn (New York).
Police Records Document Start of Stonewall Uprising, New York Times, June 22, 2009
Newspaper reports of the event
New York City Pride
Media Could Use a Stonewall Uprising of Their Own by Karl Frisch, The Huffington Post
A Look Back at the Uprising that Launched the Modern Gay Rights Movement - Video report by Democracy Now!
Stonewall Uprising in PBS' American Experience
Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria at imdb. A 2005 documentary by Victor Silverman and Susan Stryker about the riots at Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco leading up to Stonewall

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Harvey Milk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Page semi-protected
For other uses, see Harvey Milk (disambiguation).

Harvey Milk
A black and white photograph of Harvey Milk sitting at the mayor's desk
Milk in 1978
Member of the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
 from District 5
In office
 January 8, 1978 – November 27, 1978
Preceded by
District Created
Succeeded by
Harry Britt
 (appointed)
Constituency
The Castro,
Haight-Ashbury,
Duboce Triangle,
Noe Valley
Personal details

Born
Harvey Bernard Milk
May 22, 1930
Woodmere, New York
Died
November 27, 1978 (aged 48)
San Francisco, California
Nationality
American
Political party
Democratic
Residence
San Francisco
Alma mater
SUNY at Albany
Profession
Politician, business owner
Religion
Judaism
Military service

Allegiance
United States of America
Service/branch
United States Navy
Years of service
1951–1955
Rank
US-O2 insignia.svg Lieutenant, junior grade
Unit
USS Kittiwake (ASR-13)
Battles/wars
Korean War Era
Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Politics and gay activism were not his early interests; he was not open about his homosexuality and did not participate in civic matters until around the age of 40, after his experiences in the counterculture of the 1960s.
Milk moved from New York City to settle in San Francisco in 1972 amid a migration of gay men to the Castro District. He took advantage of the growing political and economic power of the neighborhood to promote his interests, and ran unsuccessfully for political office three times. His theatrical campaigns earned him increasing popularity, and Milk won a seat as a city supervisor in 1977, part of the broader social changes the city was experiencing.
Milk served almost 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city. On November 27, 1978, Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, another city supervisor who had recently resigned but wanted his job back. Milk's election was made possible by and was a key component of a shift in San Francisco politics. The assassinations and the ensuing events were the result of continuing ideological conflicts in the city.
Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community.[note 1] In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States".[1] Anne Kronenberg, his final campaign manager, wrote of him: "What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary. He imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us."[2] Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Early life 1.1 Early career
1.2 Rise of Castro Street
1.3 Changing politics
2 Campaigns 2.1 Mayor of Castro Street
2.2 Serious candidate
2.3 Race for State Assembly
3 Broader historical forces 3.1 Just politics
3.2 Last campaign
4 Supervisor 4.1 Briggs Initiative
5 Assassination 5.1 "City in agony"
5.2 Trial
5.3 White Night riots
5.4 Aftermath
6 Legacy 6.1 Politics
6.2 Tributes and media
7 See also
8 Notes
9 Citations
10 Bibliography
11 Further reading
12 External links
Early life

A black and white photograph of two young children aged approximately six and three dressed as cowboys

 Harvey (right) and his older brother Robert in 1934
Milk was born in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island, to William Milk and Minerva Karns. He was the younger son of Lithuanian Jewish parents and the grandson of Morris Milk, a department store owner[3][4] who helped to organize the first synagogue in the area.[5] As a child, Harvey was teased for his protruding ears, big nose, and oversized feet, and tended to grab attention as a class clown. He played football in school, and developed a passion for opera; in his teens, he acknowledged his homosexuality, but kept it a closely guarded secret. Under his name in the high school yearbook, it read, "Glimpy Milk—and they say WOMEN are never at a loss for words".[6]
Milk graduated from Bay Shore High School in Bay Shore, New York, in 1947 and attended New York State College for Teachers in Albany (now the State University of New York at Albany) from 1947 to 1951, majoring in mathematics. He wrote for the college newspaper and earned a reputation as a gregarious, friendly student. None of his friends in high school or college suspected that he was gay. As one classmate remembered, "He was never thought of as a possible queer—that's what you called them then—he was a man's man".[7]
Early career
After graduation, Milk joined the United States Navy during the Korean War. He served aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) as a diving officer. He later transferred to Naval Station, San Diego to serve as a diving instructor.[4] In 1955, he was discharged from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade.[note 2]

A color photograph of Milk in his Dinner Dress Blue Navy uniform

 Milk dressed for his brother's wedding in 1954
Milk's early career was marked by frequent changes; in later years he would take delight in talking about his metamorphosis from a middle-class Jewish boy. He began teaching at George W. Hewlett High School on Long Island.[8] In 1956, he met Joe Campbell, at the Jacob Riis Park beach, a popular location for gay men in Queens. Campbell was seven years younger than Milk, and Milk pursued him passionately. Even after they moved in together, Milk wrote Campbell romantic notes and poems.[9] Growing bored with their New York lives, they decided to move to Dallas, Texas, but they were unhappy there and moved back to New York, where Milk got a job as an actuarial statistician at an insurance firm.[10] Campbell and Milk separated after almost six years; it would be his longest relationship.
Milk tried to keep his early romantic life separate from his family and work. Once again bored and single in New York, he thought of moving to Miami to marry a lesbian friend to "have a front and each would not be in the way of the other".[10] However, he decided to remain in New York, where he secretly pursued gay relationships. In 1962 Milk became involved with Craig Rodwell, who was ten years younger. Though Milk courted Rodwell ardently, waking him every morning with a call and sending him notes, Milk was discouraged by Rodwell's involvement with the New York Mattachine Society, a gay activist organization. When Rodwell was arrested for walking in Riis Park, and charged with inciting a riot and with indecent exposure (the law required men's swimsuits to extend from above the navel to below the thigh), he spent three days in jail. The relationship soon ended as Milk became alarmed at Rodwell's tendency to agitate the police.[11][note 3]
Milk abruptly stopped working as an insurance actuary and became a researcher at the Wall Street firm Bache & Company. He was frequently promoted despite his tendency to offend the older members of the firm by ignoring their advice and flaunting his success. Although he was skilled at his job, co-workers sensed that Milk's heart was not in his work.[3] He started a romantic relationship with Jack Galen McKinley, and recruited him to work on conservative Republican Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign.[12] Their relationship was troubled: McKinley, 17 years younger than Milk, was prone to depression and frequently threatened to commit suicide if Milk did not show him enough attention.[13] To make a point to McKinley, Milk took him to the hospital where Milk's ex-lover, Joe Campbell, was himself recuperating from a suicide attempt, after his lover—a man named Billy Sipple—left him. Milk had remained friendly with Campbell, who had entered the avant-garde art scene in Greenwich Village, but Milk did not understand why Campbell's despondency was sufficient cause to consider suicide as an option.[14]
Rise of Castro Street
The Eureka Valley of San Francisco, where Market and Castro Streets intersect, had for decades been a blue-collar Irish Catholic neighborhood synonymous with the Most Holy Redeemer Parish (a few Lutherans of Scandinavian ancestry also lived in the neighborhood). Beginning in the late 1960s, however, young families left the neighborhood and moved to Bay Area suburbs, and the city's economic base eroded as factories moved to cheaper locations nearby and blue-collar port jobs relocated to Oakland. Mayor Joseph Alioto, proud of his working-class background and supporters, based his political career on welcoming developers to provide construction jobs and attracting a Roman Catholic Cardinal to the city. Many blue-collar workers—often Alioto supporters—lost their jobs as large corporations with service industry positions replaced factory and dry dock jobs. San Francisco, which had been "a city of villages", a decentralized city with ethnic enclaves that each surrounded its own main street, began a demographic change.[15]
As the downtown area developed, neighborhoods suffered, including Castro Street.[16] The Most Holy Redeemer Parish shops shut down, and houses were abandoned and shuttered.[17] In 1963, real estate prices plummeted when most of the working-class families tried to sell their houses quickly after a gay bar opened in the neighborhood. Hippies, attracted to the free love ideals of the Haight-Ashbury area but repulsed by its crime rate, bought some of the cheap Victorian houses. Beginning in the late 1960s, many San Francisco gays who were affluent began to move from the small apartments of the Polk Gulch area, San Francisco's primary gayborhood since the end of World War II, to the large cheap Victorians in the Castro neighborhood.
Since the end of World War II, the major port city of San Francisco had been home to a sizable number of gay men expelled from the military who had decided to stay rather than return to their hometowns and face ostracism.[18] By 1969 San Francisco had more gay people per capita than any other American city; when the National Institute of Mental Health asked the Kinsey Institute to survey homosexuals, the Institute chose San Francisco as its focus.[19] Milk and McKinley were among the thousands of gay men attracted to San Francisco. McKinley was a stage manager for Tom O'Horgan, a director who started his career in experimental theater, but soon graduated to much larger Broadway productions. They arrived in 1969 with the Broadway touring company of Hair. McKinley was offered a job in the New York City production of Jesus Christ Superstar, and their tempestuous relationship came to an end. The city appealed to Milk so much that he decided to stay, working at an investment firm. In 1970, increasingly frustrated with the political climate after the U.S. invasion of Cambodia, Milk let his hair grow long. When told to cut it, he refused and was fired.[20]
Milk drifted from California to Texas to New York, without a steady job or plan. In New York City he became involved with O'Horgan's theater company as a "general aide", signing on as associate producer for Lenny and for Eve Merriam's Inner City.[21][22] The time he had spent with the cast of flower children wore away much of Milk's conservatism. A contemporary New York Times story about O'Horgan described Milk as "a sad eyed man—another aging hippie with long, long hair, wearing faded jeans and pretty beads".[22] Craig Rodwell read the description of the formerly uptight man and wondered if it could be the same person.[23] One of Milk's Wall Street friends worried that he seemed to have no plan or future, but remembered Milk's attitude: "I think he was happier than at any time I had ever seen him in his entire life."[23]
Milk met Scott Smith, 18 years his junior, and began another relationship. Milk and Smith returned to San Francisco, where they lived on money they had saved.[23] In March 1973, after a roll of film Milk left at a local shop was ruined, he and Smith opened a camera store on Castro Street with their last $1,000.[24]
Changing politics
In the late 1960s, the Society for Individual Rights (SIR) and the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) began to work against police persecution of gay bars and entrapment in San Francisco. Oral sex was still a felony, and in 1970, nearly 90 people in the city were arrested for it. Facing eviction if caught having homosexual sex in a rented apartment, and unwilling to face arrest in gay bars, some men turned to having sex in public parks at night. Mayor Alioto asked the police to target the parks, hoping the decision would appeal to the Archdiocese and his Catholic supporters. In 1971, 2,800 gay men were arrested for public sex in San Francisco. By comparison, New York City recorded only 63 arrests for the same offense that year.[25] Any arrest for a morals charge required registration as a sex offender.[26]
Congressman Phillip Burton, Assemblyman Willie Brown, and other California politicians recognized the growing clout and organization of homosexuals in the city, and courted their votes by attending meetings of gay and lesbian organizations. Brown pushed for legalization of sex between consenting adults in 1969 but failed.[27] SIR was also pursued by popular moderate Supervisor Dianne Feinstein in her bid to become mayor, opposing Alioto. Ex-policeman Richard Hongisto worked for ten years to change the conservative views of the San Francisco Police Department, and also actively appealed to the gay community, which responded by raising significant funds for his campaign for sheriff. Though Feinstein was unsuccessful, Hongisto's win in 1971 showed the political clout of the gay community.[28]
SIR had become powerful enough for political maneuvering. In 1971 SIR members Jim Foster, Rick Stokes, and Advocate publisher David Goodstein formed the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club, known as simply "Alice". Alice befriended liberal politicians to persuade them to sponsor bills, proving successful in 1972 when Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon obtained Feinstein's support for an ordinance outlawing employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Alice chose Stokes to run for a relatively unimportant seat on the community college board. Though Stokes received 45,000 votes, he was quiet, unassuming, and did not win.[29] Foster, however, shot to national prominence by being the first openly gay man to address a political convention. His speech at the 1972 Democratic National Convention ensured that his voice, according to San Francisco politicians, was the one to be heard when they wanted the opinions, and especially the votes, of the gay community.[30]
Milk became more interested in political and civic matters when he was faced with civic problems and policies he disliked. One day in 1973, a state bureaucrat entered Milk's shop Castro Camera and informed him that he owed $100 as a deposit against state sales tax. Milk was incredulous and traded shouts with the man about the rights of business owners; after he complained for weeks at state offices, the deposit was reduced to $30. Milk fumed about government priorities when a teacher came into his store to borrow a projector because the equipment in the schools did not function. Friends also remember around the same time having to restrain him from kicking the television while Attorney General John N. Mitchell gave consistent "I don't recall" replies during the Watergate hearings.[31] Milk decided that the time had come to run for city supervisor. He said later, "I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up".[32]
Campaigns

A color photograph of Milk with long hair and handlebar mustache with his arm around his sister-in-law, both smiling and standing in front of a storefront window showing a portion of a campaign poster with Milk's photo and name

 Milk, here with his sister-in-law in front of Castro Camera in 1973, had been changed by his experience with the counterculture of the 1960s. Dianne Feinstein, who first met him in 1973, did not recognize him when she met him again in 1978.[33]
Milk's reception by the gay political establishment in San Francisco was icy. Jim Foster, who had by then been active in gay politics for ten years, resented the newcomer's asking for his endorsement for a position as prestigious as city supervisor. Foster told Milk, "There's an old saying in the Democratic Party. You don't get to dance unless you put up the chairs. I've never seen you put up the chairs."[34] Milk was furious at the patronizing snub, and the conversation marked the beginning of an antagonistic relationship between the "Alice" Club and Harvey Milk. Some gay bar owners, still battling police harassment and unhappy with what they saw as a timid approach by Alice to established authority in the city, decided to endorse him.[35]
Though he had drifted through his life thus far, Milk found his vocation, according to journalist Frances FitzGerald, who called him a "born politician".[15] At first, his inexperience showed. He tried to do without money, support, or staff, and instead relied on his message of sound financial management, promoting individuals over large corporations and government.[15] He supported the reorganization of supervisor elections from a city-wide ballot to district ballots, which was intended to reduce the influence of money and give neighborhoods more control over their representatives in city government. He also ran on a socially liberal platform, opposing government interference in private sexual matters and favoring the legalization of marijuana. Milk's fiery, flamboyant speeches and savvy media skills earned him a significant amount of press during the 1973 election. He earned 16,900 votes—sweeping the Castro District and other liberal neighborhoods and coming in 10th place out of 32 candidates.[36] Had the elections been reorganized to allow districts to elect their own supervisors, he would have won.[37]
Mayor of Castro Street
Milk displayed an affinity for building coalitions from early in his political career. The Teamsters wanted to strike against beer distributors—Coors in particular[38]—who refused to sign the union contract. An organizer asked Milk for assistance with gay bars; in return, Milk asked the union to hire more gay drivers. A few days later, Milk canvassed the gay bars in and surrounding the Castro District, urging them to refuse to sell the beer. With the help of a coalition of Arab and Chinese grocers the Teamsters had also recruited, the boycott was successful.[39] Milk found a strong political ally in organized labor, and it was around this time that he began to style himself "The Mayor of Castro Street".[40] As Castro Street's presence grew, so did Milk's reputation. Tom O'Horgan remarked, "Harvey spent most of his life looking for a stage. On Castro Street he finally found it."[24]
Tensions between the older citizens of the Most Holy Redeemer Parish and the gays entering the Castro District were growing, however, and in 1973, when two gay men tried to open an antique shop, the Eureka Valley Merchants Association (EVMA) attempted to prevent them from receiving a business license. Milk and a few other gay business owners founded the Castro Village Association, with Milk as the president. He often repeated his philosophy that gays should buy from gay businesses. Milk organized the Castro Street Fair in 1974 to attract more customers to the area.[4] More than 5,000 attended, and some of the EVMA members were stunned; they did more business at the Castro Street Fair than on any previous day.[41]
Serious candidate
Although he was a newcomer to the Castro District, Milk had shown leadership in the small community. He was starting to be taken seriously as a candidate and decided to run again for supervisor in 1975. He reconsidered his approach and cut his long hair, swore off marijuana, and vowed never to visit another gay bathhouse again.[42] Milk's campaigning earned the support of the teamsters, firefighters, and construction unions. Castro Camera became the center of activity in the neighborhood. Milk would often pull people off the street to work his campaigns for him—many discovered later that they just happened to be the type of men Milk found attractive.[43]
Milk favored support for small businesses and the growth of neighborhoods.[44] Since 1968, Mayor Alioto had been luring large corporations to the city despite what critics labeled "the Manhattanization of San Francisco".[45] As blue-collar jobs were replaced by the service industry, Alioto's weakened political base allowed for new leadership to be voted into office in the city. George Moscone was elected mayor. Moscone had been instrumental in repealing the sodomy law earlier that year in the California State Legislature. He acknowledged Milk's influence in his election by visiting Milk's election night headquarters, thanking Milk personally, and offering him a position as a city commissioner. Milk came in seventh place in the election, only one position away from earning a supervisor seat.[46] Liberal politicians held the offices of the mayor, district attorney, and sheriff.
Despite the new leadership in the city, there were still conservative strongholds. One of Moscone's first acts as mayor was appointing a police chief to the embattled San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). He chose Charles Gain, against the wishes of the SFPD. Most of the force disliked Gain for criticizing the police in the press for racial insensitivity and alcohol abuse on the job, instead of working within the command structure to change attitudes.[note 4] By request of the mayor, Gain made it clear that gay police officers would be welcomed in the department; this became national news. Police under Gain expressed their hatred of him, and of the mayor for betraying them.[47]
Race for State Assembly
Keeping his promise to Milk, newly elected Mayor George Moscone appointed him to the Board of Permit Appeals in 1976, making him the first openly gay city commissioner in the United States. Milk, however, considered seeking a position in the California State Assembly. The district was weighted heavily in his favor, as much of it was based in neighborhoods surrounding Castro Street, where Milk's sympathizers voted. In the previous race for supervisor, Milk received more votes than the currently seated assemblyman. However, Moscone had made a deal with the assembly speaker that another candidate should run—Art Agnos.[48] Furthermore, by order of the mayor, neither appointed nor elected officials were allowed to run a campaign while performing their duties.[49]

A black and white photograph of Milk in a suit with short hair speaking with three longshoremen standing by San Francisco Bay

 By the time of Milk's 1975 campaign, he had decided to cut his hair and wear suits. Here, Milk (far right) is campaigning with longshoremen in San Francisco during his 1976 race for the California State Assembly.
Milk spent five weeks on the Board of Permit Appeals before Moscone was forced to fire him when he announced he would run for the California State Assembly. Rick Stokes replaced him. Milk's firing, and the backroom deal made between Moscone, the assembly speaker, and Agnos, fueled his campaign as he took on the identity of a political underdog.[50] He railed that high officers in the city and state governments were against him. He complained that the prevailing gay political establishment, particularly the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club, were shutting him out; he referred to Jim Foster and Stokes as gay "Uncle Toms".[15] He enthusiastically embraced a local independent weekly magazine's headline: "Harvey Milk vs. The Machine".[4]
Milk's role as a representative of San Francisco's gay community expanded during this period. On September 22, 1975, President Gerald Ford, while visiting San Francisco, walked from his hotel to his car. In the crowd, Sara Jane Moore raised a gun to shoot him. A former Marine who had been walking by grabbed her arm as the gun discharged toward the pavement.[51][52] The bystander was Oliver "Bill" Sipple, who had left Milk's ex-lover Joe Campbell years before, prompting Campbell's suicide attempt. The national spotlight was on him immediately. On psychiatric disability leave from the military, Sipple refused to call himself a hero and did not want his sexuality disclosed.[53] Milk, however, took advantage of the opportunity to illustrate his cause that public perception of gay people would be improved if they came out of the closet. He told a friend: "It's too good an opportunity. For once we can show that gays do heroic things, not just all that ca-ca about molesting children and hanging out in bathrooms."[54] Milk contacted a newspaper.[55]
Several days later Herb Caen, a columnist at The San Francisco Chronicle, exposed Sipple as gay and a friend of Milk's. The announcement was picked up by national newspapers, and Milk's name was included in many of the stories. Time magazine named Milk as a leader in San Francisco's gay community.[53] Sipple, however, was besieged by reporters, as was his family. His mother, a staunch Baptist in Detroit, now refused to speak to him. Although he had been involved with the gay community for years, even participating in Gay Pride events, Sipple sued the Chronicle for invasion of privacy.[56] President Ford sent Sipple a note of thanks for saving his life.[55] Milk said that Sipple's sexual orientation was the reason he received only a note, rather than an invitation to the White House.[55][note 5]
Milk's continuing campaign, run from the storefront of Castro Camera, was a study in disorganization. Although the older Irish grandmothers and gay men who volunteered were plentiful and happy to send out mass mailings, Milk's notes and volunteer lists were kept on scrap papers. Any time the campaign required funds, the money came from the cash register without any consideration for accounting.[50] The campaign manager's assistant was an 11-year-old neighborhood girl who joyfully ordered the volunteers to work.[57] Milk himself was hyperactive and prone to fantastic outbursts of temper, only to recover quickly and shout excitedly about something else. Many of his rants were directed at his lover, Scott Smith, who was becoming disillusioned with the man who was no longer the laid-back hippie he had fallen in love with.[50]
If the candidate was manic, he was also dedicated and filled with good humor, and he had a particular genius for getting media attention.[58] He spent long hours registering voters and shaking hands at bus stops and movie theater lines. He took whatever opportunity came along to promote himself. He thoroughly enjoyed campaigning, and his success was evident.[15] With the large numbers of volunteers, he had dozens at a time stand along the busy thoroughfare of Market Street as human billboards, holding "Milk for Assembly" signs while commuters drove into the heart of the city to work.[59] He distributed his campaign literature anywhere he could, including among one of the most influential political groups in the city, the Peoples Temple. Milk's volunteers took thousands of brochures there, but came back with feelings of apprehension. Because the Peoples Temple leader, Jim Jones, was politically powerful in San Francisco (and supported both candidates), Milk allowed Temple members to work his phones, and later spoke at the Temple and defended Jones.[note 6] But to his volunteers, he said: "Make sure you're always nice to the Peoples Temple. If they ask you to do something, do it, and then send them a note thanking them for asking you to do it. They're weird and they're dangerous, and you never want to be on their bad side."[60]
The race was close, and Milk lost by fewer than 4,000 votes.[61] Agnos, however, taught Milk a valuable lesson when he criticized Milk's campaign speeches as "a downer ... You talk about how you're gonna throw the bums out, but how are you gonna fix things—other than beat me? You shouldn't leave your audience on a down."[62] In the wake of his loss, Milk, realizing that the Toklas Club would never support him politically, co-founded the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club.[63]
Broader historical forces
The fledgling gay rights movement had yet to meet organized opposition in the U.S. In 1977 a few well-connected gay activists in Miami, Florida were able to pass a civil rights ordinance that made discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal in Dade County. A well-organized group of conservative fundamentalist Christians responded, headed by singer Anita Bryant. Their campaign was titled Save Our Children, and Bryant claimed the ordinance infringed her right to teach her children Biblical morality.[64] Bryant and the campaign gathered 64,000 signatures to put the issue to a county-wide vote. With funds raised in part by the Florida Citrus Commission, for which Bryant was the spokeswoman, they ran television advertisements that contrasted the Orange Bowl Parade with San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade, stating that Dade County would be turned into a "hotbed of homosexuality" where "men ... cavort with little boys".[65][note 7]
Jim Foster, then the most powerful political organizer in San Francisco, went to Miami to assist gay activists there as election day neared, and a nationwide boycott of orange juice was organized. The message of the Save Our Children campaign was influential, and the result was an overwhelming defeat for gay activists; in the largest turnout in any special election in the history of Dade County, 70% voted to repeal the law.[66]
Just politics
Christian conservatives were inspired by their victory, and saw an opportunity for a new, effective political cause. Gay activists were shocked to see how little support they received. An impromptu demonstration of over 3,000 Castro residents formed the night of the Dade County ordinance vote. Gay men and lesbians were simultaneously angry, chanting "Out of the bars and into the streets!", and elated at their passionate and powerful response. The San Francisco Examiner reported that members of the crowd pulled others out of bars along Castro and Polk Streets to "deafening" cheers.[67] Milk led marchers that night on a five-mile (8 km) course through the city, constantly moving, aware that if they stopped for too long there would be a riot. He declared, "This is the power of the gay community. Anita's going to create a national gay force."[67][68] Activists had little time to recover, however, as the scenario replayed itself when civil rights ordinances were overturned by voters in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Wichita, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon, throughout 1977 and into 1978.
California State Senator John Briggs saw an opportunity in the Christian fundamentalists' campaign. He was hoping to be elected governor of California in 1978, and was impressed with the voter turnout he saw in Miami. When Briggs returned to Sacramento, he wrote a bill that would ban gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools throughout California. Briggs claimed in private that he had nothing against gays, telling gay journalist Randy Shilts, "It's politics. Just politics."[69] Random attacks on gays rose in the Castro. When the police response was considered inadequate, groups of gays patrolled the neighborhood themselves, on alert for attackers.[70] On June 21, 1977, a gay man named Robert Hillsborough died from 15 stab wounds while his attackers gathered around him and chanted "Faggot!" Both Mayor Moscone and Hillsborough's mother blamed Anita Bryant and John Briggs.[71][72] One week prior to the incident, Briggs had held a press conference at San Francisco City Hall where he called the city a "sexual garbage heap" because of homosexuals.[73] Weeks later, 250,000 people attended the 1977 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade, the largest attendance at any Gay Pride event to that point.[74]
In November 1976, voters in San Francisco decided to reorganize supervisor elections to choose supervisors from neighborhoods instead of voting for them in city-wide ballots. Harvey Milk quickly qualified as the leading candidate in District 5, surrounding Castro Street.[75]
Last campaign


"The nongay community has mostly accepted it. What San Francisco is today, and what it is becoming, reflects both the energy and organization of the gay community and its developing effort toward integration in the political processes of the American city best known for innovation in life styles."
The New York Times, November, 1977[76]
Anita Bryant's public campaign opposing homosexuality and the multiple challenges to gay rights ordinances across the United States fueled gay politics in San Francisco. Seventeen candidates from the Castro District entered the next race for supervisor; more than half of them were gay. The New York Times ran an exposé on the veritable invasion of gay people into San Francisco, estimating that the city's gay population was between 100,000 and 200,000 out of a total 750,000.[76] The Castro Village Association had grown to 90 businesses; the local bank, formerly the smallest branch in the city, had become the largest and was forced to build a wing to accommodate its new customers.[77] Milk biographer Randy Shilts noted that "broader historical forces" were fueling his campaign.[78]
Milk's most successful opponent was the quiet and thoughtful lawyer Rick Stokes, who was backed by the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club. Stokes had been open about his homosexuality long before Milk had, and had experienced more severe treatment, once hospitalized and forced to endure electroshock therapy to cure him.[79] Milk, however, was more expressive about the role of gay people and their issues in San Francisco politics. Stokes was quoted saying, "I'm just a businessman who happens to be gay," and expressed the view that any normal person could also be homosexual. Milk's contrasting populist philosophy was relayed to The New York Times: "We don't want sympathetic liberals, we want gays to represent gays ... I represent the gay street people—the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope! They need a piece of the pie!"[76]
Other causes were also important to Milk: he promoted larger and less expensive child care facilities, free public transportation, and the development of a board of civilians to oversee the police.[3] He advanced important neighborhood issues at every opportunity. Milk used the same manic campaign tactics as in previous races: human billboards, hours of handshaking, and dozens of speeches calling on gay people to have hope. This time, even The San Francisco Chronicle endorsed him for supervisor.[80] He won by 30% against sixteen other candidates, and after his victory became apparent, he arrived on Castro Street on the back of his campaign manager's motorcycle—escorted by Sheriff Richard Hongisto—to what a newspaper story described as a "tumultuous and moving welcome".[81]
Milk had recently taken a new lover, a young man named Jack Lira, who was frequently drunk in public, and just as often escorted out of political events by Milk's aides.[82] Since the race for the California State Assembly, Milk had been receiving increasingly violent death threats.[83] Concerned that his raised profile marked him as a target for assassination, he recorded on tape his thoughts, and whom he wanted to succeed him if he were killed,[84] adding: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door".[85]
Supervisor
Milk's swearing-in made national headlines, as he became the first non-incumbent openly gay man in the United States to win an election for public office.[86][note 8] He likened himself to pioneering African American baseball player Jackie Robinson[87] and walked to City Hall arm in arm with Jack Lira, stating "You can stand around and throw bricks at Silly Hall or you can take it over. Well, here we are."[88] The Castro District was not the only neighborhood to promote someone new to city politics. Sworn in with Milk were also a single mother (Carol Ruth Silver), a Chinese American (Gordon Lau), and an African American woman (Ella Hill Hutch)—all firsts for the city. Daniel White, a former police officer and firefighter, was also a first-time supervisor, and he spoke of how proud he was that his grandmother was able to see him sworn in.[86][89]
Milk's energy, affinity for pranking, and unpredictability at times exasperated Board of Supervisors President Dianne Feinstein. In his first meeting with Mayor Moscone, Milk called himself the "number one queen" and dictated to Moscone that he would have to go through Milk instead of the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club if he wanted the city's gay votes—a quarter of San Francisco's voting population.[90] However, Milk also became Moscone's closest ally on the Board of Supervisors.[91] The biggest targets of Milk's ire were large corporations and real estate developers. He fumed when a parking garage was slated to take the place of homes near the downtown area, and tried to pass a commuter tax so office workers who lived outside the city and drove into work would have to pay for city services they used.[92] Milk was often willing to vote against Feinstein and other more tenured members of the board. In one controversy early in his term, Milk agreed with fellow Supervisor Dan White, whose district was located two miles south of the Castro, that a mental health facility for troubled adolescents should not be placed there. After Milk learned more about the facility, he decided to switch his vote, ensuring White's loss on the issue—a particularly poignant cause that White championed while campaigning. White did not forget it. He opposed every initiative and issue Milk supported.[93]
Milk began his tenure by sponsoring a civil rights bill that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation. The ordinance was called the "most stringent and encompassing in the nation", and its passing demonstrated "the growing political power of homosexuals", according to The New York Times.[94] Only Supervisor White voted against it; Mayor Moscone enthusiastically signed it into law with a light blue pen that Milk had given him for the occasion.[95]
Another bill Milk concentrated on was designed to solve the number one problem according to a recent citywide poll: dog excrement. Within a month of being sworn in, he began to work on a city ordinance to require dog owners to scoop their pets' feces. Dubbed the "pooper scooper law", its authorization by the Board of Supervisors was covered extensively by television and newspapers in San Francisco. Anne Kronenberg, Milk's campaign manager, called him "a master at figuring out what would get him covered in the newspaper".[96] He invited the press to Duboce Park to explain why it was necessary, and while cameras were rolling, stepped in the offending substance, seemingly by mistake. His staffers, however, knew he had been at the park for an hour before the press conference looking for the right place to walk in front of the cameras.[97] It earned him the most fan mail of his tenure in politics and went out on national news releases.
Milk had grown tired of Lira's drinking and considered breaking up with him when Lira called a few weeks later and demanded Milk come home. When Milk arrived, he found Lira had hanged himself. Already prone to severe depression, Lira had attempted suicide previously. One of the longest notes he left for Milk indicated he was upset about the Anita Bryant and John Briggs campaigns.[98]
Briggs Initiative
Further information: Briggs Initiative
John Briggs was forced to drop out of the 1978 race for California governor, but received enthusiastic support for Proposition 6, dubbed the Briggs Initiative. The proposed law would have made firing gay teachers—and any public school employees who supported gay rights—mandatory. Briggs' messages supporting Proposition 6 were pervasive throughout California, and Harvey Milk attended every event Briggs hosted. Milk campaigned against the bill throughout the state as well,[99] and swore that even if Briggs won California, he would not win San Francisco.[100] In their numerous debates, which toward the end had been honed to quick back-and-forth banter, Briggs maintained that homosexual teachers wanted to abuse and recruit children. Milk responded with statistics compiled by law enforcement that provided evidence that pedophiles identified primarily as heterosexual, and dismissed Briggs' assertions with one-liner jokes: "If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around".[101]
Attendance at Gay Pride marches during the summer of 1978 in Los Angeles and San Francisco swelled. An estimated 250,000 to 375,000 attended San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade; newspapers claimed the higher numbers were due to John Briggs.[102] Organizers asked participants to carry signs indicating their hometowns for the cameras, to show how far people came to live in the Castro District. Milk rode in an open car carrying a sign saying "I'm from Woodmere, N.Y."[103] He gave a version of what became his most famous speech, the "Hope Speech", that The San Francisco Examiner said "ignited the crowd":[102]

On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country ... We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets ... We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out. Come out to your parents, your relatives.[104]
Despite the losses in battles for gay rights across the country that year, he remained optimistic, saying "Even if gays lose in these initiatives, people are still being educated. Because of Anita Bryant and Dade County, the entire country was educated about homosexuality to a greater extent than ever before. The first step is always hostility, and after that you can sit down and talk about it."[84]
Citing the potential infringements on individual rights, former governor of California Ronald Reagan voiced his opposition to the proposition, as did Governor Jerry Brown and President Jimmy Carter, the latter in an afterthought following a speech he gave in Sacramento.[96][105] On November 7, 1978, the proposition lost by more than a million votes, astounding gay activists on election night. In San Francisco, 75 percent voted against it.[105]
Assassination
Further information: Moscone–Milk assassinations
On November 10, 1978, 10 months after being sworn in, White resigned his position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, claiming that his annual salary of $9,600 was not enough to support his family.[106] Milk was also feeling the pinch of the decrease in income when he and Scott Smith were forced to close Castro Camera a month before.[note 9] Within days, White requested that his resignation be withdrawn and he be reinstated, and Mayor Moscone initially agreed.[107][108] However, further consideration—and intervention by other supervisors—convinced the mayor to appoint someone more in line with the growing ethnic diversity of White's district and the liberal leanings of the Board of Supervisors.[109] On November 18, news broke of the murder of California Representative Leo Ryan, who was in Jonestown, Guyana to check on the remote community built by members of the Peoples Temple who had relocated from San Francisco. The next day came news of the mass suicide of members of the Peoples Temple. Horror came in degrees as San Franciscans learned more than 400 Jonestown residents were dead.[110] Dan White remarked to two aides who were working for his reinstatement, "You see that? One day I'm on the front page and the next I'm swept right off."[111] Soon the number of dead in Guyana topped 900.[112]
Moscone planned to announce White's replacement days later, on November 27, 1978.[113] A half hour before the press conference, White entered City Hall through a basement window to avoid metal detectors, and made his way to Moscone's office. Witnesses heard shouting between White and Moscone, then gunshots. White shot the mayor in the shoulder and chest, then twice in the head after Moscone had fallen on the floor.[114] White then quickly walked to his former office, reloading his police-issue revolver with hollow-point bullets along the way, and intercepted Milk, asking him to step inside for a moment. Dianne Feinstein heard gunshots and called the police. She found Milk face down on the floor, shot five times, including twice in the head at close range. After identifying both bodies, Feinstein was shaking so badly she required support from the police chief.[113][note 10] It was she who announced to the press, "Today San Francisco has experienced a double tragedy of immense proportions. As President of the Board of Supervisors, it is my duty to inform you that both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed," then adding after being drowned out by shouts of disbelief, "and the suspect is Supervisor Dan White."[96][113] Milk was 48 years old. Moscone was 49.
Within an hour, White called his wife from a nearby diner; she met him at a church and escorted him to the police, where White turned himself in. Many residents left flowers on the steps of City Hall. That evening, a spontaneous gathering began to form on Castro Street, moving toward City Hall in a candlelight vigil. Their numbers were estimated between 25,000 and 40,000, spanning the width of Market Street, extending the mile and a half (2.4 km) from Castro Street. The next day, the bodies of Moscone and Milk were brought to the City Hall rotunda where mourners paid their respects.[108] Six thousand mourners attended a service for Mayor Moscone at St. Mary's Cathedral. Two memorials were held for Milk; a small one at Temple Emanu-El and a more boisterous one at the Opera House.[115]
"City in agony"

A reproduction of the top front page of the San Francisco Examiner on November 28, 1978. At the top is a black banner with white lettering reading "A city in agony: Full story of the City Hall murders". Below that the large headline reads "White Charged—Faces Death", then the banner of the name of the newspaper

 The headline of The San Francisco Examiner on November 28, 1978 announced Dan White was charged with first-degree murder, and eligible for the death penalty.
Moscone had recently increased security at City Hall in the wake of the Jonestown suicides. Survivors from Guyana recounted drills for suicide preparations that Jones called "White Nights".[116] Rumors about Moscone's and Milk's murders were fueled by the coincidence of Dan White's name and Jones' suicide preparations. A stunned District Attorney called the assassinations so close to the news about Jonestown "incomprehensible", but denied any connection.[108] Governor Jerry Brown ordered all flags in California to be flown at half staff, and called Milk a "hard-working and dedicated supervisor, a leader of San Francisco's gay community, who kept his promise to represent all his constituents".[117] President Jimmy Carter expressed his shock at both murders and sent his condolences. Speaker of the California Assembly Leo McCarthy called it "an insane tragedy".[117] "A City in Agony" topped the headlines in The San Francisco Examiner the day after the murders; inside the paper stories of the assassinations under the headline "Black Monday" were printed back to back with updates of bodies being shipped home from Guyana. An editorial describing "A city with more sadness and despair in its heart than any city should have to bear" went on to ask how such tragedies could occur, particularly to "men of such warmth and vision and great energies".[118] Dan White was charged with two counts of murder and held without bail, eligible for the death penalty owing to the recent passage of a statewide proposition that allowed death or life in prison for the murder of a public official.[119] One analysis of the months surrounding the murders called 1978 and 1979 "the most emotionally devastating years in San Francisco's fabulously spotted history".[120]
The 32-year-old White, who had been in the Army during the Vietnam War, had run on a tough anti-crime platform in his district. Colleagues declared him a high-achieving "all-American boy".[109] He was to have received an award the next week for rescuing a woman and child from a 17-story burning building when he was a firefighter in 1977. Though he was the only supervisor to vote against Milk's gay rights ordinance earlier that year, he had been quoted as saying, "I respect the rights of all people, including gays".[109] Milk and White at first got along well. One of White's political aides (who was gay) remembered, "Dan had more in common with Harvey than he did with anyone else on the board".[121] White had voted to support a center for gay seniors, and to honor Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin's 25th anniversary and pioneering work.[121]


"The plaque covering Milk's ashes reads, in part: [Harvey Milk's] camera store and campaign headquarters at 575 Castro Street and his apartment upstairs were centers of community activism for a wide range of human rights, environmental, labor, and neighborhood issues. Harvey Milk's hard work and accomplishments on behalf of all San Franciscans earned him widespread respect and support. His life is an inspiration to all people committed to equal opportunity and an end to bigotry.[122]

After Milk's vote for the mental health facility in White's district, however, White refused to speak with Milk and only communicated with one of Milk's aides. Other acquaintances remembered White as very intense. "He was impulsive ... He was an extremely competitive man, obsessively so ... I think he could not take defeat," San Francisco's assistant fire chief told reporters.[123] White's first campaign manager quit in the middle of the campaign, and told a reporter that White was an egotist and it was clear that he was antigay, though he denied it in the press.[124] White's associates and supporters described him "as a man with a pugilistic temper and an impressive capacity for nurturing a grudge".[124] The aide who had handled communications between White and Milk remembered, "Talking to him, I realized that he saw Harvey Milk and George Moscone as representing all that was wrong with the world".[125]
When Milk's friends looked in his closet for a suit for his casket, they learned how much he had been affected by the recent decrease in his income as a supervisor. All of his clothes were coming apart; all of his socks had holes.[126] He was cremated and his ashes were split, most of them scattered in San Francisco Bay by his closest friends. Some of them were encapsulated and buried beneath the sidewalk in front of 575 Castro Street, where Castro Camera had been located. Harry Britt, one of four people Milk listed on his tape as an acceptable replacement should he be assassinated, was chosen to fill that position by the city's acting mayor, Dianne Feinstein.[127]
Trial
Further information: Dan White and Twinkie defense
Dan White's arrest and trial caused a sensation, and illustrated severe tensions between the liberal population and the city police. The San Francisco Police were mostly working-class Irish descendants who intensely disliked the growing gay immigration, as well as the liberal direction of the city government. After White turned himself in and confessed, he sat in his cell while his former colleagues on the police force told Harvey Milk jokes; police openly wore "Free Dan White" T-shirts in the days after the murder.[128] An undersheriff for San Francisco later stated: "The more I observed what went on at the jail, the more I began to stop seeing what Dan White did as the act of an individual and began to see it as a political act in a political movement."[129] White showed no remorse for his actions, and only exhibited vulnerability during an eight-minute call to his mother from jail.[130]
The seated jury for White's trial consisted of white middle-class San Franciscans who were mostly Catholic; gays and ethnic minorities were excused from the jury pool.[131] The jury was clearly sympathetic to the defendant: some of the members cried when they heard White's tearful recorded confession, at the end of which the interrogator thanked White for his honesty.[132] White's defense attorney, Doug Schmidt, argued that he was not responsible for his actions, using the legal defense known as diminished capacity: "Good people, fine people, with fine backgrounds, simply don't kill people in cold blood."[133] Schmidt tried to prove that White's anguished mental state was a result of manipulation by the politicos in City Hall who had consistently disappointed and confounded him, finally promising to give his job back only to refuse him again. Schmidt said that White's mental deterioration was demonstrated and exacerbated by his junk food binge the night before the murders, since he was usually known to have been health-food conscious.[134] Area newspapers quickly dubbed it the Twinkie defense. White was acquitted of the first degree murder charge on May 21, 1979, but found guilty of voluntary manslaughter of both victims, and he was sentenced to serve seven and two-thirds years. With the sentence reduced for time served and good behavior, he would be released in five.[135] He cried when he heard the verdict.[136]
White Night riots
Further information: White Night riots

A black and white photograph of dozens of people standing in silhouette with City Hall in the background; something is on fire and smoke is obscuring part of the building

 Rioters outside San Francisco City Hall, May 21, 1979, reacting to the voluntary manslaughter verdict for Dan White.
Acting Mayor Feinstein, Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver, and Milk's successor Harry Britt condemned the jury's decision. When it was announced over the police radio in the city, someone sang "Danny Boy" on the police band.[137] A surge of people from the Castro District walked again to City Hall, chanting "Avenge Harvey Milk" and "He got away with murder".[96][138] Pandemonium rapidly escalated as rocks were hurled at the front doors of the building. Milk's friends and aides tried to stop the destruction, but the mob of more than 3,000 ignored them and lit police cars on fire. They shoved a burning newspaper dispenser through the broken doors of City Hall, then cheered as the flames grew.[139] One of the rioters responded to a reporter's question about why they were destroying parts of the city: "Just tell people that we ate too many Twinkies. That's why this is happening."[70] The chief of police ordered the police not to retaliate, but to hold their ground.[140] The White Night riots, as they became known, lasted several hours.
Later that evening, May 21, 1979, several police cruisers filled with officers wearing riot gear arrived at the Elephant Walk Bar on Castro Street. Harvey Milk's protégé Cleve Jones and a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Warren Hinckle, watched as officers stormed into the bar and began to beat patrons at random. After a 15-minute melee, they left the bar and struck out at people walking along the street.[18][141] The chief of police finally ordered the officers out of the neighborhood. By morning, 61 police officers and 100 rioters and gay residents of the Castro had been hospitalized. City Hall, police cruisers, and the Elephant Walk Bar suffered damages in excess of $1,000,000.
After the verdict, the District Attorney Joseph Freitas faced a furious gay community to explain what had gone wrong. The prosecutor admitted to feeling sorry for White before the trial, and neglected to ask the interrogator who recorded White's confession (and who was a childhood friend of White's and his police softball team coach) about his biases and the support White received from the police because, he said, he did not want to embarrass the detective in front of his family in court.[132][142] Nor did Freitas question White's frame of mind, lack of a history of mental illness, or bring into evidence city politics, suggesting that revenge may have been a motive. Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver testified on the last day of the trial that White and Milk were not friendly, yet she had contacted the prosecutor and insisted on testifying. It was the only testimony the jury heard about their strained relationship.[143] Freitas blamed the jury whom he claimed had been "taken in by the whole emotional aspect of [the] trial".[135]
Aftermath
Milk's and Moscone's murders and White's trial changed city politics and the California legal system. In 1980 San Francisco ended district supervisor elections, fearing that a Board of Supervisors so divisive would be harmful to the city, and that they had been a factor in the assassinations. A grassroots neighborhood effort to restore district elections in the mid-1990s proved successful, and the city returned to neighborhood representatives in 2000.[144] As a result of Dan White's trial, California voters changed the law to reduce the likelihood of acquittals of accused who knew what they were doing but claimed their capacity was impaired.[134] Diminished capacity was abolished as a defense to a charge, but courts allowed evidence of it when deciding whether to incarcerate, commit, or otherwise punish a convicted defendant.[145] The "Twinkie defense" has entered American mythology, popularly described as a case where a murderer escapes justice because he binged on junk food, simplifying White's lack of political savvy, his relationships with George Moscone and Harvey Milk, and what San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen described as pandemic police "dislike of homosexuals".[146]
Dan White served a little more than five years for the double murder of Moscone and Milk. On October 21, 1985, a year and a half after his release from prison, White was found dead in a running car in his ex-wife's garage. He was 39 years old. His defense attorney told reporters that he had been despondent over the loss of his family, and the situation he had caused, adding "This was a sick man."[147]
Legacy
Politics
Harvey Milk's political career centered on making government responsive to individuals, gay liberation, and the importance of neighborhoods to the city. At the onset of each campaign, an issue was added to Milk's public political philosophy.[148] His 1973 campaign focused on the first point, that as a small business owner in San Francisco—a city dominated by large corporations that had been courted by municipal government—his interests were being overlooked because he was not represented by a large financial institution. Although he did not hide the fact that he was gay, it did not become an issue until his race for the California State Assembly in 1976. It was brought to the fore in the supervisor race against Rick Stokes, as it was an extension of his ideas of individual freedom.[148]
Milk strongly believed that neighborhoods promoted unity and a small-town experience, and that the Castro should provide services to all its residents. He opposed the closing of an elementary school; even though most gay people in the Castro did not have children, Milk saw his neighborhood having the potential to welcome everyone. He told his aides to concentrate on fixing potholes and boasted that 50 new stop signs had been installed in District 5.[148] Responding to city residents' largest complaint about living in San Francisco—dog feces—Milk made it a priority to enact the ordinance requiring dog owners to take care of their pets' droppings. Randy Shilts noted, "some would claim Harvey was a socialist or various other sorts of ideologues, but, in reality, Harvey's political philosophy was never more complicated than the issue of dogshit; government should solve people's basic problems."[149]
Karen Foss, a communications professor at the University of New Mexico, attributes Milk's impact on San Francisco politics to the fact that he was unlike anyone else who had held public office in the city. She writes, "Milk happened to be a highly energetic, charismatic figure with a love of theatrics and nothing to lose ... Using laughter, reversal, transcendence, and his insider/outsider status, Milk helped create a climate in which dialogue on issues became possible. He also provided a means to integrate the disparate voices of his various constituencies."[150] Milk had been a rousing speaker since he began campaigning in 1973, and his oratory skills only improved after he became City Supervisor.[18] His most famous talking points became known as the "Hope Speech", which became a staple throughout his political career. It opened with a play on the accusation that gay people recruit impressionable youth into their numbers: "My name is Harvey Milk—and I want to recruit you." A version of the Hope Speech that he gave near the end of his life was considered by his friends and aides to be the best, and the closing the most effective:

And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant in television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.[151]
In the last year of his life, Milk emphasized that gay people should be more visible to help to end the discrimination and violence against them. Although Milk had not come out to his mother before her death many years before, in his final statement during his taped prediction of his assassination, he urged others to do so:

I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects ... I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help.[84]
However, Milk's assassination has become entwined with his political efficacy, partly because he was killed at the zenith of his popularity. Historian Neil Miller writes, "No contemporary American gay leader has yet to achieve in life the stature Milk found in death."[127] His legacy has become ambiguous; Randy Shilts concludes his biography writing that Milk's success, murder, and the inevitable injustice of White's verdict represented the experience of all gays. Milk's life was "a metaphor for the homosexual experience in America".[152] According to Frances FitzGerald, Milk's legend has been unable to be sustained as no one appeared able to take his place in the years after his death: "The Castro saw him as a martyr but understood his martyrdom as an end rather than a beginning. He had died, and with him a great deal of the Castro's optimism, idealism, and ambition seemed to die as well. The Castro could find no one to take his place in its affections, and possibly wanted no one."[153] On the 20th anniversary of Milk's death, historian John D'Emilio said, "The legacy that I think he would want to be remembered for is the imperative to live one's life at all times with integrity."[154] For a political career so short, Cleve Jones attributes more to his assassination than his life: "His murder and the response to it made permanent and unquestionable the full participation of gay and lesbian people in the political process."[154]
Tributes and media

A color photograph of a large Gay Pride flag flying at the intersection of Market and Castro Streets and the hills of San Francisco in the distance

Gay Pride flag above Harvey Milk Plaza in The Castro neighborhood
The City of San Francisco has paid tribute to Milk by naming several locations after him.[note 11] Where Market and Castro streets intersect in San Francisco flies an enormous Gay Pride flag, situated in Harvey Milk Plaza.[155] The San Francisco Gay Democratic Club changed its name to the Harvey Milk Memorial Gay Democratic Club in 1978 (it is currently named the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club) and boasts that it is the largest Democratic organization in San Francisco.[156] In New York City, Harvey Milk High School is a school program for at-risk youth that concentrates on the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students and operates out of the Hetrick Martin Institute.[157]
In 1982, freelance reporter Randy Shilts completed his first book: a biography of Milk, titled The Mayor of Castro Street. Shilts wrote the book while unable to find a steady job as an openly gay reporter.[158] The Times of Harvey Milk, a documentary film based on the book's material, won the 1984 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.[159] Director Rob Epstein spoke later about why he chose the subject of Milk's life: "At the time, for those of us who lived in San Francisco, it felt like it was life changing, that all the eyes of the world were upon us, but in fact most of the world outside of San Francisco had no idea. It was just a really brief, provincial, localized current events story that the mayor and a city council member in San Francisco were killed. It didn't have much reverberation."[160]
Milk's life has been the subject of a musical theater production;[161] an opera;[162] a children's picture book;[163] a French-language historical novel for young-adult readers;[164] and the biopic Milk, released in 2008 after 15 years in the making. The film was directed by Gus Van Sant and starred Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as Dan White, and won two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.[165] It took eight weeks to film, and often used extras who had been present at the actual events for large crowd scenes, including a scene depicting Milk's "Hope Speech" at the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade.[166]

Stuart Milk speaks with Barack Obama, holding the case for the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the White House

Stuart Milk accepts the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in August 2009 on behalf of his uncle
Milk was included in the "Time 100 Heroes and Icons of the 20th Century" as "a symbol of what gays can accomplish and the dangers they face in doing so". Despite his antics and publicity stunts, according to writer John Cloud, "none understood how his public role could affect private lives better than Milk ... [he] knew that the root cause of the gay predicament was invisibility".[167] The Advocate listed Milk third in their "40 Heroes" of the 20th century issue, quoting Dianne Feinstein: "His homosexuality gave him an insight into the scars which all oppressed people wear. He believed that no sacrifice was too great a price to pay for the cause of human rights."[168]
In August 2009, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to the gay rights movement stating "he fought discrimination with visionary courage and conviction". Milk's nephew Stuart accepted for his uncle.[169] Shortly after, Stuart co-founded the Harvey Milk Foundation with Anne Kronenberg with the support of Desmond Tutu, co-recipient of 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom and now a member of the Foundation's Advisory Board.[170] Later in the year, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger designated May 22 as "Harvey Milk Day", and inducted Milk in the California Hall of Fame.[171][172] Since 2003, the story of Harvey Milk has been featured in three exhibitions created by the GLBT Historical Society, a San Francisco–based museum, archives, and research center, to which the estate of Scott Smith donated Milk's personal belongings that were preserved after his death.[173]



 Personal belongings of Harvey Milk on display at The GLBT History Museum in San Francisco's Castro District
Harry Britt summarized Milk's impact the evening Milk was shot in 1978: "No matter what the world has taught us about ourselves, we can be beautiful and we can get our thing together ... Harvey was a prophet ... he lived by a vision ... Something very special is going to happen in this city and it will have Harvey Milk's name on it."[174]
See also
Harvey Milk Foundation
List of civil rights leaders
Stuart Milk
Notes
1.Jump up ^ Milk was described as a martyr by news outlets as early as 1979, by biographer Randy Shilts in 1982, and University of San Francisco professor Peter Novak in 2003. (United Press International [October 15, 1979]; printed in the Edmonton Journal, p. B10; Skelton, Nancy; Stein, Mark [October 22, 1985]. S.F. Assassin Dan White Kills Himself, Los Angeles Times, Retrieved on February 3, 2012.; Shilts, p. 348; Nolte, Carl [November 26, 2003]. "City Hall Slayings: 25 Years Later", The San Francisco Chronicle, p. A-1.
2.Jump up ^ Milk said numerous times that he was discharged from the Navy because he was gay, but Randy Shilts was skeptical of this claim, stating: "The Harvey Milk of this era was no political activist, and according to available evidence, he played the more typical balancing act between discretion and his sex drive." (p. 16) Scholar Karen Foss confirms his discharge from the Navy had no connection to his sexuality and states, "While exaggeration is a frequent campaign tactic, in Milk's case such embellishments served to demonstrate his willingness to be part of the political system while also maintain his distance from it." (See citations list for Queer Words, Queer Images, p. 21.)
3.Jump up ^ In addition to his concerns over Rodwell's activism, Milk believed that Rodwell had given him gonorrhea. (Carter, pg. 31–32.)
4.Jump up ^ Gain further alienated the SFPD by attending a raucous party in 1977 called the Hooker's Ball. The party grew out of control and Gain had to call in reinforcements to control the excesses, but a photograph ran in the papers of him holding a champagne bottle while standing beside prostitution rights activist Margo St. James and a drag queen named "Wonder Whore". (Weiss, p. 156–157.)
5.Jump up ^ Sipple's case was eventually rejected in 1984 in a California court of appeals. Sipple, who was wounded in the head in Vietnam, was also diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia. He held no ill will toward Milk, however, and remained in contact with him. The incident brought him so much attention that, later in life while drinking, he would regret grabbing Moore's gun. Eventually Sipple regained contact with his mother and brother, but continued to be rejected by his father. He kept the letter written by Gerald Ford, framed, in his apartment, until he died of pneumonia in 1989. ("Sorrow Trailed a Veteran Who Saved a President's Life", The Los Angeles Times, [February 13, 1989], p. 1.)
6.Jump up ^ Milk's relationship with the Temple was similar to other politicians' in Northern California. According to The San Francisco Examiner, Jones and his parishioners were a "potent political force", helping to elect Moscone (who appointed him to the Housing Authority), District Attorney Jose Freitas, and Sheriff Richard Hongisto. (Jacobs, John [November 20, 1978]. "S.F.'s Leaders Recall Jones the Politician", The San Francisco Examiner, p. C.) Although Milk spoke at the Temple ("Another Day of Death", Time, December 11, 1978.) and defended Jones in a letter to President Jimmy Carter in 1978, (Coleman, Loren (2004)., The Copycat Effect, Simon & Schuster, p. 68.), he and his aides deeply distrusted Jones. When Milk learned Jones was backing both him and Art Agnos in 1976, he told friend Michael Wong, "Well fuck him. I'll take his workers, but, that's the game Jim Jones plays." (Shilts, p. 139.)
7.Jump up ^ Bryant agreed to an interview with Playboy magazine, in which she was quoted saying that the civil rights ordinance "would have made it mandatory that flaunting homosexuals be hired in both the public and parochial schools ... If they're a legitimate minority, then so are nail biters, dieters, fat people, short people, and murderers." ("Playboy Interview: Anita Bryant", Playboy, (May 1978), p. 73–96, 232–250.) Bryant would often break into her standard "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while speaking during the campaign, called homosexuals "human garbage", and blamed the drought in California on their sins. (Clendinen, p. 306.) As the special election drew near, a Florida state senator read the Book of Leviticus aloud to the senate, and the governor went on record against the civil rights ordinance. (Duberman, p. 320.)
8.Jump up ^ Two gay politicians were already in office: lesbian Massachusetts State Representative Elaine Noble and Minnesota State Senator Allan Spear, who had come out after he had been elected and won re-election.
9.Jump up ^ Despite White's financial strain, he had recently voted against a pay raise for city supervisors that would have given him a $24,000 annual salary. (Cone, Russ [November 14, 1978]. "Increase in City Supervisors' Pay Is Proposed Again", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 4.) Feinstein noticed White's financial straits and pointed him toward commercial developers at Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf where he and his wife set up a walk-up restaurant called The Hot Potato. (Weiss, p. 143–146.) Gentrification in the Castro District was fully apparent in the late 1970s. In Milk's public rants about "bloodsucking" real estate developers, he used his landlord (who was gay) as an example. Not amused, his landlord tripled the rent for the storefront and the apartment above, where Milk lived. (Shilts, p. 227–228.)
10.Jump up ^ Though Feinstein was known to carry a handgun in her purse, she afterwards became a proponent of gun control. In 1994, Feinstein exchanged words with National Rifle Association member and Idaho senator Larry Craig, who suggested during a debate on banning assault weapons that "the gentlelady from California" should be "a little bit more familiar with firearms and their deadly characteristics." She reminded Craig that she indeed had experience with the results of firearms when she put her finger in a bullet hole in Milk's neck while searching for a pulse. (Faye, Fiore [April 24, 1995]. "Rematch on Weapons Ban Takes Shape in Congress Arms: Feinstein prepares to defend the prohibition on assault guns as GOP musters forces to repeal it", The Los Angeles Times, pg. 3.)
11.Jump up ^ The Harvey Milk Recreational Arts Center is headquarters for the drama and performing arts programs for the city's youth. (Duboce Park and Harvey Milk Recreational Arts Center, San Francisco Neighborhood Parks Council, 2008. Retrieved on September 7, 2008.) Douglass Elementary in the Castro District was renamed the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy in 1996 (Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy: Our History, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy website. Retrieved September 8, 2008.) and the Eureka Valley Branch of the San Francisco Public Library was also renamed in his honor in 1981. It is located at 1 José Sarria Court, named for the first openly gay man to run for public office in the United States. (Eureka Valley Branch Closing for Renovation March 1, San Francisco Public Library website [February 8, 2008]. Retrieved September 25, 2008.) On what would have been Milk's 78th birthday, a bust of his likeness was unveiled in San Francisco City Hall at the top of the grand staircase. (Buchanan, Wyatt (May 22, 2008). "S.F. prepares to unveil bust of Harvey Milk", San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved on September 8, 2008.) On the 82nd anniversary of his birth, a street was renamed to "Harvey Milk Street" in San Diego, and a new park named "Harvey Milk Promenade Park" was opened in Long Beach, California. (Harvey Milk Honored With San Diego Street, Long Beach Park On His 82nd Birthday, The Huffington Post. Published May 22, 2012. Retrieved May 23, 2012.)
Citations
1.Jump up ^ Smith and Haider-Markel, p. 204.
2.Jump up ^ Leyland, p. 37.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c "Harvey Bernard Milk." Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 10: 1976–1980. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995.
4.^ Jump up to: a b c d "Harvey Bernard Milk". Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.
5.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 4.
6.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 9.
7.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 14.
8.Jump up ^ Chan, Sewell (February 20, 2009) "Film Evokes Memories for Milk's Relatives", The New York Times. Retrieved June 22, 2010.
9.Jump up ^ Shilts p. 20.
10.^ Jump up to: a b "Historical Note", The Harvey Milk Papers: Susan Davis Alch Collection (1956–1962) (PDF), San Francisco Public Library. Retrieved on October 8, 2008.
11.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 24–29.
12.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 33
13.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 35–36.
14.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 36–37.
15.^ Jump up to: a b c d e FitzGerald, Frances (July 21, 1986). "A Reporter at Large: The Castro – I", The New Yorker, p. 34–70.
16.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 37–38.
17.Jump up ^ Leyland, p. 19.
18.^ Jump up to: a b c D'Emilio, John. "Gay Politics and Community in San Francisco since World War II", in Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, New American Library (1989). ISBN 0-453-00689-2
19.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 151.
20.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 38–41.
21.Jump up ^ Barnes, Clive (December 20, 1971). "Theater: The York of 'Inner City'", The New York Times, p. 48.
22.^ Jump up to: a b Gruen, John (January 2, 1972). "Do You Mind Critics Calling You Cheap, Decadent, Sensationalistic, Gimmicky—", The New York Times, p. SM14.
23.^ Jump up to: a b c Shilts, p. 44.
24.^ Jump up to: a b Shilts, p. 65.
25.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 62.
26.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 154.
27.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p.  150–151.
28.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 156–159.
29.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 161–163.
30.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 61–65.
31.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 65–72.
32.Jump up ^ "Milk Entered Politics Because 'I Knew I Had To Become Involved' ", The San Francisco Examiner (November 28, 1978), p. 2.
33.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 76.
34.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 73.
35.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 75.
36.Jump up ^ "S.F. Vote Tally: Supervisors", The San Francisco Chronicle (November 7, 1973), p. 3.
37.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 78–80.
38.Jump up ^ Roberts, Michael (June 27, 2002). "A Brewing Disagreement", Westword. Retrieved January 18, 2009.
39.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 83.
40.Jump up ^ "Harvey Bernard Milk". Biography Resource Center Online. Gale Group, 1999. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center, Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008. Subscription required.
41.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 90.
42.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 80.
43.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 138.
44.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 96.
45.Jump up ^ "Joseph Lawrence Alioto." The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Volume 5: 1997–1999. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.
46.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 107–108.
47.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 149–157.
48.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 130–133.
49.Jump up ^ "Milk Will Run—Loses Permit Board Seat", The San Francisco Chronicle, March 10, 1976.
50.^ Jump up to: a b c Shilts, p. 133–137.
51.Jump up ^ Shabecoff, Philip (September 23, 1975). "Ford Escapes Harm as Shot is Deflected; Woman Seized with Gun in San Francisco", The New York Times, p. 77.
52.Jump up ^ Melnick, Norman (September 23, 1975). "I was right behind her ... I saw a gun", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 2.
53.^ Jump up to: a b "The Man Who Grabbed the Gun", Time (October 6, 1975). Retrieved September 6, 2008.
54.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 122.
55.^ Jump up to: a b c Morain, Dan (February 13, 1989). "Sorrow Trailed a Veteran Who Saved a President and Then Was Cast in an Unwanted Spotlight", The Los Angeles Times, p. 1.
56.Jump up ^ Duke, Lynne (December 31, 2006). "Caught in Fate's Trajectory, Along With Gerald Ford", The Washington Post, p. D01.
57.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 135–136.
58.Jump up ^ de Jim, p. 43.
59.Jump up ^ de Jim, p. 44.
60.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 139.
61.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 149.
62.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 142–143.
63.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 150
64.Jump up ^ Fetner, Tina (August 2001). "Working Anita Bryant: The Impact of Christian Anti-Gay Activism on Lesbian and Gay Movement Claims", Social Problems, 48 (3), p. 411–428. ISSN 0037-7791
65.Jump up ^ Clendinen p. 303.
66.Jump up ^ "Miami Anti-gays Win in Landslide", The San Francisco Examiner, (June 8, 1977), p. 1.
67.^ Jump up to: a b Sharpe, Ivan (June 8, 1977). "Angry Gays March Through S.F.", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 1.
68.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 122.
69.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 158.
70.^ Jump up to: a b Hinckle, p. 15.
71.Jump up ^ "Police Press Hunt for Slayers of Gay", The San Francisco Examiner, (June 23, 1977), p. 3.
72.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 319.
73.Jump up ^ Hinckle, p. 28.
74.Jump up ^ Miller, p. 403.
75.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 166.
76.^ Jump up to: a b c Gold, Herbert (November 6, 1977), "A Walk on San Francisco's Gay Side", The New York Times, p. SM17.
77.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 174.
78.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 173.
79.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 169–170.
80.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 182.
81.Jump up ^ Pogash, Carol (November 9, 1977). "The Night Neighborhoods Came to City Hall", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 3.
82.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 180.
83.Jump up ^ Shilts, pp. 184, 204, 223.
84.^ Jump up to: a b c Giteck, Lenny (November 28, 1978). "Milk Knew He Would Be Assassinated", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 2.
85.Jump up ^ Hinckle, p. 13–14.
86.^ Jump up to: a b Cone, Russ (January 8, 1978). "Feinstein Board President", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 1.
87.Jump up ^ "Homosexual on Board Cites Role as Pioneer", New York Times, (November 10, 1977), p. 24.
88.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 190.
89.Jump up ^ Ledbetter, Les (January 12, 1978). "San Francisco Legislators Meet in Diversity", The New York Times, p. A14.
90.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 124.
91.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 192–193.
92.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 194.
93.Jump up ^ Hinckle, p. 48.
94.Jump up ^ Ledbetter, Les (March 22, 1978). "Bill on Homosexual Rights Advances in San Francisco", The New York Times, p. A21.
95.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 199.
96.^ Jump up to: a b c d The Times of Harvey Milk. Dir. Rob Epstein. DVD, Pacific Arts, 1984.
97.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 203–204.
98.Jump up ^ Shilts, pp. 228, 233–235.
99.Jump up ^ VanDeCarr, Paul (November 23, 2003). "Death of dreams: in November 1978, Harvey Milk's murder and the mass suicides at Jonestown nearly broke San Francisco's spirit.", The Advocate, p. 32.
100.Jump up ^ Clendinen, p. 380–381.
101.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 230–231.
102.^ Jump up to: a b Jacobs, John (June 26, 1978). "An Ecumenical Alliance on the Serious Side of 'Gay' ", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 3.
103.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 224.
104.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 224–225.
105.^ Jump up to: a b Clendinen, p. 388–389.
106.Jump up ^ "Mayor Hunts a Successor for White", The San Francisco Examiner, (November 11, 1978), p. 1.
107.Jump up ^ Cone, Russ (November 16, 1978). "White Changes Mind—Wants Job Back", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 1.
108.^ Jump up to: a b c Ledbetter, Les (November 29, 1978). "2 Deaths Mourned by San Franciscans", The New York Times, p. 1.
109.^ Jump up to: a b c "Another Day of Death", Time, December 11, 1978. Retrieved on September 6, 2008.
110.Jump up ^ Downie Jr., Leonard (November 22, 1978). "Bodies in Guyana Cause Confusion; Confusion Mounts Over Bodies at Guyana Cult Site; Many Missing in Jungle", The Washington Post, p. A1.
111.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 238–239.
112.Jump up ^ Barbash, Fred (November 25, 1978). "Tragedy Numbs Survivors' Emotions; 370 More Bodies found at Cult Camp in Guyana; A Week of Tragedy in Guyana Dulls Survivors' Emotions", The Washington Post, p. A1.
113.^ Jump up to: a b c Flintwick, James (November 28, 1978). "Aide: White 'A Wild Man'", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 1.
114.Jump up ^ Turner, Wallace (November 28, 1978). "Suspect Sought Job", The New York Times, p. 1.
115.Jump up ^ Ledbetter, Les (December 1, 1978)."Thousands Attend Funeral Mass For Slain San Francisco Mayor; Former Supervisor Charged Looking to the Mayor's Job", The New York Times, p. A20.
116.Jump up ^ Ulman, Richard, and Abse, D. Wilfred (December, 1983). "The Group Psychology of Mass Madness: Jonestown", Political Psychology, 4 (4), p. 637–661.
117.^ Jump up to: a b "Reaction: World Coming Apart", The San Francisco Examiner, (November 28, 1978), p. 2.
118.Jump up ^ "A Mourning City Asks Why", The San Francisco Examiner, (November 28, 1978), p. 20.
119.Jump up ^ "No Bail as D.A. Cites New Law", The San Francisco Examiner (November 28, 1978), p. 1.
120.Jump up ^ Hinckle, p. 14.
121.^ Jump up to: a b Geluardi, John (January 30, 2008). "Dan White's Motive More About Betrayal Than Homophobia", SF Weekly. Retrieved September 11, 2008.
122.Jump up ^ Harvey Milk Memorial Plaque, 575 Castro Street, San Francisco, California. Viewed August 17, 2008.
123.Jump up ^ Carlsen, William (November 29, 1978). "Ex-aide Held in Moscone Killing Ran as a Crusader Against Crime", The New York Times, p. A22.
124.^ Jump up to: a b Hinckle, p. 30.
125.Jump up ^ Hinckle, p. 40.
126.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 283.
127.^ Jump up to: a b Miller, p. 408.
128.Jump up ^ Hinckle, p. 17.
129.Jump up ^ Hinckle, p. 27.
130.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 297.
131.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 308.
132.^ Jump up to: a b Hinckle, p. 49.
133.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 310.
134.^ Jump up to: a b Mounts, Suzanne (Spring 1999). "Malice Aforethought in California: A History of Legislative Abdication and Judicial Vacillation", University of San Francisco Law Review (33 U.S.F. L. Rev. 313).
135.^ Jump up to: a b Weiss, p. 436.
136.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 324–325.
137.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 440.
138.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 441.
139.Jump up ^ Turner, Wallace (May 22, 1979). "Ex-Official Guilty of Manslaughter In Slayings on Coast; 3,000 Protest; Protesters Beat on Doors Ex-Official Guilty of Manslaughter in Coast Slayings Lifelong San Franciscan", The New York Times, p. A1.
140.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 443–445.
141.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 450.
142.Jump up ^ Hinckle, p. 80–81.
143.Jump up ^ Weiss, p. 419–420.
144.Jump up ^ Hubbard, Lee (November 7, 1999). "Real Elections Up Next for S.F.", The San Francisco Chronicle, p. SC1.
145.Jump up ^ California Penal Code Section 25-29, FindLaw (2008). Retrieved on September 9, 2008.
146.Jump up ^ Pogash, Carol (November 23, 2003). "Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'", The San Francisco Chronicle, p. D1.
147.Jump up ^ Lindsey, Robert (October 22, 1985). "Dan White, Killer of San Francisco Mayor, a suicide", The New York Times, p. A18.
148.^ Jump up to: a b c Foss, Karen (1988). "You Have to Give Them Hope", Journal of the West, 27 p. 75–81. ISSN 0022-5169
149.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 203.
150.Jump up ^ Foss, Karen. "The Logic of Folly in the Political Campaigns of Harvey Milk", in Queer Words, Queer Images, Jeffrey Ringer, ed. (1994), New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-7441-5.
151.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 363.
152.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 348.
153.Jump up ^ FitzGerald, Frances (July 28, 1986). "A Reporter at Large: The Castro—II", The New Yorker, p. 44–63.
154.^ Jump up to: a b Cloud, John (November 10, 1998). "Why Milk is Still Fresh: Twenty Years After his Assassination, Harvey Milk Still Has a Lot to Offer the Gay Life", The Advocate, (772) p. 29.
155.Jump up ^ Levy, Dan (September 6, 2000). "Harvey Milk Plaza Proposals Up for Judging", The San Francisco Chronicle, p. A-16.
156.Jump up ^ The Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club (August 2008). The Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club website. Retrieved September 8, 2008. Archived April 20, 2008 at the Wayback Machine
157.Jump up ^ What People are Asking About HMHS Hetrick Martin Institute, 2008. Retrieved on September 7, 2008.
158.Jump up ^ Marcus, p. 228–229.
159.Jump up ^ The 57th Academy Awards (1985) Nominees and Winners, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved on December 3, 2011
160.Jump up ^ Quartini, Joelle (June 20, 2008). "Harvey Milk Returns", The New York Blade, 12 (25), p. 18.
161.Jump up ^ Winn, Steven (February 27, 1999). "'Milk' Too Wholesome For the Man", The San Francisco Chronicle, p. E1.
162.Jump up ^ Swed, Mark (November 20, 1996). "Opera Review: A Revised 'Harvey Milk,' Finds Heart in San Francisco", The Los Angeles Times, p. F3.
163.Jump up ^ Kirkus Reviews, June 14, 2002
164.Jump up ^ Amor, Safia (2011). Harvey Milk: Non à l'homphobie (Paris: Actes Sud), 95 pages.
165.Jump up ^ 'Slumdog Millionaire' has seven Oscars (February 22, 2009), CNN.com. Retrieved February 22, 2009.
166.Jump up ^ Stein, Ruthe (March 18, 2008). "It's a wrap — 'Milk' filming ends in S.F.", The San Francisco Chronicle, p. E1.
167.Jump up ^ Cloud, John (June 14, 1999). "Harvey Milk", Time. Retrieved on October 8, 2008.
168.Jump up ^ 40 Heroes, The Advocate (September 25, 2007), Issue 993. Retrieved on October 8, 2008.
169.Jump up ^ 2009 Medal of Freedom Ceremony, The White House (August 12, 2009). Retrieved August 12, 2009.
170.Jump up ^ "Harvey Milk Foundation – Advisory Board". Harvey Milk Foundation. Retrieved March 31, 2011.
171.Jump up ^ Smith, Dan (October 12, 2009). Schwarzenegger signs gay rights bills, The Sacramento Bee. Retrieved October 12, 2009.
172.Jump up ^ Luminaries inducted into Calif. Hall of Fame, The San Francisco Chronicle (December 1, 2009). Retrieved on December 1, 2009.
173.Jump up ^ Delgado, Ray (June 6, 2006). Museum opens downtown with look at 'Saint Harvey'; exhibitions explore history of slain supervisor, rainbow flag, San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved on July 9. 2011.
174.Jump up ^ Shilts, p. 281.
Bibliography
Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1
Clendinen, Dudley, and Nagourney, Adam (1999). Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81091-3
de Jim, Strange (2003). San Francisco's Castro, Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-2866-3
Duberman, Martin (1999). Left Out: the Politics of Exclusion: Essays, 1964–1999, Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-01744-4
Hinckle, Warren (1985). Gayslayer! The Story of How Dan White Killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone & Got Away With Murder, Silver Dollar Books. ISBN 0-933839-01-4
Leyland, Winston, ed (2002). Out In the Castro: Desire, Promise, Activism, Leyland Publications. ISBN 0-943295-87-8
Marcus, Eric (2002). Making Gay History, HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-093391-7
Miller, Neil (1994) Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-74988-8
Shilts, Randy (1982). The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-52330-0
Smith, Raymond, Haider-Markel, Donald, eds., (2002). Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation, ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-256-8
Weiss, Mike (2010). Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, Vince Emery Productions. ISBN 978-0-9825650-5-6
Further reading
Jones, Cleve, with Dawson, Jeff (2000). Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist. ISBN 0-06-251642-6
Milk, Harvey (2012). The Harvey Milk Interviews: In His Own Words. Vince Emery Productions. ISBN 978-0-9725898-8-8.
Milk, Harvey (2013). An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk's Speeches and Writings. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27548-5.
Meason, Christopher, ed (2009). Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk, NewMarket Press. ISBN 978-1-55704-829-5
External links

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Pelosi: In Recognition of the 25th Anniversary of the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk Foundation
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The James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library holds the Harvey Milk Archives—Scott Smith Collection.
Harvey Milk photo history by Strange de Jim, with photos by Daniel Nicoletta
Harvey Milk, Second Sight: Personal Photographs
Significant collection of photographs and Milk history
Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Organization dedicated to placing a bust of Harvey Milk in San Francisco's City Hall.
Harvey Milk Opera
Milk and The Times of Harvey Milk at the Internet Movie Database
The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society Holds artifacts of Milk, including the suit he was wearing when shot by Dan White
Harvey Milk Center for the Arts
Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy elementary school in SF
Harvey Milk High School NYC
Harvey Milk: What His Presidential Medal of Freedom Means to All Americans by Chuck Wolfe
The Unknown Adventures of Harvey Milk in Dallas by Vince Emery

Political offices
Preceded by
District Created Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
 District 5
 January 8, 1978 – November 27, 1978 Succeeded by
Harry Britt

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Moscone–Milk assassinations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Moscone–Milk assassinations

Location
San Francisco, California, United States
Date
November 27, 1978
Attack type
Assassination, spree shooting
Weapon(s)
Revolver
Deaths
2
Perpetrator
Dan White
The Moscone–Milk assassinations were the killings of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978. White was angry that Moscone had refused to re-appoint him to his seat on the Board of Supervisors, from which White had just resigned, and that Milk had lobbied heavily against his re-appointment. These events helped bring national notice to then-Board President Dianne Feinstein, who became mayor of San Francisco and eventually U.S. Senator for California.
White was subsequently convicted of voluntary manslaughter, rather than of first degree murder. The verdict sparked the "White Night riots" in San Francisco, and led to the state of California abolishing the diminished capacity criminal defense. It also led to the urban legend of the "Twinkie defense", as many media reports had incorrectly described the defense as having attributed White's diminished capacity to the effects of sugar-laden junk food.[1][2] White committed suicide in 1985, a little more than a year after his release from prison.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Preceding events
2 Assassinations 2.1 George Moscone
2.2 Harvey Milk
3 Aftermath of the shootings
4 Trial and its aftermath
5 Cultural depictions
6 See also
7 Footnotes
8 References
Preceding events[edit]
White had been a San Francisco police officer, and later a firefighter. He and Milk were each elected to the Board of Supervisors in the 1977 elections, which introduced district-based seats and ushered in the "most diverse Board the city has ever seen." The city charter prevented anyone from holding two city jobs simultaneously, so White resigned from his higher paying job with the fire department.
With regard to business development issues, the 11-member board was split roughly 6-5 in favor of pro-growth advocates including White, over those who advocated the more neighborhood-oriented approach favored by Mayor Moscone. Debate among the Board members was sometimes acrimonious and saw the conservative White verbally sparring with liberal supervisors, including Milk and Carol Ruth Silver. Much of Moscone's agenda of neighborhood revitalization and increased city support programs was thwarted or modified in favor of the business-oriented agenda supported by the pro-growth majority on the Board.
Further tension between White and Milk arose with Milk's vote in favor of placing a group home within White's district. Subsequently, White would cast the only vote in opposition to San Francisco's landmark gay rights ordinance, passed by the Board and signed by Moscone in 1978. Dissatisfied with the workings of city politics, and in financial difficulty due to his failing restaurant business and his low salary as a supervisor, White resigned from the Board on November 10, 1978. The mayor would appoint his successor, which alarmed some of the city's business interests and White's constituents, as it meant Moscone could tip the balance of power on the Board as well as appoint a liberal representative for the more conservative district. White's supporters urged him to rescind his resignation by requesting reappointment from Moscone and promised him some financial support. Meanwhile Moscone was lobbied not to reappoint White by some of the more liberal city leaders, most notably Milk, Silver, and then-California assemblyman Willie Brown.[1][3]
On November 18, news broke of the mass deaths of members of Peoples Temple in Jonestown. Prior to the group's move to Guyana, Peoples Temple had been based in San Francisco, so most of the dead were recent Bay Area residents, including Leo Ryan, the United States Congressman who was murdered in the incident. The city was plunged into mourning, and the issue of White's vacant Board of Supervisors seat was pushed aside for several days.
Assassinations[edit]
George Moscone[edit]



 Mayor George Moscone
Moscone ultimately decided to appoint Don Horanzy, a more liberal federal housing official, rather than to re-appoint White. On Monday, November 27, 1978, the day Moscone was set to formally appoint Horanzy to the vacant seat, White packed his loaded service revolver from his work as a police officer and ten extra rounds of ammunition into his coat pocket, and had an unsuspecting friend drive him to San Francisco City Hall. Once there, White slipped into City Hall through a first floor window, avoiding City Hall's metal detectors. He proceeded to the mayor's office, where Moscone was conferring with Brown.
White requested a meeting with the mayor and was allowed to see him when Moscone's meeting with Brown ended. As White entered Moscone's outer office, Brown exited through a different door. Moscone met White in the outer office, where White asked again to be re-appointed to his former seat on the Board of Supervisors. Moscone declined, and their conversation turned into a heated argument over Horanzy's pending appointment.[4]
Wishing to avoid a public scene, Moscone suggested they retire to a private lounge attached to the mayor's office, so they would not be overheard by those waiting outside. As Moscone lit a cigarette and proceeded to pour two drinks, White pulled out the revolver. He then fired shots at the mayor's shoulder and chest, tearing his lung. Moscone fell to the floor and White approached Moscone, poised his gun six inches from the mayor's head, and fired two additional bullets into Moscone's ear lobes, killing him instantly.[5] While standing over the slain mayor, White removed the four empty cartridges from his gun and refilled it with hollow-point bullets. Witnesses later reported that they heard Moscone and White arguing, later followed by the gunshots that sounded like a car backfiring.[citation needed]
Harvey Milk[edit]



 Supervisor Harvey Milk
Dianne Feinstein, who was then President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, saw White quickly exit Mayor Moscone's office from a side door and called after him. White sharply responded with "I have something to do first."[5]
White proceeded to his former office, and intercepted Harvey Milk on the way, asking him to step inside for a moment. Milk agreed to join him.[6] Once the door to the office was closed, White positioned himself between the doorway and Milk, pulled out his revolver and opened fire on Milk. The first bullet hit Milk's right wrist, as he tried to protect himself. White continued firing rapidly, hitting Milk twice more in the chest, then fired a fourth bullet at Milk's head, killing him, followed by a fifth shot into his skull at close range.[7]
White fled the scene as Feinstein entered the office where Milk lay dead. She grabbed his wrist for a pulse, her finger entering Milk's bullet wound. Horrified, Feinstein was shaking so badly she required support from the police chief after identifying both bodies.[8] Feinstein then tearfully announced the murders to a stunned public, stating: "As President of the Board of Supervisors, it's my duty to make this announcement. Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed. The suspect is Supervisor Dan White."[9][10][11]
White left City Hall unchallenged and eventually turned himself in to Frank Falzon and another detective, former co-workers at his former precinct. He then recorded a statement in which he acknowledged shooting Moscone and Milk, but denied premeditation.
Aftermath of the shootings[edit]
An impromptu candlelight march started in the Castro leading to the City Hall steps. Tens of thousands attended. Joan Baez led "Amazing Grace", and the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus sang a solemn hymn by Felix Mendelssohn. Upon learning of the assassinations, singer/songwriter Holly Near composed "Singing for Our Lives", also known as "Song for Harvey Milk".
Moscone and Milk both lay in state at San Francisco City Hall. Moscone's funeral at St Mary's Cathedral was attended by 4,500 people. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. Milk was cremated and his ashes were spread across the Pacific Ocean. Dianne Feinstein, as president of the Board of Supervisors, succeeded to the Mayor's office, becoming the first and only woman to occupy the office.
The coroner who worked on Moscone and Milk's bodies later concluded that the wrist and chest bullet wounds were not fatal, and that both victims probably would have survived with proper medical attention. However, the head wounds brought instant death without question, particularly because White fired at very close range.[12]
Trial and its aftermath[edit]
Further information: Twinkie defense and White Night riots



 Cover of The San Francisco Examiner on November 28, 1978
White was tried for first degree murder with special circumstance, a crime which potentially carried the death penalty in California. White's defense team claimed that he was depressed, evidenced by, among other things, his eating of unhealthy foods (inaccurate media reports that White's defense had presented junk food consumption as the cause of his mental state, rather than a symptom of it, would give rise to the legal term "Twinkie defense"). The defense argued that White's depression led to a state of mental diminished capacity, leaving him unable to have formed the premeditation necessary to commit first-degree murder. The jury accepted these arguments, and White was found guilty of the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter.
The verdict proved to be highly controversial, and many felt that the punishment so poorly matched the deed and circumstances that most San Franciscans believed White essentially got away with murder.[13] In particular, many in the gay community were outraged by the verdict and the resulting reduced prison sentence. Since Milk had been homosexual, many felt that homophobia had been a motivating factor in the jury's decision. This groundswell of anger sparked the city's White Night riots.
The unpopular verdict also ultimately led to a change in California state law which ended the diminished capacity defense.
White was paroled in 1984 and committed suicide less than two years later. In 1998, the San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco magazine reported that Frank Falzon, a homicide detective with the San Francisco police, said that he met with White in 1984. Falzon said that at that meeting, White confessed that not only was his killing of Moscone and Milk premeditated, but that he had actually planned to kill Silver and Brown as well. Falzon quoted White as having said, "I was on a mission. I wanted four of them. Carol Ruth Silver, she was the biggest snake ... and Willie Brown, he was masterminding the whole thing."[3][14] Falzon, who had been a friend of White's and who had taken White's initial statement at the time White turned himself in, said that he believed White's confession. He later added that at no time did White express remorse in any form at the deaths of Moscone and Milk.
San Francisco Weekly has referred to White as "perhaps the most hated man in San Francisco's history."[13]
Cultural depictions[edit]
Journalist Randy Shilts wrote a biography of Milk in 1982, The Mayor of Castro Street, which discussed the assassinations, trial and riots in detail. The 1984 documentary film The Times of Harvey Milk won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Execution of Justice, a play by Emily Mann, chronicles the events leading to the assassinations. The play opened on Broadway in March 1986 and in 1999, it was adapted to film for cable network Showtime, with Tim Daly portraying White.
The Moscone–Milk assassinations and the trial of Dan White were lampooned by the Dead Kennedys with their re-written version of "I Fought the Law" which appeared in their 1987 compilation album Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death. The photo on the front cover of their 1980 album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, which shows several police cars on fire, was taken during the "White Night Riots" of 21 May 1979.
The assassinations were the basis for a scene in the 1987 science fiction movie RoboCop in which a deranged former municipal official holds the mayor and others hostage and demands his job back.[15]
In 2003, the story of Milk's assassination and of the White Night Riot was featured in an exhibition created by the GLBT Historical Society, a San Francisco–based museum, archives and research center to which the estate of Scott Smith donated Milk's personal belongings that were preserved after his death. "Saint Harvey: The Life and Afterlife of a Modern Gay Martyr" was shown in the main gallery in society's Mission Street location; the emotional centerpiece was a section displaying the suit Milk was wearing at the time of his death.[16]
In 2008 the film Milk depicted the assassinations as part of a biographical story about the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk. The movie was a critical and commercial success, with Victor Garber portraying Moscone, Sean Penn playing Milk and Josh Brolin playing White. Penn won an Oscar for his performance and Brolin was nominated.
In January 2012, the Berkeley Repertory Theater premiered Ghost Light, a play exploring the effect of Moscone's assassination on his son Jonathan, who was 14 at the time of his father's death. Written by Tony Taccone, the production was directed by Jonathan Moscone.
See also[edit]

Portal icon San Francisco Bay Area portal
Portal icon Crime portal
Portal icon Politics portal
Portal icon LGBT portal
Portal icon 1970s portal
List of assassinated American politicians


Footnotes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Pogash, Carol (November 23, 2003). "Myth of the 'Twinkie defense': The verdict in the Dan White case wasn't based on his ingestion of junk food". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved August 10, 2007.
2.Jump up ^ Snopes: The Twinkie Defense
3.^ Jump up to: a b Weiss, Mike. (September 18, 1998). "Killer of Moscone, Milk had Willie Brown on List", San Jose Mercury News, Page A1
4.Jump up ^ Turner, Wallace (November 28, 1978). "Suspect Sought Job", The New York Times, p. 1.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Shilts, Randy. The Mayor of Castro Street. MacMillian Publishing, p. 268
6.Jump up ^ findarticles.com
7.Jump up ^ Shilts, Randy. The Mayor of Castro Street. MacMillian Publishing, p. 269
8.Jump up ^ Flintwick, James (November 28, 1978). "Aide: White 'A Wild Man'", The San Francisco Examiner, p. 1.
9.Jump up ^ "The Times of Harvey Milk". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved May 12, 2007.
10.Jump up ^ This is cited from both the book and the actual news footage of Feinstein making the announcement. The NBC Network news report from John Chancellor, David Brinkley and Rick Davis of KNBC on November 27, 1978 can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCRQLWp9KoM&feature=PlayList&p=B7D41A7B8A6D34AC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2 Feinstein's announcement begins at 2:20.00
11.Jump up ^ 1978 Year in Review: Assassination of Harvey Milk and George Moscone-http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1978/Assasination-of-Harvey-Milk-and-George-Moscone/12309251197005-13/
12.Jump up ^ Shilts, Randy. The Mayor of Castro Street. MacMillian Publishing, p. 282
13.^ Jump up to: a b Dan White's Motive More About Betrayal Than Homophobia. By John Geluardi. San Francisco Weekly. Published January 29, 2008.
14.Jump up ^ Weiss, Mike. (October 1998). "Dan White's Last Confession", San Francisco Magazine
15.Jump up ^ Booker, M. Keith (2006). Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 205. ISBN 0-275-98395-1.
16.Jump up ^ Delgado, Ray (June 6, 2003). "Museum opens downtown with look at 'Saint Harvey'; exhibitions explore history of slain supervisor, rainbow flag". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
References[edit]
"Another Day of Death". Time Magazine. December 11, 1978. Retrieved April 8, 2007.
"Dan White: SFPD Interrogation Audio (Nov. 27, 1978)". Bay Area Radio Museum, Gene D'Accardo/KNBR Collection. 1978. Retrieved January 15, 2008.
GAzis-SAx, Joel (1996). "The Martyrdom of George Moscone". notfrisco.com. Retrieved April 8, 2007.
Weiss, Mike (2010). Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, Vince Emery Productions. ISBN 978-0-9825650-5-6
Milk, Harvey (2012). The Harvey Milk Interviews: In His Own Words, Vince Emery Productions. ISBN 978-0-9725898-8-8

 

Categories: 1978 murders in the United States
Assassinations in the United States
LGBT history in San Francisco, California
Murder in California
San Francisco, California crime history
1970s in LGBT history
1978 in California
Politics of the San Francisco Bay Area
20th century in San Francisco, California




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Dan White

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This article is about the San Francisco Supervisor. For other people with the same name, see Dan White (disambiguation).

Daniel J. White

Member of the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
 from District 8
In office
 January 8, 1978 – November 10, 1978
Preceded by
District created
Succeeded by
Don Horanzy
Personal details

Born
September 2, 1946
Long Beach, California, USA
Died
October 21, 1985 (aged 39)
San Francisco, California, USA
Resting place
Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, California
Nationality
American
Political party
Democratic
Spouse(s)
Mary Ann Burns (1976–1985)
Children
Charles
 Rory
 Laura
Residence
San Francisco, California
Profession
Police officer
 firefighter
 politician
Religion
Roman Catholic
Military service

Allegiance
United States of America
Service/branch
United States Army
Years of service
1965–1971
Rank
Staff Sergeant
Unit
101st Airborne Division
Battles/wars
Vietnam War
Daniel James "Dan" White (September 2, 1946 – October 21, 1985) was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, 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 in the deaths of Milk and Moscone. White served five years of a seven-year prison sentence. Less than two years after his release, he returned to San Francisco and committed suicide. San Francisco Weekly has referred to White as "perhaps the most hated man in San Francisco's history."[1]

Contents
  [hide] 1 Early life
2 Career 2.1 Election as supervisor
2.2 Tenure as supervisor
3 Assassinations 3.1 Trial
3.2 Imprisonment and suicide
4 Alleged confession
5 Factual accounts
6 In popular culture
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 External links
Early life[edit]
Daniel James White was born in Long Beach, California,[2] the second of nine children. He was raised by working class parents in a Roman Catholic household in the Visitacion Valley neighborhood of San Francisco.[1] He attended Riordan High School until he was expelled in his junior year. He went on to attend Woodrow Wilson High School,[3] where he was valedictorian of his class.
White enlisted in the United States Army in June 1965. He was a sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division in the Vietnam War from 1969 to 1970 and was honorably discharged in 1971.
White worked as a security guard at A. J. Dimond High School in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972. He returned to San Francisco to work as a police officer. According to a San Francisco Weekly newspaper account, citing no sources but based largely on interviews with two former political allies of White, he quit the force after reporting another officer for beating a handcuffed suspect.[1]
White then joined the San Francisco Fire Department. While on duty, according to the San Francisco Weekly story, White's rescue of a woman and her baby from a seventh-floor apartment in the Geneva Towers was covered by The San Francisco Chronicle.[1] The city's newspapers referred to him as "an all-American boy."[4]
Career[edit]
Election as supervisor[edit]
In 1977, White was elected as a Democrat to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from District 8, which included several neighborhoods near the southeastern limits of San Francisco. At that time, supervisors were elected by district and not "at-large", as they had been before and then were again in the 1980s and 1990s. He had strong support from the police and firefighter unions. His district was described by The New York Times as "a largely white, middle-class section that is hostile to the growing homosexual community of San Francisco." As a supervisor, White openly saw himself as the board's "defender of the home, the family and religious life against homosexuals, pot smokers and cynics."[5]
Tenure as supervisor[edit]
Despite their personal differences, White and Supervisor Harvey Milk initially had several areas of political agreement and they initially worked well together.[1] Harvey Milk was one of three people from the city hall invited to the baptism of White's newborn child shortly after the election.[1] White also persuaded Dianne Feinstein, then president of the board of supervisors, to appoint Milk chairman of the Streets and Transportation Committee.[1]
The Catholic Church in April 1978 proposed a facility, to be operated by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, in White's district for juvenile offenders who had committed murder, arson, rape, and other crimes, according to the same story. The account said White was strongly opposed, while Milk supported the facility, and this difference led to a conflict between the two.[1] White held a mixed record on gay rights, both opposing the Briggs Initiative and voting against an ordinance prohibiting anti-gay housing and employment discrimination.[1]
Assassinations[edit]
Main article: Moscone–Milk assassinations
After his disagreement with Milk over the proposed rehab center, White frequently clashed with Milk as well as other members of the board. On November 10, 1978, White resigned his seat as supervisor.[5] The reasons he cited were his dissatisfaction with what he saw as the corrupt inner-workings of San Francisco city politics, as well as the difficulty in making a living without a police officer's or firefighter's salary, jobs he could not hold legally while serving as supervisor. White had opened a baked-potato stand at Pier 39, which failed to become profitable.[6] He reversed his resignation on November 14, 1978 after his supporters lobbied him to seek appointment from George Moscone.
Moscone initially agreed to White's request, but later refused the appointment at the urging of Milk and others. On November 27, 1978, White visited San Francisco City Hall with the later-declared intention of killing not only Moscone and Milk, but also two other San Francisco politicians, California Assembly Speaker and later S.F. mayor Willie Brown, and Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver, both of whom he also blamed for lobbying Moscone not to re-appoint him.[7] He arrived that day by climbing through a first-floor window on the side of City Hall carrying a .38 revolver and 10 rounds of ammunition. By entering the building through the window, White was able to avoid the recently installed metal detectors. After entering Moscone's office, White pleaded to be re-instated as supervisor, but Moscone said no. White then killed Moscone by shooting him in the shoulder and chest, and twice in the head. He then walked to the other side of City Hall to Milk's office, reloaded the gun, and fatally shot Milk five times, the final two shots fired with the gun's barrel touching Milk's skull, according to the medical examiner. White then fled City Hall, turning himself in at the San Francisco's Northern Police Station where he had been a police officer. While being interviewed by investigators, White recorded a tearful confession, stating, "I just shot him."
Trial[edit]
Main article: Twinkie defense
At the trial, White's defense team argued that his mental state at the time of the killings was one of diminished capacity due to depression. They argued, therefore, he was not capable of premeditating the killings, and thus was not legally guilty of first-degree murder. Forensic psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified that White was suffering from depression and pointed to several behavioral symptoms of that depression, including the fact that White had gone from being highly health-conscious to consuming sugary foods and drinks. When the prosecution played a recording of White's confession, several jurors wept as they listened to what was described as "a man pushed beyond his endurance." Many people familiar with City Hall claimed that it was common to enter through the window to save time. A police officer friend of White claimed to reporters that several officials carried weapons at this time and speculated that White carried the extra ammunition as a habit that police officers had. The jury found White guilty of voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder. Outrage within San Francisco's gay community over the resulting seven-year sentence sparked the city's White Night Riots; general disdain for the outcome of the court case led to the elimination of California's "diminished capacity" law.[8][9]
Imprisonment and suicide[edit]



 White's headstone.
White served five years of his seven-year sentence at Soledad State Prison and was paroled on January 7, 1984. Fearing White might be murdered in retaliation for his crimes, California State Corrections Officials secretly transported him to Los Angeles, where he served a year's parole. At the expiration of that year, White sought to return to San Francisco; Mayor Dianne Feinstein issued a public announcement of his plans, and a statement formally asking White not to return. White did move back to San Francisco and attempted to rebuild his life with his wife and children, but his marriage soon ended.
On October 21, 1985, less than two years after his release from prison, White committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage by running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the inside of his car. White's body was discovered by his brother, Thomas, shortly before 2:00 pm the same day.[10]
White was buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California, with a traditional government-furnished headstone issued for war veterans. He was survived by his two sons (seven and four years old at the time of his death), an infant daughter, and his ex-wife.[10]
Alleged confession[edit]
In 1998, Frank Falzon, the homicide inspector with the San Francisco police to whom White had turned himself in after the killings, said that he met White in 1984, and that at this meeting White had confessed that he had the intention to kill not only Moscone and Milk, but another supervisor, Carol Ruth Silver, and then-member of the California State Assembly (and future San Francisco Mayor) Willie Brown. Falzon quoted White as having said, "I was on a mission. I wanted four of them. Carol Ruth Silver, she was the biggest snake ... and Willie Brown, he was masterminding the whole thing." Falzon indicated that he believed White, stating, "I felt like I had been hit by a sledge-hammer ... I found out it was a premeditated murder."[11]
Factual accounts[edit]
The story of the assassinations is told in the Academy Award-winning documentary film The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), which came out a year before White committed suicide.
White's life, the assassinations, and his trial are covered in the 1984 book Double Play: The San Francisco City Hall Killings by Mike Weiss, which won the Edgar Award as Best True Crime Book of the Year. An expanded second edition, Double Play: The Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, was issued in 2010 and updated White's story to include his life after prison and his suicide. The second edition also includes a DVD with a half-hour video interview of White.
Execution of Justice, a play by Emily Mann, chronicles the events leading to the assassinations. In 1999, the play was adapted to film for cable network Showtime, with Tim Daly portraying White.
In popular culture[edit]
The assassinations were the basis for a scene in the 1987 science fiction movie RoboCop in which a deranged former municipal official holds the Mayor and others hostage and demands his job back.[12]
Actor Josh Brolin was nominated for an Academy Award for playing Dan White in Gus Van Sant's 2008 biographical film Milk, which opened with wide release from Focus Features. The film suggests that Milk believed White may have been a closeted gay man.[13] However, there is no evidence to indicate that White was homosexual.[1] Sean Penn won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Milk in the film.
California punk rock band Dead Kennedys released a cover of Sonny Curtis' "I Fought the Law", entitled "I Fought the Law (and I Won)" on their album Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death. The lyrics were rewritten to reference the killing of Moscone and Milk by White. In their version, Jello Biafra sings in the persona of White. He references White's high consumption of sugary products ("Twinkies are the best friend I ever had"), the shooting of both Moscone and Milk ("I blew George and Harvey's brains out with my six gun!") and White's fellow police officers ("My cop friend thinks it's fun, You can get away with murder if you got a badge") and finally ("I am the law, so I won").
See also[edit]

Portal icon Biography portal
Portal icon San Francisco Bay Area portal
Portal icon LGBT portal
Joel Wachs, Los Angeles City Council member who argued to keep Dan James White out of that city
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Dan White's Motive More About Betrayal Than Homophobia. By John Geluardi. San Francisco Weekly. Published January 29, 2008.
2.Jump up ^ "California Birth Index", hosted at ancestry. "Daniel James White, born September 2, 1946 Los Angeles County"
3.Jump up ^ Mike Weiss, Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk (San Francisco: Vince Emery Productions, 2010) pp. 213-216, 474.
4.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger. Milk. The Chicago Sun Times. Published November 24, 2008.
5.^ Jump up to: a b Turner, Wallace (November 28, 1978). "Suspect Sought Job". The New York Times.
6.Jump up ^ Sides, Josh. Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Making of San Francisco. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2009. p. 164. Available at Google Books.
7.Jump up ^ Weiss, Mike. (September 18, 1998). "Killer of Moscone, Milk had Willie Brown on List", San Jose Mercury News, Page A1
8.Jump up ^ Pogash, Carol (November 23, 2003). "Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'". San Francisco Chronicle. p. D-1. Retrieved December 3, 2008.
9.Jump up ^ "Daniel James White Trial: 1979 – Double Execution". law.jrank.org. Net Industries. Retrieved December 3, 2008.
10.^ Jump up to: a b Robert Lindsey (October 22, 1985). "Dan White, Killer Of San Francisco Mayor, A Suicide". New York Times. Retrieved December 29, 2008.
11.Jump up ^ Weiss (1998).
12.Jump up ^ Booker, M. Keith (2006). Alternate Americas: Science Fiction Film and American Culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 205. ISBN 0-275-98395-1.
13.Jump up ^ "Edelstein D. 'Milk' Is Much More Than A Martyr Movie". National Public Radio. November 26, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
References[edit]
"Dan White: SFPD Interrogation Audio (November 27, 1978)". Bay Area Radio Museum, Gene D'Accardo/KNBR Collection. 1978. Retrieved January 15, 2008.
Weiss, Mike (September 17, 1998). "Dan White wanted to kill Willie Brown on day he murdered San Francisco mayor, Harvey Milk". San Jose Mercury News.
Weiss, Mike (2010). Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, Vince Emery Productions. ISBN 9780982565056
External links[edit]
"48 Drawings from the trial by David Newman"
Dan White at the Internet Movie Database
Dan White at Find a Grave

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 Peoples Temple
 


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Twinkie defense

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Jump to: navigation, search



 The phrase "Twinkie defense" comes from Twinkies, a food product known to be high in sugar.
"Twinkie defense" is a derisive label for an improbable legal defense. It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catchall term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone. White's defense was that he suffered diminished capacity as a result of his depression. His change in diet from healthy food to Twinkies and other sugary food was said to be a symptom of depression. Contrary to common belief, White's attorneys did not argue that the Twinkies were the cause of White's actions, but that their consumption was symptomatic of his underlying depression. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Origins
2 Diminished capacity
3 Supreme Court
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
Origins[edit]
See also: Moscone–Milk assassinations
The expression derives from the 1979 trial of Dan White, a former San Francisco, California (U.S.) police officer and firefighter, and until just before the crime, a city district Supervisor. On November 27, 1978, White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. At the trial, psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified that White had been depressed at the time of the crime, and pointed to several behavioral changes indicating White's depression: he had quit his job; he shunned his wife; and although normally clean-cut, he had become slovenly in appearance. Furthermore, White had previously been a fitness fanatic and health food advocate, but had begun consuming junk food and sugar-laden soft drinks like Coca-Cola. As an incidental note, Blinder mentioned theories that elements of diet could worsen existing mood swings.[1] Another psychiatrist, George Solomon, testified that White had "exploded" and was "sort of on automatic pilot" at the time of the killings.[2] The fact that White had killed Moscone and Milk was not challenged, but – in part because of the testimony from Blinder and other psychiatrists – the defense successfully convinced the jury that White's capacity for rational thought had been diminished; the jurors found White incapable of the premeditation required for a murder conviction, and instead convicted him of voluntary manslaughter. Public protests over the verdict led to the White Night Riots.
Diminished capacity[edit]
Twinkies were never mentioned in the courtroom during the White trial, nor did the defense ever claim that White was on a sugar rush and committed the murders as a result. However, one reporter's use of the term "Twinkie defense" caught on and stuck, leading to a persistent misunderstanding by the public. The misunderstanding was mentioned at the end of Milk, Gus Van Sant's 2008 biopic of Harvey Milk. In a bonus feature on the DVD version of The Times of Harvey Milk, a documentary on Milk's life and death, White's lawyers explain what they actually argued in court.
The actual legal defense that White's lawyers used was that his mental capacity had been diminished, and White's consumption of junk food was presented to the jury as one of many symptoms, not a cause, of White's depression.
In stories covering the trial, satirist Paul Krassner had played up the angle of the Twinkie,[1] and he would later claim credit for coining the term "Twinkie defense".[3] The day after the verdict, columnist Herb Caen wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle about the police support for White, himself a former policeman, and their "dislike of homosexuals" and mentioned "the Twinkie insanity defense" in passing.[1] News stories published after the trial, however, frequently reported the defense arguments inaccurately, claiming that the defense had presented junk food as the cause of White's depression and/or diminished capacity, instead of having been symptomatic of an existing depression.[4] Dan White committed suicide seven years later.
As a result of negative publicity from the White case and others, the term diminished capacity was abolished in 1982 by Proposition 8 and the California legislature and was replaced by the term diminished actuality, referring not to the capacity to have a specific intent, but to whether the defendant actually had the required intent to commit the crime with which he or she was charged.[5] Additionally, California's statutory definitions of premeditation and malice required for murder were eliminated by the state's legislature, with the return to common law definitions. By this time, the "Twinkie defense" had become such a common term that one lawmaker had waved a Twinkie in the air while making his point during a debate.[1]
Supreme Court[edit]
During oral Supreme Court arguments in United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140 (2006), Justice Antonin Scalia referred to the Twinkie defense with regard to the right to counsel of choice as perhaps more important than the right to effective assistance of counsel: "I don't want a competent lawyer. I want a lawyer who's going to get me off. I want a lawyer who will invent the Twinkie defense. [ ] I would not consider the Twinkie defense an invention of a competent lawyer. But I want a lawyer who's going to win for me."[6]
See also[edit]
Gay panic defense
The San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, blamed by the gunman's widow in part on monosodium glutamate in McDonald's food
The Dead Kennedys' version of "I Fought the Law"
Trial and Error, a 1997 film in which an attorney attempts to increase his client's blood sugar so that he may use the Twinkie defense
Chewbacca Defense
King Kong Defense
The Matrix defense
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d Pogash, Carol (2003-11-23). "Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'". San Francisco Chronicle. p. D-1. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
2.Jump up ^ San Francisco Chronicle, May 10, 1979
3.Jump up ^ Krassner, Paul (2006-08-01). "Ice Cream Treat for Pedophiles". Adult Video News. Retrieved 2007-02-28.
4.Jump up ^ Snopes: The Twinkie Defense
5.Jump up ^ FindLaw for Legal Professionals - Case Law, Federal and State Resources, Forms, and Code
6.Jump up ^ United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez (4/18/06)
Further reading[edit]

 This article's further reading may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive, less relevant or many publications with the same point of view; or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations. (August 2010) 
California Penal Code Section 25-29 from Findlaw
Trial and Error by Paul Tatara for CNN on June 6, 1997. Retrieved March 20, 2006.
Mauro, Tony (2006-04-19). "High Court Debates Defendants' Right to Counsel of Choice". Legal Times (Law.com). Retrieved 2007-02-02.
Weiss, Mike (2010). Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, Vince Emery Productions. ISBN 978-0-9825650-5-6
External links[edit]
Snopes: The Twinkie Defense
"Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'" - San Francisco Chronicle, November 23, 2003

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Harvey Milk


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Categories: Criminal defenses
LGBT history in San Francisco, California
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White Night riots

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White Night riots
A line of people silhouetted against a building, with a plume of smoke rising behind the people.
Rioters outside San Francisco City Hall, May 21, 1979, reacting to the voluntary manslaughter verdict for Dan White

Date
May 21, 1979
Time
Evening
Location
San Francisco, California
Casualties
140 injured
The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of the lenient sentencing of Dan White, for the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979 (the night before what would have been Milk's 49th birthday) in San Francisco. Earlier that day, White had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter, the lightest possible conviction for his actions.
The gay community of San Francisco had a longstanding conflict with the San Francisco Police Department. White's status as a former police officer intensified the community's anger at the SFPD. Initial demonstrations took place as a peaceful march through the Castro district of San Francisco. After the crowd arrived at the San Francisco City Hall, violence began. The events caused hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of property damage to City Hall and the surrounding area, as well as injuries to police officers and rioters.
Several hours after the riot had been broken up, police made a retaliatory raid on a gay bar in San Francisco's Castro District. Many patrons were beaten by police in riot gear. Two dozen arrests were made during the course of the raid, and several people later sued the SFPD.[1]
In the following days, gay leaders refused to apologize for the events of that night. This led to increased political power in the gay community, which culminated in the election of Mayor Dianne Feinstein to a full term, the following November. In response to a campaign promise, Feinstein appointed a pro-gay Chief of Police, which increased recruitment of gay people in the police force and eased tensions.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Background 1.1 Gay history of San Francisco
1.2 Gay activism in San Francisco
1.3 Political clout
1.4 Assassinations
2 Riots 2.1 Dan White verdict
2.2 March through the Castro
2.3 Violence at City Hall
2.4 Police retaliation
2.5 Aftermath
3 Analysis 3.1 Causes
3.2 Effects on San Francisco politics
3.3 Effects on the AIDS movement
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External links
Background[edit]
Gay history of San Francisco[edit]
The American settlers who moved west toward California in the 18th and 19th centuries were largely male prospectors and miners. Events such as the California Gold Rush created a broadly male society in that region. Romantic friendships were common, and often tolerated.[2] As San Francisco was settled the ratio of men to women remained disproportionately high, resulting in the growth of a culture that was more open-minded towards homosexuality. The city's notorious brothel district – named the Barbary Coast – earned the city a reputation as a lawless and amoral society leading to San Francisco becoming known as "Sodom by the Sea."[3]
The end of Prohibition prompted the opening of several gay bars along North Beach. The most notable of these were the Black Cat where female impersonation shows became the main draw, and a lesbian bar known as Mona's.[4]
During World War II, San Francisco became a major debarkation point for servicemen stationed in the Pacific Theater. The U.S. military, which was concerned about male homosexuality, had a policy of dismissing servicemen caught in known gay establishments with blue discharges. As many of these men faced ostracism from their communities and families, they chose to remain in the city. The number of men that remained was a significant factor in the creation of a homosexual community in San Francisco.[5]
Gay activism in San Francisco[edit]
In 1951, the California Supreme Court affirmed in Stoumen v. Reilly[6] the right of homosexuals to assemble peacefully, an action which angered the police department.[7][who?][specify] To assist homosexuals with legal problems, in 1951 labor activist Harry Hay started the Mattachine Society, from his living room in Los Angeles. A few years later, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin started the Daughters of Bilitis with six other women in San Francisco, initially to have a place to socialize without fear of harassment or arrest.[8] Within a few years, both organizations learned of each other and grew to have similar goals: helping assimilate homosexuals into general society, working for legal reform to repeal sodomy laws, and assisting those who were arrested. Both groups were headquartered in San Francisco by 1957.[9]
Police continued to arrest homosexuals in large numbers, routinely bringing paddy wagons to gay bars and arresting their patrons. Charges were usually dismissed but those arrested often lost their anonymity when newspapers printed their names, addresses and places of employment. Officers also notified the employer and family of the accused, causing serious damage to their reputations.[7]
In 1964, a New Year's Eve benefit event was held for the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. Police stood outside with large floodlights, and in an effort to intimidate took photographs of anyone entering the building. Later, several officers demanded that they be allowed inside. Three lawyers explained to them that under California law, the event was a private party and they could not enter unless they bought tickets. The lawyers were then arrested.[7] Several ministers who were in attendance held a press conference the next morning, likening the SFPD to the Gestapo. Even the Catholic archbishop strongly condemned the actions of the police. In an attempt to reduce such harassment two officers were tasked with improving the police department's relationship with the gay community.[7]
The Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis promoted non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals, hoping to prove that homosexuals were respectable and normal. Living beyond the mostly white, middle class scope of these groups was an active community of cross-dressers, hustlers, and "street queens" who worked primarily in the Tenderloin district of the city. After being denied service at Gene Compton's Cafeteria, a few activists picketed the restaurant in 1966. A few days later, early in the morning, the police arrived to arrest patrons in drag. A riot ensued when a drag queen threw the contents of a cup of coffee in the face of a police officer in response to the officer's grabbing of her arm. The cafe's plate glass windows were shattered in the melée, and then again a few days later after they had been replaced.[10] Although three years later the Stonewall Riots would have a more significant impact, the Compton's cafeteria riots were among the first in American history where homosexuals and the newly forming transgender community fought against the authorities.[note 1]
Political clout[edit]
San Francisco continued to grow as a haven for homosexuals. North Beach and Polk Street had been quiet neighborhoods each with a large homosexual population, but in the 1960s the growth of the Castro District outpaced either of them. Thousands of gay men migrated to San Francisco, turning the quiet Irish working-class neighborhood around Castro Street into a bustling center of activity.[11] New Yorker Harvey Milk resettled on Castro Street in 1972, and opened Castro Camera the following year. Dissatisfied with the level of bureaucratic apathy and indifference toward the gay community, Milk decided to run for city supervisor. Through his multiple campaigns, culminating in his 1977 election, he became the political voice for the gay community, promoting himself as the "Mayor of Castro Street."[11] By 1977, 25 percent of the population of San Francisco was reported to be gay.[12]
On Labor Day of 1974, tensions between the gay community and the SFPD came to a head when a man was beaten and arrested while walking down Castro Street. Police reinforcements suddenly appeared on the street, their badge numbers hidden, and beat dozens of gay men. Of these, 14 were arrested and charged with obstructing a sidewalk.[13] Harvey Milk dubbed them the "Castro 14", and a $1.375 million lawsuit was filed against the police.[13]
In 1975, after George Moscone had been elected Mayor, he appointed Charles Gain as his Chief of Police. Gain, whose conciliatory position towards African Americans had branded him as one of the most liberal law enforcement officers in the country, soon earned the ire of the police force.[14] Gain implemented policies that proved unpopular with his staff, such as painting police cars powder blue, and barring officers from drinking on the job. His lenient policies towards gays also angered the police force. When asked what he would do if a gay police officer came out, Gain replied "I certainly think that a gay policeman could be up front about it under me. If I had a gay policeman who came out, I would support him 100 percent."[14] This statement sent shockwaves through the police department, and made national headlines. Made during the first week of Gain's tenure, the remark also made Mayor Moscone extremely unpopular with the police.[14] The two were so intensely disliked by the police that in 1977 rumors circulated about a plan by right-wing police officers to assassinate Gain,[15] and a year later similar plans formed targeting Mayor Moscone.[15] Upon being informed of this threat, Moscone hired a bodyguard.[citation needed]
Assassinations[edit]
Main article: Moscone-Milk assassinations

A large three story building with a wing on either side of a tower. The building is white, with a blue and gold dome on top of the tower. In front of the building is a plaza lined with flagpoles and trees.

 San Francisco City Hall, where the killings took place. The building was heavily damaged during the riots.
Dissatisfied with city politics, and in financial difficulty due to his failing restaurant business and low annual salary of $9,600, former police officer and Supervisor Dan White resigned from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on November 10, 1978.[16] However, after a meeting with the Police Officers' association and the Board of Realtors, White announced that he wanted his seat back. Liberal Supervisors saw this as an opportunity to end the 6-5 split on the Board that blocked progressive initiatives they wanted to introduce. After intense lobbying by Supervisors Milk and Silver, as well as State Assemblyman Willie Brown, Moscone announced on November 26, 1978, that he would not be reappointing Dan White to the seat he had vacated.[17][18][19]
The next morning White went to City Hall armed with his police .38 Smith & Wesson revolver and 10 extra cartridges in his coat pocket. To avoid the metal detector he entered the building through a basement window, and proceeded to the office of Mayor George Moscone. Following a brief argument, White shot the Mayor in the shoulder and chest, and then twice in the head.[20] White then walked to his former office, reloading his gun, and asked Milk to join him. White then shot Milk in the wrist, shoulder and chest, and then twice in the head, execution style. Supervisor Dianne Feinstein heard the gunshots and called the police, who found Milk on his stomach, blood pouring out of his head wounds.[21]
Riots[edit]
Dan White verdict[edit]
On May 21, 1979, White was found guilty of the voluntary manslaughter of Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk.[22] The prosecutor asked for a finding of first-degree murder with "special circumstances", which would have permitted the death penalty under the terms of a recently adopted capital punishment law in California, Proposition 7.[22] The "special circumstances" alleged in this case were that Mayor Moscone had been killed in order to block the appointment of someone to fill the City Supervisor seat from which Dan White had resigned, and also that multiple people were killed.[22]
White's sentence was reduced due in part to the so-called Twinkie defense, a judgment that provoked outrage in the community. The "Twinkie" defense was presented by a psychiatrist to the jury, stating that White had a diminished capacity due to depression. The copious amounts of junk food White consumed are cited as a symptom of his mental state.[18] It has also been stated that the refined sugars present in White's diet preceding the killings may have fueled the depression.[23] The composition of the jury was also considered a factor[by whom?]. It was composed of persons whom were predominantly Roman Catholic, working-class, heterosexual, and white[23]—essentially, the same demographic in the city who felt sympathy for White. The jury heard a tape recording of White's confession, which consisted of highly emotional ranting about the pressure he was under, and members of the jury wept in sympathy for the defendant.[24] White represented the "old guard" of San Francisco, who were wary of the influx of minority groups into the city and represented a more conservative, traditional view that the more liberal forces in the city, like Moscone and Milk, were perceived to be eroding.[25] The San Francisco Police Department had, in conjunction with the fire department, raised more than $100,000 to defend White, which earned the anger of the gay community.[26] He received a conviction for the least serious offense, voluntary manslaughter, and sentenced to seven years and eight months in Soledad prison.[1] With good behavior he had the chance to be released after serving two-thirds of his sentence, about five years.[23] Upon hearing the verdict, District Attorney Joseph Freitas, Jr., said "It was a wrong decision. The jury was overwhelmed by emotions and did not sufficiently analyze the evidence that this was deliberate, calculated murder."[22] In defense of his client, White's attorney Douglas Schmidt stated that White "is filled with remorse and I think he's in a very bad condition."[22]
White would later confirm that the killings were premeditated. In 1984, he told former police Inspector Frank Falzon that not only had he planned to kill Moscone and Milk, but also had plans to kill Assemblyman Willie Brown and Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver. He believed that the four politicians were attempting to block his reinstatement as Supervisor.[27] [28] Falzon quoted White as having said, "I was on a mission. I wanted four of them. Carol Ruth Silver, she was the biggest snake ... and Willie Brown, he was masterminding the whole thing."[28]
March through the Castro[edit]
“ Today, Dan White was essentially patted on the back. He was convicted of manslaughter—what you get for hit and run. We all know this violence has touched all of us. It was not manslaughter. I was there that day at City Hall. I saw what the violence did. It was not manslaughter, it was murder. ”
—Cleve Jones, [29]

When told of the verdict, Milk's friend and activist Cleve Jones addressed an audience of about 500 people that had gathered on Castro Street, telling them of the verdict. With shouts of "Out of the bars and into the streets" Jones led a crowd down Castro street, its numbers bolstered by people emerging from each bar.[30] The crowd circled around and marched through the Castro again, by now numbering about 1,500 people.[30]
In a 1984 interview, Jones gave a voice to the feeling in the crowd as they began to group together on Castro Street after news of the verdict spread, stating, "The rage in people’s face—I saw people I’d known for years, and they were so furious. That to me was the scariest thing. All these people I’d know from the neighborhood, boys from the corner, these people I’d ridden the bus with, just out there, screaming for blood."[1]
Violence at City Hall[edit]

People silhouetted against cars in the background, which are engulfed in flames. One person is bent over and holding a doughnut-shaped object.

 Rioters causing property damage at the Civic Center Plaza. Burning police cruisers are seen in the background. Image credit: Daniel Nicoletta.
By the time the crowd reached City Hall its numbers had increased to over 5,000. Protesters shouted slogans such as "Kill Dan White!" and "Dump Dianne!", a reference to Mayor Dianne Feinstein.[22][note 2] The handful of police officers on duty at the scene were uncertain about how to deal with the situation, and the Police Department, which was unaccustomed to an angry gay crowd, was similarly uncertain of how to proceed.[22][30] The protesters were convinced that the police and prosecution had conspired to avoid a severe sentence for White, although Prosecutor Thomas Norman denied this repeatedly until his death.[27]
Members of the crowd tore gilded ornamental work from the building's wrought iron doors and then used it to break first floor windows. Several of Harvey Milk's friends monitored and attempted to hold back the crowd, including former lover Scott Smith.[30] A formation of police appeared on the north side of the Civic Center Plaza, and those attempting to hold back the mob sat down, grateful for the reinforcements. The officers however did not restrain themselves to holding back the crowd, and instead attacked them with night sticks.[30]
One young man kicked and smashed the window of a police car, lit a pack of matches, and set the upholstery on fire. After burning for a short time, the fuel tank exploded; a dozen more police cars and eight other automobiles would be destroyed in a similar fashion. The photo on the front cover of the Dead Kennedys 1980 album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, which shows several police cars on fire, was taken that night. Several crowd members threw tear gas, which they had stolen from police vehicles.[22][31][32] Riots began to break out, with one mob disrupting traffic and smashing windows of cars and stores. Electric trollies were disabled when their overhead wires were pulled down, and violence broke out against the police officers, who were outnumbered. Police Chief Charles Gain, standing inside City Hall, ordered officers not to attack and to simply stand their ground.[30]
Mayor Feinstein and Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver addressed the demonstrators in an attempt to defuse the situation. Mayor Feinstein said that she had received news of the verdict "with disbelief", and Supervisor Silver stated, "Dan White has gotten away with murder. It's as simple as that."[31] Silver was injured when struck by a flying object.[22] More than 140 protesters were also injured.[31]
Police retaliation[edit]
After nearly three hours of shouts from the angry crowd, officers moved in to quell the riot. Police reportedly covered their badges with black tape—preventing any identification—and attacked rioters. Dozens of police officers swept into the crowd, using tear gas to force protesters away from the building. Police were surprised at the resistance they faced from the protesters, who attempted to push them back using tree branches, chrome torn off city buses, and asphalt ripped from the street, as weapons. As one man ignited the last police car he shouted to a reporter "Make sure you put in the paper that I ate too many Twinkies."[33] Sixty officers were injured, and about two dozen arrests were made.[22][31][32]
The second stage of the violence was a police raid/riot hours later in the predominantly gay Castro neighborhood, which vandalized the Elephant Walk bar and injured many of its occupants.[34] After order was restored at City Hall, SFPD cars carrying dozens of officers headed into the Castro District.[35] Officers entered a gay bar called the Elephant Walk, despite their orders not to do so. They shouted "dirty cocksuckers" and "sick faggots", shattered the large plate glass windows of the bar, and attacked patrons. After 15 minutes police withdrew from the bar and joined other officers who were indiscriminately attacking gays on the street. The incident lasted nearly two hours.[32][34][36][37]
When Police Chief Charles Gain heard about the unauthorized Elephant Walk raid, he immediately went to the location and ordered his men to leave. Later that night, freelance reporter Michael Weiss saw a group of police officers celebrating at a downtown bar. "We were at City Hall the day [the killings] happened and we were smiling then," one officer explained. "We were there tonight and we're still smiling."[36]
At least 61 police officers and an estimated 100 members of the public were hospitalized in the course of the riot.[36][38] A civil grand jury convened to find out who ordered the attack, but it ended inconclusively with a settlement covering personal injury claims and damages.[34][35]
Aftermath[edit]
The next morning gay leaders convened in a committee room in the Civic Center. Supervisor Harry Britt, who had replaced Milk, along with the more militant gays of the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, made it clear that nobody was to apologize for the riots. Britt informed a press conference, "Harvey Milk's people do not have anything to apologize for. Now the society is going to have to deal with us not as nice little fairies who have hairdressing salons, but as people capable of violence. We're not going to put up with Dan Whites anymore."[39] Reporters were surprised that a public official would condone the violent acts of the previous night, expecting an apology from Britt. Subsequent attempts to find a gay leader who would give an apologetic statement proved unsuccessful.[39]
That evening, May 22, would have been the 49th birthday of Harvey Milk. City officials had considered revoking the permit for a rally planned for that night, but decided against it for fear of sparking more violence. Officials stated that the rally could channel the community's anger into something positive. Police from San Francisco and its neighboring towns were placed on alert by Mayor Feinstein, and Cleve Jones coordinated contingency plans with the police, and trained 300 monitors to keep an eye on the crowd. Approximately 20,000 people gathered on Castro and Market streets, where the mood was "angry, but subdued." Officers monitored the crowd from a distance,[31][39] however the crowd engaged in a peaceful celebration of Milk's life. Attendees danced to popular disco songs, drank beer, and sang a tribute to Milk.[32][39]
On the same night, for over three hours about a hundred people held a demonstration at Sheridan Square in Manhattan, to protest the verdict. About 20 officers observed the protest, which began at 8 pm, but no arrests were made. A candlelight vigil was planned for two days ahead, sponsored by the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights and the National Gay Task Force.[31]
On October 14, 1979, between 75,000 and 125,000 people marched on Washington for gay rights. Many carried portraits of Milk, and placards honoring his legacy.[40] The rally, something that Milk had intended to organize, was instead a tribute to his life.
Dan White was released from prison on January 14, 1984 after serving five years of a seven-year, eight-month sentence. On the evening following his release, 9,000 people marched down Castro street and burned his effigy. State authorities reportedly feared an assassination attempt, and in response Scott Smith urged people not to retaliate with violence. He stated, "Harvey was against the death penalty. He was a nonviolent person."[41]
White committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning on October 21, 1985. He connected a rubber hose to his car's exhaust system and routed it to the interior of the vehicle, which he let fill with carbon monoxide. Mayor Feinstein said, "This latest tragedy should close a very sad chapter in this city's history."[42] According to Orange County lawyer Jeff Walsworth, White had expressed remorse for the killings in February 1984. White reportedly stated that it would always cause him inner turmoil.[42] Inspector Falzone said the contrary, however, commenting that at no time did White express remorse in any form at the deaths of Moscone and Milk.[28]
Analysis[edit]
Causes[edit]

A street extending into the background. Stores line both sides of the street, and many light poles carry rainbow flags.

 San Francisco's Castro district became an early stronghold for the emerging gay community.
The community had a long history of conflict with the San Francisco Police Department. Following World War II, gay bars were subject to frequent raids and attempts by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to revoke their alcohol licenses.[7] They were accused of serving alcohol to homosexuals, a criminal act at the time.[citation needed]
The growing political and economic power of the city's gay community conflicted with the established but dwindling numbers of the conservative institutions, such as the police and fire departments. By 1971, police were arresting an average of 2,800 men per year on public sex charges; by contrast, 63 such arrests were made in New York City, although up to a quarter of San Francisco was reported to be gay at the time.[12][43] Many charges were dismissed due to entrapment, but several men were given harsh sentences.[citation needed]
When Dan White was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, his successful diminished capacity defense enraged the gay community.[23] That the police and fire departments had raised money for his defense gave their anger a focus, turning it against the city government and especially the SFPD.[26]
Effects on San Francisco politics[edit]
With the 1979 municipal elections occurring only months after the riot, prominent gay leaders feared a backlash at the polls.[44] The elections continued without incident, and the gay community fared better than expected, wielding unprecedented influence. Although the virtually unknown gay Mayoral candidate David Scott finished third in the election, his showing was strong enough to force Mayor Feinstein into a runoff election against conservative City Supervisor Quentin Kopp. Feinstein's promises to appoint more gay people to public office, and her heavy campaigning in the Castro, ensured that she won enough support from the gay community to give her a full term as Mayor.[44]
One of Mayor Feinstein's first actions upon being elected was to announce the appointment of Cornelius Murphy as the new Chief of Police. Murphy declared that police cars would no longer be colored powder blue, but instead would be repainted as "macho black-and-whites."[44] This pleased the rank and file, and restored confidence in police leadership.[44] Murphy also vowed to maintain the progressive policy towards gays that his predecessor had implemented. By 1980, one in seven new police recruits was either gay or lesbian.[44] In one of his last public appearances, outgoing Police Chief Charles Gain stated that he fully expected to see the day when San Francisco would have both a gay mayor and Chief of Police.[44] By October 1985, an organization for gay law enforcement personnel in California, the Golden State Peace Officers Association, had incorporated as a non-profit organization.[45] It was founded by Art Roth, an Oakland police officer who was present on the night of the riots.[45]

People peacefully marching up a street. Several are carrying signs displaying pro-same-sex marriage slogans, such as "We all deserve the freedom to marry." Most people have sad or serious facial expressions.

 Protesters at the "Day of Decision" rally marched up Market Street in downtown San Francisco following the California Supreme Court ruling.
Thirty years after the announcement of Dan White's guilty verdict, the Supreme Court of California prepared their decision on Strauss v. Horton. The case was an attempt to overturn Proposition 8, which had added the statement "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" to Article I, section 7.5 of the California State Constitution.[46] This ballot initiative, which was approved in 2008, eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry in the state.[46]
In late May 2009, while the Court was preparing its announcement, rumors surfaced on the Internet that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had asked the court not to announce the decision on May 21.[47][48][49] They suggested that he made this request so that the announcement would not coincide with the 30th anniversary of the White Night riots. San Francisco Communications Director Nathan Ballard published a press release on May 20, stating that the allegation was untrue.[50] On May 26, the court upheld the validity of Proposition 8, but ruled that the 18,000 marriages that had already been performed would remain valid.[51]
Effects on the AIDS movement[edit]

Squares of a quilt laid out in sections in a grid-like pattern, on a large, flat paved surface. The Washington Monument, a tall obelisk, can be seen in the background.

 The NAMES Project AIDS quilt, representing people who have died of AIDS, in front of the Washington Monument.
Cleve Jones played a major role in the investigation of the riots, and had since become a prominent activist. He dropped out of school to work as a legislative consultant to California State Assembly Speakers Leo McCarthy and Willie Brown.[52][53] He also spent time organizing political campaigns. In 1981, while working as a consultant to the California State Assembly Health Committee, he became aware of gay men in San Francisco contracting unusual diseases, such as Kaposi's sarcoma. The gay community was eventually seriously affected by the AIDS epidemic, and Jones became a key AIDS activist. Jones co-founded the Kaposi's Sarcoma Research & Education Foundation, which in 1982 became the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.[54] On November 27, 1985, at a candlelight vigil on the anniversary of the Moscone-Milk assassinations, Jones learned that 1,000 people had died of AIDS. He proposed the creation of a quilt, in remembrance of those who had died.[55] In 1987, Jones, by then HIV-positive himself, launched the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.[55] As of 2009, the quilt consists of over 44,000 individual panels.[55] In a 2004 interview, Jones said "I thought, what a perfect symbol; what a warm, comforting, middle-class, middle-American, traditional-family-values symbol to attach to this disease that's killing homosexuals and IV drug users and Haitian immigrants, and maybe, just maybe, we could apply those traditional family values to my family."[56]
See also[edit]

Portal icon San Francisco Bay Area portal
Portal icon LGBT portal
Gay Power, Gay Politics, an episode of CBS Reports about the San Francisco LGBT community, produced in the aftermath of the riots.
LGBT History
The Times of Harvey Milk, a 1984 documentary which describes the White Night riots.
Stonewall riots
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ A smaller-scale riot broke out in 1959 in Los Angeles, when the drag queens and street hustlers who hung out at Cooper's Donuts and who were frequently harassed by the LAPD fought back after police arrested three people, including John Rechy. Patrons began pelting the police with donuts and coffee cups. The LAPD called for back-up and arrested a number of rioters. Rechy and the other two original detainees were able to escape (Faderman and Timmons, pp. 1–2).
2.Jump up ^ As president of the Board of Supervisors upon the death of Mayor Moscone, Feinstein had succeeded to the mayoralty on December 4, 1978.
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c Gorney, Cynthia (January 4, 1984). "The Legacy of Dan White; A stronger gay community looks back at the tumult". The Washington Post.
2.Jump up ^ Katz (1976), pp. 508–510.
3.Jump up ^ Stryker & Van Buskirk (1996), pp. 18.
4.Jump up ^ Stryker & Van Buskirk (1996), pp. 22–24.
5.Jump up ^ D'Emilio, John (1989). "Gay Politics and Community in San Francisco since World War II". Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past. New American Library. ISBN 0-453-00689-2.
6.Jump up ^ Stoumen v. Reilly, 37 Cal. 2d 713 (1951).
7.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Shilts (1982), pp. 53–60
8.Jump up ^ Katz (1976), pp. 406–433.
9.Jump up ^ Stryker & Van Buskirk (1996), p. 41.
10.Jump up ^ Stryker, Susan (2008). "Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity". Radical History Review 2008 (Winter): 145–157. doi:10.1215/01636545-2007-026.
11.^ Jump up to: a b FitzGerald, Frances (July 21, 1986). "A Reporter at Large: The Castro – I". The New Yorker: 34–70.
12.^ Jump up to: a b Gold, Herbert (November 6, 1977). "A Walk on San Francisco's Gay Side". The New York Times: SM17.
13.^ Jump up to: a b Shilts (1982), pp. 92–93
14.^ Jump up to: a b c Shilts (1982), pp. 120–121
15.^ Jump up to: a b Shilts (1982), p. 201
16.Jump up ^ Shilts (1982), p. 250
17.Jump up ^ Shilts (1982), pp. 254–262
18.^ Jump up to: a b Pogash, Carol (November 23, 2003). "Myth of the 'Twinkie defense'". San Francisco Chronicle: D1.
19.Jump up ^ Weiss, Mike (September 18, 1998). "Killer of Moscone, Milk had Willie Brown on List". San Jose Mercury News: A1.
20.Jump up ^ Turner, Wallace (November 28, 1978). "Suspect Sought Job". The New York Times: 1.
21.Jump up ^ Flintwick, James (November 28, 1978). "Aide: White 'A Wild Man'". The San Francisco Examiner: 1.
22.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Turner, Wallace (May 22, 1979). "Ex-Official Guilty of Manslaughter In Slayings on Coast; 3,000 Protest". The New York Times: A1, D17.
23.^ Jump up to: a b c d Matthews, Jay (October 22, 1985). "Dan White Commits Suicide; Ex-San Francisco Supervisor Killed 2 City Officials in ’78.". The Washington Post.
24.Jump up ^ D’Emilio (1992), p. 92.
25.Jump up ^ Fosburgh, Lacey (July 1, 1984). "San Francisco". The New York Times.
26.^ Jump up to: a b Peddicord (1996), p. 88.
27.^ Jump up to: a b Sward, Susan (July 1, 2009). "Thomas Norman dies – prosecuted Dan White case". San Francisco Chronicle: B6.
28.^ Jump up to: a b c Hatfield, Harry (November 9, 1998). "Death stalks City Hall". The San Francisco Examiner.
29.Jump up ^ Shilts (1982), p. 327
30.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Shilts (1982), pp. 326–332
31.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Ledbetter, Les (May 23, 1979). "San Francisco Tense as Violence Follows Murder Trial". The New York Times: A1, A18.
32.^ Jump up to: a b c d Corsaro, Kim (May 18, 2006). "Remembering “White Night” – San Francisco’s Gay Riot". San Francisco Bay Times. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
33.Jump up ^ Shilts (1982), pp. 331–332
34.^ Jump up to: a b c Davis, Kevin (June 10, 2007). "Harvey's Marks 10 Years". Bay Area Reporter: 13. Retrieved January 30, 2008.
35.^ Jump up to: a b Rogers, Fred (October 17, 2000). "The Gay Pride 2000: Elephant Walk Took Brunt of Police Attack in the Castro". Uncle Donald's Castro Street. Retrieved April 10, 2008.
36.^ Jump up to: a b c Shilts (1982), pp. 332–334
37.Jump up ^ Woods (2003), pp. 95–96
38.Jump up ^ May, Meredith (November 27, 2003). "City Hall Slayings: 25 Years Later; From Milk’s Times to our Times". The San Francisco Chronicle.
39.^ Jump up to: a b c d Shilts (1982), pp. 334–339
40.Jump up ^ Shilts (1982), p. 348
41.Jump up ^ "Uneasy Freedom". Time Magazine. January 16, 1984. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
42.^ Jump up to: a b Schreibman, Jack. "Man who used 'Twinkie Defense' Commits Suicide" Associated Press, reprinted in St. Petersburg Times. October 22, 1985
43.Jump up ^ Shilts (1982), pp. 62–63
44.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Shilts (1982), pp. 340–342
45.^ Jump up to: a b Dickey, Jim (March 16, 1987). "Gay Police Officers Increasingly in Open". Spokane Chronicle: A1, A4. Retrieved July 11, 2009.
46.^ Jump up to: a b "2008 Official Voter Information Guide". Retrieved May 21, 2009.
47.Jump up ^ "Exclusive: SF Mayor Gavin Newsom Asked Court to Delay Prop 8 Ruling". Towleroad.com. May 20, 2009. Retrieved May 21, 2009.
48.Jump up ^ Keeling, Brock (May 20, 2009). "UPDATE: Newsom Asks Court to Delay Prop 8 Ruling (or Not)". SFist.com. Retrieved May 21, 2009.
49.Jump up ^ Baume, Matt (May 22, 2009). "Newsom Did Not Request Prop 8 Decision Delay". San Francisco Appeal. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
50.Jump up ^ "Statement from Nathan Ballard, Communications Director, Mayor Gavin Newsom on Proposition 8 Ruling" (Press release). City and County of San Francisco. May 20, 2009. Retrieved May 21, 2009.
51.Jump up ^ Strauss v. Horton, 207 P.3d 48 (Cal. 2009).
52.Jump up ^ "Cleve Jones Official Website". Retrieved July 8, 2009.
53.Jump up ^ Shilts (1987), p. 17
54.Jump up ^ "HIV/AIDS Timeline (1982)". San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
55.^ Jump up to: a b c "History of the Quilt". NAMES Project Foundation.
56.Jump up ^ "FRONTLINE: The Age of AIDS". PBS. Retrieved July 8, 2009.
Bibliography[edit]
Bérubé, Allan (1990). Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II. The Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-1071-9.
Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1.
D'Emilio, John (1992). Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-90510-9.
Duberman, Martin (1993). Stonewall. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-525-93602-5.
Faderman, Lillian and Stuart Timmons (2006). Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02288-X.
Katz, Jonathan (1976). Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. Thomas Y. Crowell Company. ISBN 0-690-01165-2.
Peddicord, Richard (1996). Gay and Lesbian Rights: A Question: Sexual rights or Social Justice?. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 1-55612-759-6.
Shilts, Randy (1982). The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-56085-0.
Shilts, Randy (1987). And the Band Played On. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-00994-1.
Stryker, Susan; Van Buskirk, Jim (1996). Gay By the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-1187-5.
Woods, William J.; Binson, Diane (2003). Gay Bathhouses and Public Health Policy. Haworth Press. ISBN 1-56023-272-2.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to White Night riots.

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Categories: Riots and civil unrest in California
1979 riots
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Anne Kronenberg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Anne Kronenberg
Anne Kronenberg
Anne Kronenberg speaks at Harvey Milk Streetcar Dedication

Residence
San Francisco, California
Citizenship
United States
Occupation
Public service, US LGBT advocate
Employer
City of San Francisco
Known for
Harvey Milk, San Francisco Dept. of Emergency Management, Milk
Anne Kronenberg is an American political administrator and LGBT rights activist. She is best known for being Harvey Milk's campaign manager during his historic San Francisco Board of Supervisors campaign in 1977 and his aide as he held that office until the assassinations of Milk and mayor George Moscone. As an openly lesbian political activist, Kronenberg was noted for her instrumental role in the gay rights movement, both for Milk's campaign and in her own right,[1] though she has since married a man.
Kronenberg appeared in the 1984 documentary film The Times of Harvey Milk[2][unreliable source?] and her role in Milk's life was portrayed in the Academy Award-winning 2008 film Milk. Kronenberg was one of the grand marshals of the 2009 New York City LGBT Pride parade, joining the film's writer Dustin Lance Black and AIDS activist Cleve Jones who also worked with Milk.[3]
Kronenberg is currently the executive director of the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, and she is known globally through her public appearances in her role as co-founder of the Harvey Milk Foundation.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Response to Milk's assassination
2 Work after Milk's campaign
3 Current work and life
4 Portrayal in Milk
5 References
6 External links
Response to Milk's assassination[edit]
Kronenberg was on a plane flying to Seattle when Milk was assassinated on November 27, 1978. At the airport, her family told her Milk had been shot, and she immediately got on the next plane back to San Francisco. She said later that they did not know at the time that the murderer was Dan White, and had feared that a gunman was simply targeting gays. "It was a scary, very sad, horrible day," she said. Kronenberg participated in the candlelight vigil honoring Milk and was the keynote speaker at his memorial service at an opera house.[4]
Work after Milk's campaign[edit]
Kronenberg began chairing the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Single Room Occupancy Task Force at its inception in 1998, a role she continues to this day. She worked with the administration and planning of the San Francisco Department of Public Health for nearly 15 years, being elevated to the position of deputy director. Kronenberg has also worked at the local, state, and federal levels for such politicians as Senator Ted Kennedy and Assemblyman John Vasconcellos.[5]
Current work and life[edit]
Kronenberg was Deputy Director for Administration and Planning of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. She is now Executive Director of the SF Department of Emergency Management.[6] In her current role, she manages department-wide planning initiatives for San Francisco disaster preparedness.[5]
While Kronenberg identified as a lesbian in the 1970s, she has since fallen in love with a man she met in Washington, D.C. in the 1980s, whom she later married. She currently lives in California with her husband, stepson, daughter and son.[4]
Kronenberg was one of the official grand marshals of the 2009 NYC LGBT Pride March, produced by Heritage of Pride joining Dustin Lance Black and Cleve Jones on June 28, 2009.[3]
Kronenberg co-founded the international (NGO) non governmental non-profit Harvey Milk Foundation with Harvey's nephew, a global human rights advocate, Stuart Milk[7] and currently serves as co-chair of the annual Harvey Milk Day celebration[8] coordinated by the Foundation.
Portrayal in Milk[edit]
Kronenberg was portrayed in Milk by Canadian actress Alison Pill. Pill played the role of Kronenberg as she was during the campaign; leather-wearing, bike-riding, and helping to ease some of the social and political barriers between gay men and lesbians.[1]
Kronenberg's response to the film was very positive. At the premiere of Milk, she said in an interview:

"...Milk highlights the struggles of the lesbian and gay movement and the inner workings of the man who changed the entire nature of the movement. Harvey is loving this — I have felt his presence through the entire production of Milk. I could almost see him walking down the red carpet at the premiere, bowing, throwing kisses, and generally entertaining the masses. Harvey's life was theatre and Tuesday's premiere was the ultimate stage."[5]
Kronenberg served as an adviser for the film and made a cameo appearance as a stenographer.[4]
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Keith, Christie (2008-11-24). "The Lesbian in "Milk": Alison Pill as Anne Kronenberg". After Ellen. Archived from the original on 2 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-15.
2.Jump up ^ "IMDb: Anne Kronenberg". Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-15.
3.^ Jump up to: a b NYC LGBT Gay Pride - March
4.^ Jump up to: a b c Johnson, Chris (2008-11-21). "Harvey Milk’s friends reminisce about gay hero". Retrieved 2009-03-15.[dead link]
5.^ Jump up to: a b c Kronenberg, Anne (October 30, 2008). "Harvey Milk on the Ultimate State". Focus Features. Archived from the original on October 6, 2013. Retrieved October 6, 2013.
6.Jump up ^ SFGov Biography Page
7.Jump up ^ "Harvey Milk Foundation - About Us". Harvey Milk Foundation. Retrieved March, 30 2011.
8.Jump up ^ "Harvey Milk Day - Steering Committee". Harvey Milk Foundation. Retrieved March, 30 2011.
External links[edit]
Interview with Queerty


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Harvey Milk


Career
George W. Hewlett High School·
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 Castro Camera·
 1977 Board of Supervisors election (District 5)
 

Assassination
Moscone–Milk assassinations·
 Dan White·
 Twinkie defense·
 White Night riots
 

Media and legacy
The Mayor of Castro Street (1982)·
 The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)·
 Milk (2008)·
 Harvey Milk High School·
 Harvey Milk Day·
 Harvey Milk Foundation
 

Related individuals
Anne Kronenberg·
 George Moscone·
 Craig Rodwell·
 Scott Smith·
 Oliver Sipple·
 Daniel Nicoletta·
 Cleve Jones·
 Nicole Murray-Ramirez·
 Frank M. Robinson·
 Stuart Milk·
 Jim Jones
 

See also
Firsts in LGBT history·
 The Castro, San Francisco·
 Peoples Temple
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Categories: Living people
California Democrats
LGBT people from the United States
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Activists from the San Francisco Bay Area





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George Moscone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

George Moscone
George Moscone.jpg
37th Mayor of San Francisco
In office
 January 8, 1976 – November 27, 1978
Preceded by
Joseph Alioto
Succeeded by
Dianne Feinstein
Member of the California Senate
 from the 6th district
In office
 1971–1976
Preceded by
(redistricted from 10th)
Succeeded by
John Francis Foran
Member of the California Senate
 from the 10th district
In office
 1967–1971
Preceded by
Harold Thomas Sedgwick
Succeeded by
(redistricted into 6th)
Member of the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors
In office
 1963–1966
Personal details

Born
George Richard Moscone
November 24, 1929
 San Francisco, California
Died
November 27, 1978 (aged 49)
San Francisco City Hall
Resting place
Holy Cross Cemetery
Colma, California

Nationality
Italian-American
Political party
Democratic
Spouse(s)
Gina Bodanza
Children
Jenifer, Rebecca, Christopher and Jonathan
Profession
Attorney
Religion
Roman Catholic
Military service

Service/branch
United States Navy
Years of service
1953-1956
George Richard Moscone (/mɒsˈkoʊni/; November 24, 1929 – November 27, 1978) was an Italian-American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California, US from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. Moscone served in the California State Senate from 1967 until becoming Mayor. In the Senate, he served as Majority Leader.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Early life
2 Career 2.1 Early politics
2.2 California State Senator
2.3 Mayor of San Francisco 2.3.1 Peoples Temple investigation

3 Assassination
4 Legacy
5 In popular culture
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
Early life[edit]
Moscone was born in the Italian-American enclave of San Francisco's Marina District, California.[1] His father was George Joseph Moscone, a prison guard at nearby San Quentin, and his mother, Lena, was a homemaker.[1]
Moscone attended St. Brigid's, and then St. Ignatius College Preparatory, where he was an all-city basketball star. He then attended University of the Pacific. While in college, Moscone befriended John L. Burton, who would later become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.[1]
Moscone then studied at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where he received his law degree.[1] He met and married Gina Bondanza, in 1954. The Moscones would go on to have four children.[2] After serving in the United States Navy, Moscone started private practice in 1956.[1]
Career[edit]
Early politics[edit]
John Burton's brother, Phillip, a member of the California State Assembly, recruited Moscone to run for an Assembly seat in 1960 as a Democrat. Though he lost that race, Moscone would go on to win a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1963.[1] On the Board, Moscone was known for his defense of the poor, racial minorities and small business owners.
California State Senator[edit]
In 1966 Moscone ran for and won a seat in the California State Senate, representing the 10th District in San Francisco County.[3] Moscone was quickly rising through the ranks of the California Democratic Party and became closely associated with a loose alliance of progressive politicians in San Francisco led by the Burton brothers. This alliance was known as the Burton Machine and included John Burton, Phillip Burton, and Assemblyman Willie Brown. Soon after his election to the State Senate, Moscone was elected by his party to serve as Majority Leader. He was reelected to the 10th District seat in 1970 and to the newly redistricted 6th District seat, representing parts of San Francisco and San Mateo Counties, in 1974. He successfully sponsored legislation to institute a school lunch program for California students. In 1974 Moscone briefly considered a run for governor of California, but dropped out after a short time in favor of California Secretary of State Jerry Brown.[1]
As a heterosexual, Moscone was considered ahead of his time as an early proponent of gay rights. In conjunction with his friend and ally in the Assembly, Willie Brown, Moscone managed to pass a bill repealing California's sodomy law. The repeal was signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown.
Mayor of San Francisco[edit]
Moscone decided in 1975 to run for Mayor of San Francisco.[4] In a close race in November of that year, Moscone placed first with conservative city supervisor John Barbagelata second and moderate supervisor Dianne Feinstein coming in third.[4] Moscone and Barbagelata thus both advanced to the mandated runoff election in December where Moscone narrowly defeated the conservative supervisor.[4] Liberals also won the city's other top executive offices that year as Joseph Freitas was elected District attorney and Richard Hongisto was re-elected to his office of Sheriff. Members of the Peoples Temple saturated San Francisco neighborhoods, distributing slate cards for Moscone, Joseph Freitas and Hongisto.[5]
The Peoples Temple also worked to get out the vote in precincts where Moscone received a 12 to 1 vote margin over Barbagelata.[6] After Peoples Temple's work and votes by Temple members were instrumental in delivering a close victory for Moscone, Moscone appointed Temple leader Jim Jones as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Commission.[7]
Moscone's first year as Mayor was spent preventing the San Francisco Giants professional baseball team from moving to Toronto and advocating a city-wide ballot initiative in favor of district election to the Board of Supervisors. Moscone was the first mayor to appoint large numbers of women, gays and lesbians and racial minorities to city commissions and advisory boards. Moscone also appointed liberal former Oakland Police Chief Charles Gain to head the San Francisco Police Department. Gain (and by extension Moscone) became highly unpopular among rank and file San Francisco police officers for proposing a settlement to a lawsuit brought by minorities claiming discriminatory recruiting practices by the police force.
In 1977 Moscone, Freitas and Hongisto all easily survived a recall election pushed by defeated Moscone opponent John Barbagelata and business interests. That year also marked the passage of the district election system by San Francisco voters. The city's first district elections for Board of Supervisors took place in November 1977. Among those elected were the city's first openly gay Supervisor, Harvey Milk, single mother and attorney Carol Ruth Silver, Chinese-American Gordon Lau and fireman and former police officer Dan White. Milk, Silver, and Lau along with John Molinari and Robert Gonzales made up Moscone's allies on the Board, while Dan White, Dianne Feinstein, Quentin Kopp, Ella Hill Hutch, Lee Dolson, and Ron Pelosi formed a loosely organized coalition to oppose Moscone and his initiatives. Feinstein was elected President of the Board of Supervisors on a 6–5 vote, with Moscone's supporters backing Lau. It was generally believed that Feinstein, having twice lost election to the office of mayor, would support Kopp against Moscone in the 1979 election and retire rather than run for the Board again.
Peoples Temple investigation[edit]
Main article: Peoples Temple in San Francisco
In August 1977, after Housing Commission Chairman Jim Jones fled to Jonestown following media scrutiny alleging criminal wrongdoing, Moscone announced his office would not investigate Jones and the Peoples Temple.[8] The later mass suicide at Jonestown dominated national headlines at the time of Moscone's death.[9]
After the tragedy, Temple members revealed to The New York Times that the Temple arranged for "busloads" of members to be bussed from Redwood Valley to San Francisco to vote in the election.[10] A former Temple member stated that many of those members were not registered to vote in San Francisco, while another former member said "Jones swayed elections."[10] Prior to leaving San Francisco, Jones claimed to have bribed Moscone with sexual favors from female Temple members, including one who was underage; his son, Jim Jones, Jr., later remembered how Moscone frequented Temple parties "with a cocktail in his hand and doing some ass grabbing."[11]
Assassination[edit]
Main article: Moscone–Milk assassinations
Late in 1978, Dan White resigned from the Board of Supervisors. His resignation meant that Moscone would choose White's successor, and thus could tip the Board's balance of power in Moscone's favor. Recognizing this, those who supported a more conservative agenda talked White into changing his mind. White then hastily requested that Moscone appoint him to his former seat.
Moscone originally indicated a willingness to reconsider, but more liberal city leaders, including Harvey Milk, lobbied him against the idea, and Moscone ultimately decided not to appoint White. On November 27, 1978, White went to San Francisco City Hall to meet with Moscone and make a final plea for appointment. When Moscone declined to reconsider his decision, White pulled a gun out of his suit jacket and shot and killed Moscone. White then went to Milk's office and shot Milk, killing him as well.
Dianne Feinstein, President of the Board of Supervisors, was sworn in as the city's new mayor and in the following years would emerge as one of California's most prominent politicians.
White later turned himself in at the police station where he was formerly an officer. The term "Twinkie defense" has its origins in the murder trial that followed, in which Dan White was convicted of the lesser crime of manslaughter. White would commit suicide in 1985, shortly after his release from prison.
Legacy[edit]



 Moscone's grave at Holy Cross
Moscone is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California alongside his mother Lena. His grave often has a Rainbow flag present, and new flags are placed there every November 27.[citation needed]
Today, both he and Milk are mourned as martyrs of the gay rights movement, but Milk has received far more attention in popular media, despite the fact that Moscone outranked him. In the LGBT community, Moscone is revered as a gay icon.[citation needed]
Moscone Center, San Francisco's largest convention center and exhibition hall, and Moscone Recreation Center are named in his honor. Moscone and Milk also have schools named after them: George Moscone Elementary, Harvey Milk Elementary and Harvey Milk High School.
In 1980, sculptor Robert Arneson was commissioned to create a monument to Moscone to be installed in the new Moscone Convention Center. The bust portraying Moscone[12] was done in Arneson's expressionistic style and was considered acceptable by San Francisco's Art Commission. However, the pedestal which the former Mayor's head rested on was deemed inappropriate and Arneson was asked to change it. At issue were references to Harvey Milk, the assassinations, the "Twinkie Defense," the White Night Riots, and Dianne Feinstein's mayoral succession that Arneson had included on the surface of the pedestal. Arneson refused to make alterations to the work, returned the commission, and later resold the sculpture. In a critique of the event, Frederic Stout wrote that "Arneson's mistake was in presenting the city mothers/fathers with something honest, engaging and provoking, that is to say, a work of art. What they wanted, of course, was not a work of art at all. They wanted an object of ritual magic: the smiling head of a dead politician."[13] In 1994 a new bust by San Francisco artist Spero Anargyros was unveiled, depicting Moscone holding a pen, below which are words from Moscone: "San Francisco is an extraordinary city, because its people have learned to live together with one another, to respect each other, and to work with each other for the future of their community. That's the strength and beauty of this city – it's the reason why the citizens who live here are the luckiest people in the world.[13]
In popular culture[edit]
The Dead Kennedys' version of "I Fought the Law" contains numerous references to Moscone's murder.[14]
Moscone was played by Victor Garber in Gus Van Sant's Milk.
"Ghost Light," a play written by son Jonathan Moscone and Tony Taccone about the effects of the assassination on his then-14-year-old son, was commissioned as part of "American Revolutions. the United States History Cycle" by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, Oregon. The World Premier, co-produced with Berkeley Repertory Theater, was staged at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2011.
George Richard Moscone was not the first Italian-American mayor in San Francisco. He was preceded by Italian-American mayors Joseph Alioto and Angelo Joseph Rossi.
See also[edit]

Portal icon San Francisco Bay Area portal
Portal icon Biography portal
Portal icon LGBT portal
Portal icon Politics portal
List of assassinated American politicians


References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g Sward, Susan, Moscone's Time Was Anything But Quiet, November 26, 1998
2.Jump up ^ "Mayor, Supervisor Killed in San Francisco Shooting", Cornell Daily Sun, November 28, 1978
3.Jump up ^ JoinCalifornia, George R. Moscone, Candidate Election History, Retrieved February 19, 2007
4.^ Jump up to: a b c Nolte, Carl, CITY HALL SLAYINGS: 25 Years Later, San Francisco Chronicle, November 26, 2003
5.Jump up ^ Taylor, Michael, "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite", San Francisco Chronicle, November 12, 1998
6.Jump up ^ Kilduff, Marshall and Ron Javers. Suicide Cult: The Inside Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and the Massacre in Guyana. Bantam Books, New York, 1978. ISBN 0-553-12920-1. page 45.
7.Jump up ^ Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. PBS.org.
8.Jump up ^ Kinsolving, Kathleen and Tom. "Madman in Our Midst: Jim Jones and the California Cover Up." 1998. at Ross Institute.
9.Jump up ^ Rapaport, Richard, Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory, San Francisco Chronicle, November 16, 2003
10.^ Jump up to: a b Crewdson, John, "Followers Say Jim Jones Directed Voting Frauds", New York Times, December 16, 1978
11.Jump up ^ Jim Jones' sinister grip on San Francisco, Salon, May 1, 2012
12.Jump up ^ Portrait of George, 1981
13.^ Jump up to: a b Hartman, Chester, City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2002, 193–196.
14.Jump up ^ "Dead Kennedy's". I Fought the Law lyrics. Archived from the original on April 16, 2007. Retrieved April 17, 2007.
Weiss, Mike (2010). Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, Vince Emery Productions. ISBN 9780982565056
Saxon, Wolfgang. "George Moscone, a Firm Mayor Who Stressed Anticrime Effort." The New York Times. November 28, 1978. B12.
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
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/03/140146507/a-son-confronts-moscones-ghost-on-stage?ft=1&f=1046
http://www.osfashland.org/browse/production.aspx?prod=207
http://books.google.it/books?id=u2SZ5avlZ24C&pg=PA559&lpg=PA559&dq=Mayor+George+Moscone+ITALIAN-AMERICAN&source=bl&ots=2pEzzIxW2i&sig=ajo3IdcOdW25mN_l9Bp2peuEFN4&hl=it&sa=X&ei=u51_UY-3BMbYPf2AgZAE&ved=0CF8Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Mayor%20George%20Moscone%20ITALIAN-AMERICAN&f=false
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Moscone.
George Moscone at Findagrave
Controversial commissioned bust of George Moscone by Robert Arneson
 Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Pelosi: In Recognition of the 25th Anniversary of the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk


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Craig Rodwell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Craig Rodwell

Born
October 31, 1940
Chicago, Illinois
Died
June 18, 1993 (aged 52)
Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center, New York City, New York
Cause of death
Stomach cancer
Nationality
American
Occupation
Activist and bookshop proprietor
Known for
Founding Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop and proposed the first annual Gay Pride March, then called Christopher Street Liberation Day
Religion
Church of Christ, Scientist
Awards
Lambda Literary Award for Publisher's Service.
Craig L. Rodwell (October 31, 1940 – June 18, 1993) was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors[1][2][3] and as the prime mover for the creation of the New York City pride demonstration. Rodwell is considered by some to be quite possibly the leading gay rights activist in the early homophile movement of the 1960s.[4]
Rodwell was born in Chicago, IL. His parents divorced prior to his first birthday and for the next few years he was boarded out for day care where he was required to do kitchen labor and laundry to supplement his board and care. When he was 6 years old, Rodwell's mother, Marion Kastman, fearing that the child care set up could cause her to lose custody of her son, arranged for his admission to the Christian Scientist affiliated Chicago Junior School (later called the Fox River Country day School[5]) for "problem" boys, in Elgin, IL.[6] Conditions and treatment at the school were described as "Dickensian" and Rodwell got a reputation for being a rebellious child, as well as a "sissy," during his seven years there. It was at Chicago Junior School that Rodwell first experienced same-sex relationships and also came to internalize the Christian Scientist notion that "truth is power and that truth is the greatest good."[7]
After graduating from the Chicago Junior School, Rodwell attended Sullivan High School in Chicago, IL. Rodwell continued his studies in Christian Science by enrolling in Sunday school at the 16th Church of Christ, Scientist. He later studied ballet in Boston before finally moving to New York City in 1958. It was in New York that he first volunteered for a gay rights organization, The Mattachine Society of New York[8]

Contents
  [hide] 1 Harvey Milk
2 Early activism
3 First gay pride march
4 Later activism
5 Notes
6 References
7 See also
Harvey Milk[edit]
In 1962, Rodwell had an affair with Harvey Milk, who went on later to become one of the first openly gay politicians elected to high office. It was Rodwell's first serious relationship.[9] Rodwell's relationship with Milk ended in part due to Milk's conflicted reaction to Rodwell's early activism and his introduction to Milk of "strange new ideas that tied homosexuality to politics, ideas that both repelled and attracted the thirty-two-year-old Milk."[10] Milk believed that Rodwell had been responsible for Milk contracting an STD. After Rodwell's arrest and incarceration when picked up cruising in Washington Square Park, Milk ended their romantic involvement. Shortly after, Rodwell attempted suicide.[11][12][13]
When Rodwell opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in 1967, Milk dropped by frequently, and after moving to San Francisco Milk expressed his intention to Rodwell of opening a similar store "as a way of getting involved in community work." Milk eventually opened a camera store that also functioned as a community center, much like Rodwell's bookshop had as a community gathering place.[14]
Early activism[edit]
Also in 1967, Rodwell began the group Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN) and began to publish its periodical, HYMNAL.[3] Rodwell conceived of the first yearly gay rights protest, the Annual Reminder picketing of Independence Hall held from 1965–1969;[15] Homophile Youth Movement rallies in 1967, and was present at the Stonewall Riots in 1969.[1][16][17] He was active in the Mattachine Society until April 1966[18] and in several other early homophile rights organizations.
In early 1964 Rodwell, a Mattachine Society of New York volunteer, organized Mattachine Young Adults and was also an early member of East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) and the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO).[8]
On September 19, 1964, Rodwell, along with Randy Wicker, Jefferson Poland, Renee Cafiero, and several others picketed New York's Whitehall to protest the military's practice of excluding gays from serving and, when discovered serving, dishonorably discharging them.[19]
On April 18, 1965, Rodwell led picketing at the United Nations Plaza in New York to protest Cuban detention and placement into workcamps of gays, along with Wicker, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and about 25 others.[15][20]
On April 21, 1966, Rodwell, along with Mattachine President Dick Leitsch and John Timmons engaged in a demonstration then called a "Sip-In" at Julius, a bar in Greenwich Village, to protest the (NY) State Liquor Authority rule against the congregation of gays in establishments that served alcohol. Rodwell had at an earlier date been thrown out of Julius for wearing an "Equality for Homosexuals" button.[21] Rodwell and the others argued that the rule furthered bribery and corruption of the police. The resultant publicly led eventually to the end of the SLA rule.[22][23]
First gay pride march[edit]
In November 1969, Rodwell proposed the first gay pride parade to be held in New York City by way of a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations meeting in Philadelphia, along with his partner Fred Sargeant (HYMN vice chairman), Ellen Broidy and Linda Rhodes. The first march was organized from Rodwell's apartment on Bleecker Street.[24]

"That the Annual Reminder, in order to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged-that of our fundamental human rights-be moved both in time and location.

 We propose that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations on Christopher Street and this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY. No dress or age regulations shall be made for this demonstration.
 We also propose that we contact Homophile organizations throughout the country and suggest that they hold parallel demonstrations on that day. We propose a nationwide show of support.[25][26][27][28]
Later activism[edit]
Rodwell is believed to have created the term heterosexism in January 1971 when he wrote:
"After a few years of this kind of 'liberated' existence such people become oblivious and completely unseeing of straight predjudice and - to coin a phrase - the 'hetero-sexism' surrounding them virtually 24 hours a day."[29]
In 1978 Rodwell was one of the creators and organizers of Gay People in Christian Science (GPICS).[8] Rodwell credits Kay Tobin with suggesting the idea for the group.[30] One reason for the creation of the group was that three of its members had been recently excommunicated from the local branch church.[31] In 1980 the group began to demonstrate by leafletting at the church's Annual Meeting in Boston[32] and by 1999, six years after Rodwell's death, the Christian Scientist church no longer barred openly gay or lesbian people from membership.[33]
Rodwell was the recipient of the 1992 Lambda Literary Award for Publisher's Service.[34]
In March 1993, Rodwell sold his bookshop to Bill Offenbaker. Rodwell died on June 18, 1993 of stomach cancer.[16]
Notes[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b Craig Rodwell Papers, 1940-1993, New York Public Library (1999). Retrieved on July 25, 2011.
2.Jump up ^ Tobin, pg. 65
3.^ Jump up to: a b Marotta, pg. 65
4.Jump up ^ Stores, pg. 3
5.Jump up ^ Naqvi, Jameel. Fox River Country Day School Closing Daily Herald (June 14, 2011). Retrieved July 25, 2011.
6.Jump up ^ Duberman, pg. 3-4
7.Jump up ^ Duberman, pg. 5-8
8.^ Jump up to: a b c Craig Rodwell Papers biographical notes, 1940-1993 New York Public Library (1999). Retrieved on July 25, 2011.
9.Jump up ^ Carter, pg. 30-32
10.Jump up ^ Shilts, pg.25
11.Jump up ^ Carter, pg. 34-35
12.Jump up ^ Duberman, pg. 86-89
13.Jump up ^ Shilts, pg. 27-28
14.Jump up ^ Duberman, pg. 164-165
15.^ Jump up to: a b Loughery, pg. 270
16.^ Jump up to: a b Craig L. Rodwell, 52, Pioneer for Gay Rights, New York Times (June 20, 1993). Retrieved on September 23, 2008.
17.Jump up ^ Sargeant, Fred. "Anger Management," op-ed article New York Times (June 25, 2009). Retrieved on June 26, 2009
18.Jump up ^ Duberman, Stonewall, pg. 161
19.Jump up ^ Loughery, pg. 269
20.Jump up ^ Marotta, pg. 32
21.Jump up ^ Duberman, pg. 115
22.Jump up ^ Marotta, pg. 38-41
23.Jump up ^ Jackson, Sharyn. Before Stonewall Village Voice (June 17, 2008). Retrieved July 20, 2011.
24.Jump up ^ Nagourney, Adam. "For Gays, a Party In Search of a Purpose; At 30, Parade Has Gone Mainstream As Movement's Goals Have Drifted." New York Times. June 25, 2000. Retrieved January 3, 2011.
25.Jump up ^ Carter, pg. 230
26.Jump up ^ Marotta, pg. 164-165
27.Jump up ^ Teal, pg. 322-323
28.Jump up ^ Duberman, pg. 255, 262, 270-280
29.Jump up ^ Rodwell, Craig. ' 'The Tarnished Golden Rule' ' pg. 5, QQ Magazine, Queen's Quarterly Publishing, New York. (January/February 1971 issue, Vol. 3, No. 1) Retrieved July 21, 2011.
30.Jump up ^ Stores, pg. 69
31.Jump up ^ Stores, pg. 72
32.Jump up ^ Stores, pg. 68-85
33.Jump up ^ Stores, pg. 243
34.Jump up ^ Previous Lammy Award Winners (1992-1995), Lambda Literary Foundation. Retrieved on September 23, 2008.
References[edit]
Bianco, David (1999). Gay Essentials: Facts For Your Queer Brain. Los Angeles, Alyson Publications. ISBN 1-55583-508-2.
Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution. New York, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-34269-1.
Duberman, Martin (1993). Stonewall New York, Dutton. ISBN 0-452-27206-8.
Hinds, Patrick (2007). The Q Guide to NYC Pride. Los Angeles, Alyson Publications. ISBN 1-55583-994-0.
Loughery, John (1998). The Other Side of Silence – Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History. New York, Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-3896-5.
Marotta, Toby (1981). The Politics of Homosexuality. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-31338-4.
Shilts, Randy (1982). The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. New York, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-01900-9.
Stores, Bruce (2004). Christian Science: Its Encounter With Lesbian/Gay America. Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, Inc. ISBN 0-595-66658-2.
Teal, Donn (1971). The Gay Militants. New York, Stein and Day. ISBN 0-8128-1373-1.
Tobin, Kay and Wicker, Randy (1972). The Gay Crusaders. New York, Paperback Library ISBN 0-405-07374-7
See also[edit]

Portal icon LGBT portal
Timeline of LGBT history
List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people
List of LGBT rights activists

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Scott Smith (activist)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Joseph Scott Smith (October 21, 1948, Jackson, Mississippi – February 4, 1995, San Francisco,California)[1] was a gay rights activist best known for his romantic relationship with Harvey Milk.
Smith was instrumental to Milk's career as an activist and politician. He organized and managed Milk's campaigns for public office from 1974 to 1977 and his influence was widely in evidence after Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Smith was well known for orchestrating the Coors Beer boycott and putting Milk at the forefront of the issue, creating one of the first public displays of power by the gay community.[citation needed]
There are hundreds of images of Smith, taken by Milk and others, in the Harvey Milk Archives/Scott Smith Collection at the San Francisco Public Library. After being discharged from the United States Navy, Milk spent many hours taking pictures. Smith was his favorite model; sometimes Milk spent entire rolls of film just taking pictures of Smith.[citation needed]
Smith fell into a very deep depression after Milk was killed. He was the executor of Milk's last will and testament.[2]
Smith died from pneumonia on February 4, 1995 at the age of 46.[3]
Portrayal in popular culture[edit]
In the 2008 feature film Milk, the role of Scott Smith was played by James Franco.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Rootsweb Social Security Death Index search for Joseph S Smith. Retrieved on 25 February 2009.
2.Jump up ^ Shilts, Randy (1982), The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, St. Martin's Press
3.Jump up ^ "Scott Smith -- Harvey Milk Friend", SF Gate, 1995-02-7


 
 
 
 
 
 
 


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 Scott Smith·
 Oliver Sipple·
 Daniel Nicoletta·
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 Nicole Murray-Ramirez·
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 Jim Jones
 

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Firsts in LGBT history·
 The Castro, San Francisco·
 Peoples Temple
 

 

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Oliver Sipple

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Oliver W. Sipple

Born
November 20, 1941
Died
February 2, 1989 (aged 47)
San Francisco, California
Allegiance
United States
Service/branch
United States Marine Corps
Rank
PFC
Oliver William "Billy" Sipple (November 20, 1941 – February 2, 1989) was a decorated US Marine and Vietnam War veteran widely known for saving the life of US President Gerald Ford during an assassination attempt by Sara Jane Moore in San Francisco on September 22, 1975. The subsequent public revelation that Sipple was gay turned the news story into a cause célèbre for LGBT rights activists.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Early life
2 Ford assassination attempt
3 Aftermath
4 Later years and death
5 Legacy
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
Early life[edit]
Sipple was born in Detroit, Michigan. He served in the United States Marine Corps and saw action in Vietnam. Shrapnel wounds suffered in December 1968 caused him to finish out his tour of duty in a Philadelphia veterans hospital, from which he was released in March 1970. Sipple, who was closeted in his hometown of Detroit had met Harvey Milk back in New York and had participated in San Francisco's gay pride parades and gay rights demonstrations.[1][2] Sipple was active in local causes, including the historic political campaigns of openly gay City Council candidate Milk. The two were friends and Sipple would also be later described as a "prominent figure" in the gay community who had worked in a gay bar and was active in the Imperial Court System.[3][4]
He lived with a merchant seaman roommate, in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment located in San Francisco's Mission District. He later spent six months in San Francisco's VA hospital, and was frequently readmitted into the hospital in 1975, the year he saved Ford's life.
Ford assassination attempt[edit]
Sipple was part of a crowd of about 3,000 people who had gathered outside San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel to see President Ford on September 22, 1975. Ford, just emerging from the building, was vulnerable despite heavy security protection. Sipple noticed a woman next to him had drawn and leveled a .38-caliber pistol at Ford as he headed to his limousine. Reacting instinctively, Sipple lunged at the woman, Sara Jane Moore, just as her finger squeezed the trigger. While the gun did go off, Sipple's contact was enough to deflect her aim and cause the bullet to miss.[5] The bullet ricocheted and hit John Ludwig, a 42-year-old taxi driver. Ludwig survived.[6] The incident came just three weeks after Lynette Fromme's assassination attempt on Ford. Reporters hounded Sipple who at first didn't want his name used, nor his location known.[1]
Aftermath[edit]
The police and the Secret Service immediately commended Sipple for his action at the scene, as did the media.[1][7] The news media portrayed Sipple as a hero.[8]
Though he was known to be gay among members of the gay community, and had even participated in Gay Pride events, Sipple's sexual orientation was a secret from his family. He asked the press to keep his sexuality off the record, making it clear that neither his mother nor his employer knew he was gay. The national spotlight was on him immediately, and Harvey Milk responded. While discussing whether the truth about Sipple's sexuality should be disclosed, Milk told a friend: "It's too good an opportunity. For once we can show that gays do heroic things, not just all that caca about molesting children and hanging out in bathrooms."[9] Milk reportedly outed Sipple as a "gay hero" to San Francisco Chronicle's columnist Herb Caen in hopes to "break the stereotype of homosexuals" of being "timid, weak and unheroic figures".[2][3][5] Several days later Caen wrote of Sipple as a gay man and a friend of Milk speculating Ford offered praise "quietly" because of Sipple's sexual orientation. Sipple was besieged by reporters, as was his family. His mother refused to speak to him. Gay liberation groups petitioned local media to give Sipple his due as a gay hero. Caen published the private side of the Marine's story, as did a handful of other publications.[3] Sipple then insisted to reporters that his sexuality was to be kept confidential.[1] Later, when Sipple hid in a friend's apartment to avoid them, the reporters turned to Milk, arguably the most visible voice for the gay community.[1] The reporters had already labeled Sipple the "gay ex-Marine" and his conservative mother disparaged and disowned him when she found out about his sexuality.[4] Milk's precise role in the outing remain somewhat cloudy as Sipple's active participation in the gay community suggests that his sexuality would have been revealed and reported even if doing so was seen as unethical.[4] According to Harold Evans, "[T]here was no invitation to the White House for Sipple, not even a commendation. Milk made a fuss about that. Finally, weeks later, Sipple received a brief note of thanks."[10]
Sipple sued the Chronicle for invasion of privacy.[6] Of President Ford's letter of thanks to Sipple, Milk suggested that Sipple's sexual orientation was the reason he received only a note, rather than an invitation to the White House.[5] Sipple filed a $15 million invasion of privacy suit against Caen, seven named newspapers, and a number of unnamed publishers, for publishing the disclosures. The Superior Court in San Francisco dismissed the suit, and Sipple continued his legal battle until May 1984, when a state court of appeals held that Sipple had indeed become news, and that his sexual orientation was part of the story.[5]
Later years and death[edit]
According to a 2006 article in The Washington Post, Sipple went through a period of estrangement with his parents, but the family later reconciled with him. Sipple's brother, George, told the newspaper, "[Our parents] accepted it. That was all. They didn't like it, but they still accepted. He was welcomed. Only thing was: Don't bring a lot of your friends."[6]



 Sipple's headstone at Golden Gate National Cemetery
Sipple's mental and physical health sharply declined over the years. He drank heavily, gained weight to 300 lb (140 kg), was fitted with a pacemaker, and became paranoid and suicidal. The incident brought him so much attention that, later in life, while drinking, he would express regret towards grabbing Moore's gun. Sipple, who was wounded in the head in Vietnam, was also diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic according to the coroner's report.[5] On February 2, 1989, he was found dead in his bed, at the age of forty-seven. Earlier that day, Sipple had visited a friend and said he had been turned away by the Veterans Administration hospital where he went concerning his difficulty in breathing due to pneumonia. Sipple's funeral was attended by about 30 people. President Ford and his wife sent a letter of sympathy to his family and friends. He was buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery south of San Francisco.
His $334 per month apartment near San Francisco's Tenderloin District was found with many newspaper clippings of his actions on the fateful September afternoon in 1975. His most prized possession was the framed letter from the White House. A letter addressed to the friends of Oliver Sipple was on display for a short period after his death at one of his favorite hangouts, the New Belle Saloon:

"Mrs. Ford and I express our deepest sympathy in this time of sorrow involving your friend's passing..."

President Gerald Ford, February, 1989
In a 2001 interview with columnist Deb Price, Ford disputed the claim that Sipple was treated differently because of his sexual orientation, saying, "As far as I was concerned, I had done the right thing and the matter was ended. I didn't learn until sometime later — I can't remember when — he was gay. I don't know where anyone got the crazy idea I was prejudiced and wanted to exclude gays."[11]
Legacy[edit]
According to Castañeda and Campbell:[12]

The Sipple incident has been referred to, in passing, in a major motion picture and in a prime-time television program. Several law review articles and more than a dozen books and commentary pieces have also mentioned the perplexing ethical dimensions of the case.
Sipple was used as an example in several articles involving anonymity and public identity reveals, and used his story as an example as such revelations can have a negative and positive effects.
See also[edit]

Portal icon Biography portal
Portal icon United States Marine Corps portal
List of U.S. Presidential assassination attempts
References[edit]
1.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Castañeda, Laura; Shannon B. Campbell (2006). News And Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity. Sage Publications Inc; ISBN 1-4129-0999-6. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
2.^ Jump up to: a b Shilts, Randy (2005). Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military. Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-34264-0. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c Sadler, Roger L. (2005). Electronic Media Law. Sage Publications Inc. ISBN 1-4129-0588-5. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
4.^ Jump up to: a b c Johansson, Warren; William A. Percy (1994). Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Haworth Press. ISBN 1-56024-419-4. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
5.^ Jump up to: a b c d e Morain, Dan (February 13, 1989). "Sorrow Trailed a Veteran Who Saved a President and Then Was Cast in an Unwanted Spotlight", The Los Angeles Times, p. 1.[dead link]
6.^ Jump up to: a b c Caught in Fate's Trajectory, Along With Gerald Ford, Lynne Duke, The Washington Post, December 30, 2006, p. D01.
7.Jump up ^ http://www.lambda.net/~maximum/sipple.html "Oliver Sipple 1941-1989". Accessed May 23, 2007.
8.Jump up ^ "Oliver Sipple 1941–1989". Accessed May 23, 2007. Archived February 13, 2007 at the Wayback Machine
9.Jump up ^ Shilts, Randy (1982). The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-52330-0 p. 122.
10.Jump up ^ Harold Evans, The Imperial Presidency: 1972-1980', Random House, 1998.
11.Jump up ^ [1] The original article used to be at: [2]
12.Jump up ^ Laura Castañeda, Shannon B. Campbell, "News and Sexuality: Media Portraits of Diversity", SAGE, 2006, ISBN 1-4129-0999-6, page 66. The movie referenced (chapter notes in the book) is Absence of Malice, and the TV program is an episode from L.A. Law from May 1990.
External links[edit]
Oliver Sipple (1941–1989)
Oliver Sipple and Mark Bingham: Heroes a Quarter Century Apart
American Century article
Oliver Sipple Saves President Ford's Life
Youtube video: Gerald Ford - Assassination Attempts (02)
Youtube video: Media Ethics Oliver Sipple

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Harvey Milk


Career
George W. Hewlett High School·
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 Bache & Company·
 Castro Street Fair·
 Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club·
 Castro Camera·
 1977 Board of Supervisors election (District 5)
 

Assassination
Moscone–Milk assassinations·
 Dan White·
 Twinkie defense·
 White Night riots
 

Media and legacy
The Mayor of Castro Street (1982)·
 The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)·
 Milk (2008)·
 Harvey Milk High School·
 Harvey Milk Day·
 Harvey Milk Foundation
 

Related individuals
Anne Kronenberg·
 George Moscone·
 Craig Rodwell·
 Scott Smith·
 Oliver Sipple·
 Daniel Nicoletta·
 Cleve Jones·
 Nicole Murray-Ramirez·
 Frank M. Robinson·
 Stuart Milk·
 Jim Jones
 

See also
Firsts in LGBT history·
 The Castro, San Francisco·
 Peoples Temple
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Categories: 1941 births
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Daniel Nicoletta

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Daniel Nicoletta (born 1954) is an American photographer, photo journalist and gay rights activist.[1]

Contents
  [hide] 1 Biography
2 Photographic work 2.1 Publications
2.2 Use in films
3 Exhibitions
4 Museum and archival collections
5 Bibliography
6 Film
7 References
8 External links
Biography[edit]
Born in New York City, Daniel Nicoletta was raised in Utica, NY. In his late teens he left New York to attend San Francisco State University, later graduating from the bachelor of arts program. He started his photographic career in 1975 as an intern to Crawford Barton, who was then a staff photographer for the national gay magazine The Advocate.[2]
In 1974, when he was 19, Nicoletta first met Harvey Milk and Scott Smith at Castro Camera, their camera store on Castro Street; the following year, they hired him to work at shop.[3][4] The three became friends, and Nicoletta worked with Milk on his campaigns for political office. During this period of time, Nicoletta took many now well-known photographs of Milk. When Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, he became California's first openly gay elected official; he served for almost eleven months before he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White at City Hall on November 27, 1978.
After Milk's death, Nicoletta worked to keep his memory alive. He was the installation coordinator of the Harvey Milk photographic tribute plaques installed at Harvey Milk Plaza and at the Castro Street Station,[4] which featured his photographs as well as those of Marc Cohen, Don Eckert, Jerry Pritikin, Efren Ramirez, Rink, and Leland Toy. He was co-chair of the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee, and his photograph served as the basis for the bust of Milk that now resides in the rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall.[5]
In the feature film Milk, a biographical film based on the life of Harvey Milk directed by Gus Van Sant, Daniel Nicoletta is played by Lucas Grabeel. Nicoletta himself plays Carl Carlson and served as the still photographer on the film.[6]
Nicoletta was one of the founders of the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, now known as the Frameline Film Festival. In 1977, while still working at Harvey Milk's photography shop, Nicoletta, along with David Waggoner,[7] Marc Huestis,[8] and others, began film screenings of their Super 8 films, called the Gay Film Festival of Super 8 Films, which evolved into the yearly festival.
From 1990 to 2000, Nicoletta maintained a photography studio in San Francisco's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The studio provided him a setting for work focused on artistic portraits of queer personalities, community leaders, performers and colorful urban characters. It also served as a cultural and social center where Nicoletta organized parties, salons, memorial services and other events.[9]
Photographic work[edit]
Nicoletta's work has documented queer culture from the mid-1970s into the 2000s. In addition to his historic images of Harvey Milk, his subjects include the White Night Riots, the Castro Street Fair, the San Francisco Pride Parade, The Cockettes, and the Angels of Light, as well as personalities such as Justin Bond, Loren Cameron, Divine, Mark Ewert, Allen Ginsberg, Harry Hay, G.B. Jones, and Sylvester. He also has served as a set photographer for several films, including Vegas in Space (1992), Milk (2008) and All About Evil (2010).[10][11]
Publications[edit]
Since the late 1970s, Nicoletta's photographs have been widely reproduced in periodicals, including The Advocate, the Bay Area Reporter, The Guardian (UK), the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Village Voice and X-tra West (Canada).[11]
His work also has appeared in numerous books, including Randy Shilts' The Mayor Of Castro Street (1982); Ruth Silverman's San Francisco Observed: A Photographic Record (1986); Beth Schneider and Nancy E. Stoller's Women Resisting AIDS: Feminist Strategies of Empowerment (1995) (cover photo); Jim Van Buskirk and Susan Stryker's Gay by the Bay: A Pictorial History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area (1996); David A. Sprigle's Beasts: FotoFactory Anthology II (1997); Strange de Jim's San Francisco's Castro (2003); David Gere's How to Make Dances in an Epidemic: Tracking Choreography in the Age of AIDS (2004); Joshua Gamson's The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, the Music, the Seventies in San Francisco (2006); Dustin Lance Black and Armistead Maupin's MILK: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk (2009); and Chris March's I Heart Chris March (2010) (cover photo).[11]
Use in films[edit]
Nicoletta's photographs also have been featured in a number of documentary films. His images of Harvey Milk appear prominently in the 1985 Academy Award winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Rob Epstein; his work also appears in Sex Is... (1993), directed by Marc Huestis.
Exhibitions[edit]
The photographic work of Daniel Nicoletta has been shown in one-artist exhibitions at Josie's Cabaret (San Francisco, 1994); Levi-Strauss Corporate Headquarters (San Francisco, 1996); Overtones Gallery (Los Angeles, 2009); and Electric Works Gallery (San Francisco, 2010).[11]
In addition, his prints have appeared in numerous group shows in the United States, including "AIDS: The Artists' Response," Hoyt L. Sherman Gallery, Ohio State University (April 1989); "Group Work: AIDS Timeline," Whitney Biennial (April 1991); "Harvey Milk: Second Sight," San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery (October–November 1998); "Out of the Closet," Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco (May–June 2000); "Made in California," Los Angeles County Museum of Art (October 2000–February 2001); "An Autobiography of the San Francisco Bay Area, Part 1," San Francisco Camerawork (September–October 2009); and "Life and Death in Black and White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985–1990," the GLBT History Museum, San Francisco (March–June 2012).[11][12]
His work also was featured in the monumental 1997 historical exhibition "Goodbye to Berlin: 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung," organized by the Schwules Museum at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.[11]
Museum and archival collections[edit]
Nicoletta's work is represented in the permanent collections of the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library;[13] the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley; the Wallach Collection of Fine Prints and the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library; the Schwules Museum in Berlin, Germany; and the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.[14]
Bibliography[edit]
Flight of Angels, Adrian Brooks (author) and Daniel Nicoletta (photographer) Arsenal Pulp Press ISBN 1-55152-231-4
Gay By The Bay, Susan Stryker and Jim Van Buskirk, Chronicle Books 1996 ISBN 0-8118-1187-5
The Mayor of Castro Street, Randy Shilts, St. Martin's Griffin 1988 ISBN 0-312-01900-9
Film[edit]
Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant 2008
That Man: Peter Berlin, directed by Jim Tushinski 2005
Sex Is, directed by Marc Huestis 1993
The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Rob Epstein 1984
Theatrical Collage, directed by Daniel Nicoletta 1976
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Freedman, Marcy (18 November 1998), "Photographic Memory", SF Weekly, retrieved 2008-11-03
2.Jump up ^ Nicoletta, Daniel. "Daniel Nicoletta: About," from the photographer's website: DannyNicoletta.com. Retrieved 2012-03-10.
3.Jump up ^ Nicoletta, Daniel. "Land of Milk and Honey," from the photographer's website: DannyNicoletta.com. Retrieved 2012-03-17.
4.^ Jump up to: a b McMillan, Dennis (25 May 2006), "Harvey Milk Memorial Plaques Unveiled", San Francisco Bay Times, retrieved 2008-11-03
5.Jump up ^ McMillan, Dennis (29 May 2008), "Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Sculpture Unveiled", San Francisco Bay Times, retrieved 2008-11-03
6.Jump up ^ Cieply, Michael (16 October 2008), "After 30 Years, A Film Returns to a Harrowing Time in San Francisco", The New York Times, retrieved 2008-11-03
7.Jump up ^ Siegel, Marc (May 1997), "Spilling Out Into Castro Street", Jump Cut (41), retrieved 2008-11-03
8.Jump up ^ Rose, Roger (October 2008), "Frameline: You've Come A Long Way Baby", Cine Source, retrieved 2008-11-03
9.Jump up ^ Nicoletta, Daniel. "Studio Years," from the photographer's website: DannyNicoletta.com. Retrieved 2012-03-10.
10.Jump up ^ "Daniel Nicoletta," IMDb. Retrieved 2012-03-10.
11.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Nicoletta, Daniel. "Resume," from the photographer's website: DannyNicoletta.com. Retrieved 2012-03-10.
12.Jump up ^ GLBT Historical Society Media Release (2012-02-29). "New photography exhibition at GLBT History Museum focuses on history of AIDS activism". Retrieved 2012-03-02.
13.Jump up ^ Catalog, San Francisco Public Library, Call Number GLC 36 (PDF), retrieved 2008-11-03
14.Jump up ^ GLBT Historical Society, online catalog of archival collections: Daniel Nicoletta Slides (collection no. 1999-01) and Allen White Papers (collection no. 2003-03). Retrieved 2012-03-10.
External links[edit]
Daniel Nicoletta: Official Website
Daniel Nicoletta's photographs
Daniel Nicoletta at the Internet Movie Database
SF Gate on an exhibition of Daniel Nicoletta's photographs
Danny Nicoletta Interview

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Harvey Milk


Career
George W. Hewlett High School·
 USS Kittiwake (ASR-13)·
 Bache & Company·
 Castro Street Fair·
 Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club·
 Castro Camera·
 1977 Board of Supervisors election (District 5)
 

Assassination
Moscone–Milk assassinations·
 Dan White·
 Twinkie defense·
 White Night riots
 

Media and legacy
The Mayor of Castro Street (1982)·
 The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)·
 Milk (2008)·
 Harvey Milk High School·
 Harvey Milk Day·
 Harvey Milk Foundation
 

Related individuals
Anne Kronenberg·
 George Moscone·
 Craig Rodwell·
 Scott Smith·
 Oliver Sipple·
 Daniel Nicoletta·
 Cleve Jones·
 Nicole Murray-Ramirez·
 Frank M. Robinson·
 Stuart Milk·
 Jim Jones
 

See also
Firsts in LGBT history·
 The Castro, San Francisco·
 Peoples Temple
 


Authority control
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Cleve Jones

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Cleve Jones
Cleve Jones.jpg
Jones at the 81st Academy Awards

Born
October 11, 1954
Known for
NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
Cleve Jones (born October 11, 1954) is an American AIDS and LGBT rights activist.[1] He conceived of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt which has become, at 54 tons, the world's largest piece of community folk art as of 2009. In 1983, at the onset of the AIDS pandemic Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation which has grown into one of the largest and most influential People with AIDS advocacy organizations in the United States.

Contents
  [hide] 1 Biography
2 Legacy
3 References
4 Bibliography
5 External links
Biography[edit]



 Cleve Jones marching at the National Equality March
Jones was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, and raised in Scottsdale, Arizona. His career as an activist began in San Francisco during the turbulent 1970s when he was befriended by pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. He worked as a student intern in Milk’s office while studying political science at San Francisco State University.[2][3] In 1978, Milk was assassinated along with San Francisco’s Mayor George Moscone. Jones went to work in the district office of State Assemblyman Art Agnos.[4]
In 1983, when AIDS was still a new and poorly understood threat, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.[5] Jones conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at a candlelight memorial for Harvey Milk in 1985 and in 1987 created the first quilt panel in honor of his friend Marvin Feldman.[6] The AIDS Memorial Quilt has grown to become the world’s largest community arts project, memorializing the lives of over 85,000 Americans killed by AIDS.[7]
While in San Francisco, Jones took part in a documentary, Echoes of Yourself in The Mirror, about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, speaking during World AIDS Day in 2005. In the documentary he talks about the idea behind the AIDS Memorial Quilt, as well as the activism of San Francisco citizens in the 1970s and 80s to help people affected by AIDS and to figure out what the disease was. The film also looks at the impact HIV/AIDS is having in communities of color, and the young.
Jones has been working with UNITE HERE, the hotel, restaurant, and garment workers union on homophobia issues.[5] He is a driving force behind the Sleep With The Right People campaign, which aims to convince LGBT tourists to stay only in hotels that respect the rights of their workers.[8] Another part of Jones' work with UNITE HERE is making the labor movement more open to LGBT members.
Legacy[edit]
Jones is portrayed by actor Emile Hirsch in Milk, director Gus Van Sant's 2008 biopic of Harvey Milk.[5]
Jones is prominently featured in And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, Randy Shilts' best-selling 1987 work of nonfiction about the AIDS epidemic in the United States. Jones was also featured in the 1995 documentary The Castro.
Jones was one of the Official Grand Marshals of the 2009 NYC LGBT Pride March, produced by Heritage of Pride joining Dustin Lance Black and Anne Kronenberg on June 28, 2009.[9] In August 2009, Jones was an official Grand Marshal of the Vancouver Pride Parade.
Jones participated as an actor in the Los Angeles premiere of 8, a condensed theatrical re-enactment of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial's closure, on March 3, 2012.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Aldrich, Robert; Garry Wotherspoon (2001). Who's who in contemporary gay and lesbian history. Routledge. p. 218. ISBN 0-415-22974-X.
2.Jump up ^ Leff, Lisa (July 12, 2009), "At 54, Cleve Jones is ready for his comeback", The Guardian, retrieved January 27, 2010
3.Jump up ^ Laird, Cynthia (January 22, 2009), "News in brief: Jones to speak at UC Berkeley", Bay Area Reporter, retrieved January 27, 2010
4.Jump up ^ "Interview: Cleve Jones". PBS. December 7, 2004. Retrieved January 27, 2010.
5.^ Jump up to: a b c Harmanci, Reyhan (November 23, 2008), "'Milk' actors and the people they play", San Francisco Chronicle, retrieved January 27, 2010
6.Jump up ^ Wilson, Craig (December 7, 1987), "The man who sewed together the stories of thousands", USA Today, retrieved January 27, 2010
7.Jump up ^ Merkle, Karen Rene (November 20, 2000), "The Cathedral of St. Paul has been displaying the AIDS Memorial Quilt", Erie Times-News, retrieved January 27, 2010
8.Jump up ^ Kerr, Bob (October 31, 2007), "The Quilt has taught us for 20 years", The Providence Journal, retrieved January 27, 2010
9.Jump up ^ NYC LGBT Gay Pride - March
Bibliography[edit]
Jones, Cleve, with Dawson, Jeff (2000). Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist. ISBN 0062516426
Shilts, Randy (1982). The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-52330-0
External links[edit]
Official website
FRONTLINE interview: Cleve Jones
Cleve Jones.com
AIDS Memorial Quilt
This is a trailer for documentary which features Cleve Jones speaking at San Francisco State University: Echoes Of Yourself in The Mirror.

[hide]
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Harvey Milk


Career
George W. Hewlett High School·
 USS Kittiwake (ASR-13)·
 Bache & Company·
 Castro Street Fair·
 Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club·
 Castro Camera·
 1977 Board of Supervisors election (District 5)
 

Assassination
Moscone–Milk assassinations·
 Dan White·
 Twinkie defense·
 White Night riots
 

Media and legacy
The Mayor of Castro Street (1982)·
 The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)·
 Milk (2008)·
 Harvey Milk High School·
 Harvey Milk Day·
 Harvey Milk Foundation
 

Related individuals
Anne Kronenberg·
 George Moscone·
 Craig Rodwell·
 Scott Smith·
 Oliver Sipple·
 Daniel Nicoletta·
 Cleve Jones·
 Nicole Murray-Ramirez·
 Frank M. Robinson·
 Stuart Milk·
 Jim Jones
 

See also
Firsts in LGBT history·
 The Castro, San Francisco·
 Peoples Temple
 


Authority control
­VIAF: 9483957
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Categories: 1954 births
Activists from the San Francisco Bay Area
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American businesspeople
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LGBT people from the United States
LGBT rights activists from the United States
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People from Lafayette, Indiana
People with HIV/AIDS



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Nicole Murray-Ramirez

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Nicole Murray-Ramirez (born 1945), known as Empress Nicole the Great, The Queen Mother of the Americas within the Imperial Court System, has been an LGBT activist for over 55 years and is currently a San Diego appointed city human rights commissioner.[1]
Within the Imperial Court System, Murray-Ramirez long held a leadership position as president of the Imperial Court Council and 1st Heir Apparent to José Sarria, the Widow Norton. At a Coronation Ball in Seattle, Washington on February 17, 2007, Sarria formally handed leadership of the organization over to Murray-Ramirez. The latter assumed the title "Queen Mother of the Americas".[2]
In 1974, in his drag persona as Empress of the Imperial Court de San Diego, Murray-Ramirez rode in San Diego's first Pride Parade in an open vehicle amid jeers from hostile spectactors. He was among the few to take the microphone and speak at the rally in Balboa Park immediately following. Regarding that day he said:

It was a scary and lonely march down Broadway...Nobody applauded. And most gay people didn't come out to the sidelines because they were afraid.
Murray-Ramirez was grand marshal for that parade on its anniversary 30 years later, was grand marshal in Tijuana's first pride parade, served as chair of the Chief of Police Advisory Board, has served on other state and national boards, was the first San Diegan elected to chair the board for Equality California, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Diego Latino Coalition, and was presented the Caesar Chavez Humanitarian Award by the widow of César Chávez
In 2012, Murray-Ramirez successfully spearheaded the renaming of Blaine Street in the Hillcrest neighborhood, to Harvey Milk Street.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ [1] Gay & Lesbian Times Murray-Ramirez appointed as city commissioner
2.Jump up ^ [2] Gay & Lesbian Times Imperial Court System founder Jose Sarria steps down

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Career
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 USS Kittiwake (ASR-13)·
 Bache & Company·
 Castro Street Fair·
 Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club·
 Castro Camera·
 1977 Board of Supervisors election (District 5)
 

Assassination
Moscone–Milk assassinations·
 Dan White·
 Twinkie defense·
 White Night riots
 

Media and legacy
The Mayor of Castro Street (1982)·
 The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)·
 Milk (2008)·
 Harvey Milk High School·
 Harvey Milk Day·
 Harvey Milk Foundation
 

Related individuals
Anne Kronenberg·
 George Moscone·
 Craig Rodwell·
 Scott Smith·
 Oliver Sipple·
 Daniel Nicoletta·
 Cleve Jones·
 Nicole Murray-Ramirez·
 Frank M. Robinson·
 Stuart Milk·
 Jim Jones
 

See also
Firsts in LGBT history·
 The Castro, San Francisco·
 Peoples Temple
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 


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Frank M. Robinson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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For the man who named Coca-Cola, see Frank Mason Robinson; for other people named Frank Robinson, see Frank Robinson (disambiguation).
Frank M. Robinson

Born
August 9, 1926 (age 87)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Frank M. Robinson (born August 9, 1926) is an American science fiction and techno-thriller writer.
Biography[edit]
Robinson was born in Chicago, Illinois.[1] The son of a check forger,[2] Frank started out working as a copy boy for International Service in his teens and then became an office boy for Ziff-Davis.[2] He was drafted into the Navy for World War II, and when his tour was over went to Beloit College where he majored in physics, graduating in 1950. Then, according to his official website, he could find no work as a writer, and wound up back in the Navy to serve in Korea, where he managed to keep writing, read a lot, and publish in the magazine Astounding.
After the Navy, he went to graduate school in journalism, then worked for a Chicago-based Sunday supplement. Soon afterward he switched to Science Digest, where he worked from 1956-1959. From there, he moved into men's magazines: Rogue (1959–65) and Cavalier (1965–66). In 1969, Playboy asked him to take over the Playboy Advisor column. He remained with Playboy until 1973, when he left to write full-time.
After moving to San Francisco in the 1970s, Robinson, who is gay, was a speechwriter for gay politician Harvey Milk; he also has a small role in the film Milk.[3][4]
As of 2008, he is the author of 16 books, the editor of two others, and has penned numerous articles.[2] Three of his novels have been made into movies. The Power (1956) was a supernatural science fiction and government conspiracy novel about people with superhuman skills, filmed in 1968 as The Power. The technothriller The Glass Inferno, co-written with Thomas N. Scortia, was combined with Richard Martin Stern's The Tower to produce the 1974 movie The Towering Inferno. The Gold Crew, also co-written Scortia, was a tense nuclear threat thriller and was filmed as an NBC miniseries re-titled The Fifth Missile.
Besides The Glass Inferno and The Gold Crew, he collaborated on several other works with Scortia, including The Prometheus Crisis, The Nightmare Factor, and Blow-Out. More recent works include The Dark Beyond the Stars (1991), and an updated version of The Power (2000), which closely followed Waiting (1999), a novel with similar themes to The Power. His newest novel is a medical thriller about organ theft called The Donor.
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Smith, Curtis C.; R. E. Briney (1981), Twentieth Century Science Fiction Writers, New York, NY: St. Martin's, p. 452, ISBN 0-312-82420-3
2.^ Jump up to: a b c Frank M. Robinson's Official Website, retrieved 2008-12-05
3.Jump up ^ Duin, Steve (11 March 2008), "Van Sant's "Milk" helps writer visit the past", The Oregonian
4.Jump up ^ Davis, Andrew (19 November 2008), "Frank Robinson: On Harvey Milk", Windy City Times
External links[edit]
Frank M. Robinson's Official Web Site
Frank M. Robinson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Frank M. Robinson at the Internet Movie Database
Frank M. Robinson's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online

Authority control
­WorldCat·
 ­VIAF: 23298780·
 ­LCCN: n79123600·
 ­ISNI: 0000 0001 1469 1912·
 ­GND: 132401401
 


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Stuart Milk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Stuart Milk
Stuart Milk and Barack Obama
Accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in August 2009 on behalf of his uncle

Born
December 26, 1960
New York
Citizenship
United States
Occupation
US (LGBT) human rights activist and speaker
Organization
Harvey Milk Foundation
Relatives
Harvey Milk
Awards
Muestra T (cultural and authenticity), Spain; Champion Award, Equality California; Hacham and Hachamat Lev Award, Keshet/Jewish Mosiac; Medal of Turin, Italy; Jose Saria International Human Rights Award, International Court System Youth Advocate of the Year; Cross Atlantic Congress Netherlands
Stuart Milk (born December 26, 1960) is a global LGBT human rights activist and political speaker. Stuart, nephew of civil rights leader Harvey Milk, is the co-founder of the Harvey Milk Foundation.[1] Milk has engaged in domestic and international activism, including work with LGBT movements in Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.[2][3][4]
Stuart Milk has promoted his uncle's story and addressed LGBT rights in formal major addresses on multiple continents, including before the United Kingdom House of Lords in 2012, the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 2011, the Panamanian National Assembly in 2010, and Turkish Great Assembly in 2009.[5] Milk is frequently quoted in international news and seen on broadcast television from the New York Times to BBC World Report discussing issues of LGBT inclusion and diversity.[6] He is also a featured writer and columnist for the Huffington Post, focusing on global human rights.[7] During the US 2012 election season, Stuart gave public endorsements in the US Presidential campaign, where he was a surrogate for Barack Obama, and in a race for Mayor of San Diego. In the San Diego race, he backed LGBT supporter, Congressman Bob Filner, over an openly gay conservative, Carl DeMaio. Filner narrowly won the election becoming the first Democrat to be elected Mayor of San Diego in 30 years.[8]

Contents
  [hide] 1 Biography
2 Early life and impact of his uncle
3 Current work and activism
4 Portrayals
5 Honors and awards
6 References
7 External links
Biography[edit]
Stuart Milk has worked on public policy since the late 1980s in both the public and private sector, primarily on workforce issues pertaining to youth and disadvantaged populations in the US and abroad.[9] In addition to his human service work, he has been a speaker on LGBT rights at colleges, universities and public events including for Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, University of San Francisco, SUNY, Central European University, University of Oxford, University of San Diego, as speaker or grand marshal for numerous LGBT Pride parades including San Francisco and Orlando in 2008, Istanbul and Madrid in 2009, Boston and San Diego in 2010, Pittsburgh and Budapest in 2011,[10] as well as Tijuana and Atlanta in 2012.[11] He has provided addresses at political conventions, including both the California Democratic Convention and Florida statewide conventions in 2009 and 2010.[12]
In addition to his role as Milk family spokesperson, Stuart has been working to share his late uncle's story at international, national and state levels.[13] He has successfully advocated for recognition for his late uncle in the now annual state holiday, Harvey Milk Recognition Day, in California; the induction of his uncle into the California Hall of Fame; accepting the United States' highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on behalf of his uncle from President Obama; co-founding the international Harvey Milk Foundation; and the development of several new LGBT centers named after Harvey in foreign nations.[14][15]
Milk was active in the American 2012 Presidential election as surrogate for US President Barack Obama speaking to primarily LGBT audiences on behalf of the President at public campaign events, to the media and for the Obama For America organization. In October 2012, Stuart Milk, through his role as leader of the Harvey Milk Foundation, and Rosaria Iardino hosted a global summit on human rights inclusive of the LGBT community that brought NGO and governmental leaders from five continents to Milan, Italy. The summit was supported by the European Union, the Italian Senate, the City of Milan and Equality Italia.[16]
Early life and impact of his uncle[edit]
As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, the 1978 assassination of his uncle destroyed the "closet door" for Stuart Milk. Milk, who has participated and represented Harvey Milk's small immediate family in memorial and remembrance events for over three decades, stated at the 20th year memorial for Harvey, that he decided to be vocally out, right after his uncle's murder, as a living and active memorial. "Earlier that year, Harvey and I had a three-hour talk at a family gathering, he talked to me about being your authentic self. I was just a teenager, but it stayed with me," said Stuart Milk.[9]
"When I think about Harvey, I think about, even as a small child, the kind of the richness and color of life that he brought to me. Harvey was the person who introduced me to Broadway, and Broadway musicals", Stuart said in 2009 referring to his closeness with his uncle. Stuart Milk has been involved in public service since the late 1980s including directing employment assistance centers and youth enrichment programs. He told the New York Times that he sees his work in public service, "with youths, the elderly, dislocated workers and former prison inmates, as part of his family's legacy."[17] In 1999, Stuart Milk made available to the public several never before seen photos of his uncle's early campaign for elected office and as well as personal family pictures.[18]
In 1985, Stuart Milk gave his first large public address as an "out" LGBT activist alongside The Times of Harvey Milk producer Richard Smiechen at Oberlin College in Ohio. At the time Milk was working as a campaign director for National Citizen Action, a progressive political advocacy organization and was based in Western Pennsylvania.[19]
Current work and activism[edit]

Producers, director and screenwriter of "Milk" with Stuart

 (l. to r.) The two Milk producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks, Stuart, director Gus Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black. Photo credit: Strange de Jim
In addition to being the President of the Harvey Milk Foundation's Board of Directors, Stuart also sits as a director on boards and advisory boards of numerous human rights, LGBT rights and youth advocacy organizations including the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), Equality California, International Conference on Disadvantaged Youth, the Coalition for Workforce Solutions, and the International Committee for Minority Justice and Equality.[20][21][22]
Stuart Milk has travelled to foreign nations advocating for human rights inclusive of the LGBT community while working collaboratively with other diminished and marginalized populations.[23] Stuart's speaking events have included LGBT public speeches in the Islamic cities of Istanbul, Ankara, and Cairo to public events in Central and Eastern Europe, Central American and South American cities, as well activities in Asia and the Pacific Rim.[24][25] In addition to twice giving the keynote addresses for International Congresses in the Netherlands, Milk has been a delegate on official sister city visitations or state visits to Sydney, Australia; Panama City; Panama; and Cape Town, South Africa.
Stuart has participated in efforts to have a US Postal Service stamp named for Harvey Milk, the first for an LGBT. "The Harvey Milk US Postage Stamp Campaign" is also supported by LGBT organizations including the International Court System, Equality California, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Human Rights Campaign, Victory Fund, The Trevor Project, and GLAAD.[26]
Milk was involved with getting legislation signed which created an annual California State Day of Recognition named after his late uncle in 2009. His involvement was cited as a reason he received Equality California's Champion Award that year. In 2010 he worked with then California First Lady Maria Shriver in designing the first public museum exhibit on Harvey Milk in Sacramento and he accepted his Uncle's medal and induction into the California Hall of Fame from the Governor.[27][28]
Harvey Milk Day (HMD) activities are now held around the world and are facilitated annually by Harvey Milk Foundation, beginning in 2011 with the launch of the Harvey Milk Day website and a team of volunteers working to support events. The Foundation encourages organizers of Harvey Milk Day events to promote the unity of all marginalized minorities.[29]
Following a meeting with Milk during his 2011 'Human Rights Tour" for Equality Italia, Italy's Minister of Equal Opportunities, Mara Carafagna, publicly reversed her opposition to a proposed anti-homophobia law saying "I now see it is important for my government to protect against homophobia and create gay friendly workplaces".[30]
Milk helped develop a 2011 professional International Conference for youth educators working along with the Center For Excellence in School Counseling at San Diego State University. Senior Federal Government officials, including the US Department Education (Assistant Secretary), were brought together with San Diego Mayor Sanders, school superintendents, faculty, counselors, and parent/student advocates to define and examine best practices to support LGBT youth while in school.[31] Milk is also involved with a Global LGBT Transitions and Interchange Congress being presented in early 2012 with the support of EU officials and the European private sector.
Portrayals[edit]
Portrayals of Stuart Milk have included his characterization in the play, Dear Harvey, by Patricia Loughery that was partly based on Loughery's interviews and discussions with Stuart. The play has been performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, at New York City's Fringe Festival and at colleges and universities across the United States. Dear Harvey has been translated into Spanish for production in Mexico and Spain while Stuart Milk's character was performed by actor Chad Allen in the Spring 2010 Sacramento California production.[32][33]
Honors and awards[edit]
Milk has been the recipient of international and national awards for his global civil rights work, including Spain's Annual Muestra T (cultural authenticity) in 2008, Keshet/Jewish Mosiac's Hacham and Hachamat Lev Award in 2010, the José Sarria International Human Rights Award from the International Court in 2007, the Equality Champion of the Year Award from Equality California in 2009, and was the 2011 recipient of the Medal of Turin.[34][35][36][37][38]
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Harvey Milk Foundation - About Us". Harvey Milk Foundation. Retrieved March 30, 2011.
2.Jump up ^ Pasquali, Valentina. "Harvey Milk’s nephew, Stuart, helps Turkey’s gays break through the barricades". Miami Herald. Retrieved 29 May 2011.
3.Jump up ^ Banfi, Andrea. "Stuart Milk Brings Uncle’s Message of Hope and Inclusion to Seven Italian Cities". San Diego LGBT Weekly. Retrieved 29 May 2011.
4.Jump up ^ School, Kennedy. "Harvard Human Rights Panel". Harvard University. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
5.Jump up ^ Cassell, Heather. "Stuart Milk and LGBT Leaders Address House of Lord". ebar. Retrieved 29 Aug 2012.
6.Jump up ^ Dvorson, Alexa. "Milk on gay rights and uncles legacy". BBC. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
7.Jump up ^ Milk, Stuart. "Huffington Post - Stuart Milk". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
8.Jump up ^ Senzee, Thom (2012-09-27). "Stuart Milk to endorse Bob Filner for San Diego mayor". LGBT Weekly. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
9.^ Jump up to: a b Nolte, Carl (November 26, 2003). "City Hall Slayings/25 Years Later". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
10.Jump up ^ Murphy, Patrick (2008-06-29). "Inclusion, Not Tolerance Insists Stuart Milk". San Francisco Sentinel. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
11.Jump up ^ Lee, Ryan (2012-10-12). "Nephew of gay icon continues to spread message of equality, pride". The GA Voice. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
12.Jump up ^ Palermo, Joseph (28 April 2009). "From the California Democratic Convention". Huffington Post. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
13.Jump up ^ Ocamb, Karen (May 21, 2010). "Harvey Milk Day - Stuart Milk and Assembly Speaker John A. Perez Talk". Bilerico. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
14.Jump up ^ Magenta, Rob (May 19, 2011). "Nephew of San Francisco icon Harvey Milk lights up Rome". Topix. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
15.Jump up ^ Gergely, Túry (18 June 2011). "Felbőszültek a kopaszok, közbeléptek a rendőrök a melegfelvonuláson". Hirszerzo (Hungary). Retrieved 20 June 2011.
16.Jump up ^ Comer, Matt (4 September 2012). "Stuart Milk Makes the Obama Case to North Carolina". The Advocate. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
17.Jump up ^ Chan, Sewell (20 February 2009). "Film Evokes Memories for Milk’s Relatives". New York Times. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
18.Jump up ^ Eckherd, Donald. "Unpublished Family Photos of Harvey Milk". Uncle Donald's Harvey Milk Pages. thecastro.net. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
19.Jump up ^ Feldman, Jacqueline (June 1, 2010). "Harvey Milk's nephew to kick off Pride Rally". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
20.Jump up ^ Moss, Phillip. "AFER Advisory Board". American Foundation for Equal Rights. AFER. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
21.Jump up ^ California, Equality. "Board of Directors". Equality California. EQCA. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
22.Jump up ^ CWS. "CWS Governance". Coalition for Workforce Solutions. people2work.org. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
23.Jump up ^ "On the Record with LGBT activist Stuart Milk". Pittsburgh City Paper. June 2, 2011. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
24.Jump up ^ Saaran, Michael (15 June 2011). "Harvey Milk Foundation Joins With Hungary for Budapest Pride". The Edge. Retrieved 23 June 2011.
25.Jump up ^ Belgradan, Arany (18 june 2011). "TV 3 Budapest Nightly Report". RTL Hungary. Retrieved 23 June 2011.
26.Jump up ^ Gaffney, Michael. "HARVEY MILK NATIONAL STAMP CAMPAIGN". 22 May 2009. International Court System. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
27.Jump up ^ Ocamb, Karen (December 2009). "Harvey Milk Inducted Into Hall of Fame; Stuart Milk Interview". LGBT POV. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
28.Jump up ^ Leff, Lisa (May 22. 2010). "Activist Harvey Milk Honored And Celebrated In California". Associated Press. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
29.Jump up ^ Leff, Lisa (22 May 2011). "California, other states observe first Harvey Milk Day to honor gay rights icon". FoxNews.com. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
30.Jump up ^ Fabrizo, Paola (May 5, 2011). "Elegant, Emozionata La Carfagna e Stuart Milk". Gaynews24. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
31.Jump up ^ Ramirez, Nicole (3 March 2011). "Educators, Politicians Join Forces". LGBT Weekly. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
32.Jump up ^ Rubio-Sheffrey, Esther (July 5, 2010). "Dear Harvey". San Diego Gay & Lesbian News. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
33.Jump up ^ Spindle, Les (September 22, 2010). "Dear Harvey at the Lee Strasberg Theatre". Backstage. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
34.Jump up ^ RAFAEL, PATRICIA. "España lid era los derechos de los homosexuales". Publico. Retrieved 29 May 2011.
35.Jump up ^ Braatz, Rick. "Annual awards ceremony honors GLBT civil rights advocates". GayLesbianTimes. Retrieved 29 May 2011.
36.Jump up ^ Kunerth, Jeff (2009-10-09). "Gay Rights Pioneer Milk's Nephew Leads Parade". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
37.Jump up ^ Gordon, Rachael (June 20, 2010). "Harvey Milk's Nephew Blazes His Own Trail". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
38.Jump up ^ Bond, Meri (March 15, 2010). "Cabaret...Keshet Style". Bay Windows. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
External links[edit]
Harvey Milk Foundation

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Jim Jones

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the Peoples Temple leader. For other persons of the same name, see Jim Jones (disambiguation).

Jim Jones
02-jones-jim ji.jpg
Born
James Warren Jones
May 13, 1931
Randolph County, Indiana, U.S.
Died
November 18, 1978 (aged 47)
Jonestown, Guyana[1]
Occupation
Religious leader
Religion
Atheist (self-proclaimed)[2]
Spouse(s)
Marceline Baldwin Jones (1949 - 1978)
Children
Agnes Paulette Jones (1943 - 1978)
 Suzanne Jones Cartmell (1953 - 2006)
 Stephanie Jones (1954 - 1959)
 Lew Eric Jones (1956 - 1978)
 Jim Jon Prokes (1975 - 1978)
 Stephan Gandhi Jones (1958- )
 James Warren Jones, Jr. (1961-)
Parents
James Thurman Jones (1887 - 1951)
 Lynetta Putnam Jones (1902 - 1977)
James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was the founder and the leader of the Peoples Temple, best known for the cult murder/suicide in 1978 of 909 of its members in Jonestown, Guyana, and the murder of five individuals at a nearby airstrip. Over 300 children were murdered at Jonestown, almost all of them by cyanide poisoning.[3] Jones died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple there in the 1950s. He later moved the Temple to California in the mid-1960s, and gained notoriety with the move of the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco in the early 1970s.
The incident in Guyana ranks among the largest mass suicides in history, though most likely it involved forced suicide and/or murder, and was the single greatest loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the events of September 11, 2001. Among the dead was Leo Ryan, who remains the only member of Congress killed in the line of duty in U.S. history.[4]

Contents
  [hide] 1 Early life
2 Building the Temple 2.1 Indiana beginnings
2.2 Integrationist
2.3 Jones' "Rainbow Family"
2.4 Asylum
2.5 California Eden
2.6 Move to San Francisco
3 Jonestown's formation and operation 3.1 New children
3.2 Pressure and waning political support
4 Visit by Congressman Ryan, murders 4.1 Port Kaituma Airstrip shootings
4.2 Deaths in Jonestown
5 Other issues
6 Family aftermath
7 Films 7.1 Documentaries
7.2 Dramas
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
Early life[edit]



 Jones' mother, Lynetta Putnam Jones
Jim Jones was born in a rural area of Randolph County, Indiana, near its border with Ohio,[5] to James Thurman Jones (May 31, 1887 – May 29, 1951), a World War I veteran, and Lynetta Putnam (April 16, 1902 – December 11, 1977). Lynetta reportedly believed she had given birth to a messiah.[6][7] He was of Irish and Welsh descent.[8] Jones later claimed partial Cherokee ancestry through his mother, though according to his maternal second cousin Barbara Shaffer, this is likely untrue.[8][note 1] Economic difficulties during the Great Depression necessitated that Jones' family move to nearby Lynn, Indiana, in 1934 where, he grew up in a shack without plumbing.[3][9]
Jones was a voracious reader as a child and studied Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler carefully,[10] noting each of their strengths and weaknesses.[10] Jones also developed an intense interest in religion, primarily because he found making friends difficult.[8] Childhood acquaintances later recalled Jones as being a "really weird kid" who was "obsessed with religion ... obsessed with death". They alleged that he frequently held funerals for small animals on his parents' property and had stabbed a cat to death.[11]
Jim Jones and a childhood friend both claimed that Jones' father, who was an alcoholic, was associated with the Ku Klux Klan.[9] Jones himself, however, came to sympathize with the country's repressed African-American community due to his own experiences as a social outcast. Jones later recounted how he and his father clashed on the issue of race, and how he did not speak with his father for "many, many years" after he refused to allow one of Jones' black friends into the house. After Jones' parents separated, Jones moved with his mother to Richmond, Indiana.[12] He graduated from Richmond High School early and with honors in December 1948.[13]
Jones married nurse Marceline Baldwin in 1949, and moved to Bloomington, Indiana.[14] He attended Indiana University at Bloomington, where a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt about the plight of African-Americans impressed him.[14] In 1951, Jones moved to Indianapolis, where he attended night school at Butler University, earning a degree in secondary education in 1961.[15]

Building the Temple[edit]
Indiana beginnings[edit]
Further information: Peoples Temple



 Jones's first church in Indianapolis, Indiana
In 1951, Jones began attending Communist Party meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.[16] He became flustered with harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,[16] particularly regarding an event he attended with his mother focusing on Paul Robeson, after which she was harassed by the FBI in front of her co-workers for attending.[17] He also became frustrated with ostracism of open communists in the United States, especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.[18] This frustration, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones in which he asked himself, "how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."[16][17]
Jones was surprised when a Methodist superintendent helped him to get a start in the church even though he knew Jones to be a communist and Jones did not meet him through the Communist Party.[18] In 1952, Jones became a student pastor in Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, but claims he left that church because its leaders barred him from integrating blacks into his congregation.[16] Around this time, Jones witnessed a faith-healing service at the Seventh Day Baptist Church.[16] He observed that it attracted people and their money and concluded that, with financial resources from such healings, he could help accomplish his social goals.[16]
Jones organized a mammoth religious convention to take place June 11 through June 15, 1956, in a cavernous Indianapolis hall called Cadle Tabernacle. To draw the crowds, Jim needed a religious headliner, and so he arranged to share the pulpit with Rev. William M. Branham, a healing evangelist and religious author as highly revered by some as Oral Roberts and Billy Graham.[7]
Jones then began his own church, which changed names until it became the Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel.[16] The People's Temple was initially made as an inter-racial mission.
Jones moved away from the Communist Party when CPUSA members became critical of some of the policies of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.[18]
Integrationist[edit]
In 1960, Indianapolis Democratic Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission.[19] Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs.[19] When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and climaxed with "Let my people go!"[20]
During this time, Jones also helped to integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.[16] After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting African Americans and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight.[21] He also set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve African American customers[21] and wrote to American Nazi leaders then leaked their responses to the media.[22] When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved and began to make the beds, and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.[23]
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views.[16] White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him.[21] A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call.[22] Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them.[22]
Jones' "Rainbow Family"[edit]



 Brochure of the Peoples Temple, portraying leader Jim Jones as the father of the "Rainbow Family"
Jim and Marceline Jones adopted several children of at least partial non-Caucasian ancestry; he referred to the clan as his "rainbow family,"[24] and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future."[25] Jones portrayed the Temple overall as a "rainbow family."
The couple adopted three children of Korean-American ancestry: Lew, Suzanne and Stephanie. Jones had been encouraging Temple members to adopt orphans from war ravaged Korea.[26] Jones had long been critical of the United States' opposition to communist leader Kim Il-Sung's 1950 invasion of South Korea, calling it the "war of liberation" and stating that "the south is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."[27] In 1954, he and his wife also adopted Agnes Jones, who was partly of Native American descent.[16][25] Agnes was 11 at the time of her adoption.[28] Suzanne Jones was adopted at the age of six in 1959.[28] In June 1959, the couple had their only biological child, Stephan Gandhi Jones.[16]
Two years later, in 1961, the Joneses became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, James Warren Jones, Jr.[29]
The couple also adopted another son, who was white, named Tim.[16] Tim Jones, whose birth mother was a member of the Peoples Temple, was originally named Timothy Glen Tupper.[25]
Asylum[edit]

Jim Jones is located in Brazil

Belo Horizonte


Rio de Janeiro
Jones' Brazilian locations
After a 1961 Temple speech about nuclear apocalypse, and a January 1962 Esquire magazine article listing Belo Horizonte, Brazil as a safe place in a nuclear war, Jones traveled with his family to the city with the idea of setting up a new Temple location.[30] On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip into Guyana, then still a British colony.[31]
After arriving in Belo Horizonte, the Joneses rented a modest three bedroom home.[32] Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, though language remained a barrier.[33] Jones was careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, and spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx.[34] Ultimately, the lack of resources in the locale caused the Joneses to move to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963.[35] There, they worked with the poor in Rio's slums.[35] Jones also explored local Brazilian syncretic religions.[36]
Jones was plagued by guilt for leaving behind the Indiana civil rights struggle and possibly losing what he had struggled to build there.[35] When Jones' associate preachers in Indiana told him that the Temple was about to collapse without him, Jones returned.[37]

California Eden[edit]

Jim Jones is located in California

Los Angeles


San Francisco


Ukiah


Bakersfield


Fresno


Sacramento


Santa Rosa
Some of the Peoples Temple's California locations
When Jones returned from Brazil in 1965, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed in a nuclear war on July 15, 1967 that would then create a new socialist Eden on earth, and that the Temple had to move to Northern California for safety.[16][38] Accordingly, the Temple began moving to Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah.[16]
While Jones always spoke of the social gospel's virtues, before the late 1960s Jones chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism.[16] By the late 1960s, Jones began at least partially openly revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons.[16] Jones also taught that, "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism."[39] Jones often mixed these ideas, such as preaching that, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."[40]
By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion," rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and denouncing a "Sky God" who was no God at all.[16] Jones authored a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth," criticizing the King James Bible.[41] Jones also began preaching that he was the reincarnation of Gandhi and Father Divine, as well as Jesus of Nazareth, Gotama Buddha and Vladimir Lenin. Former Temple member Hue Fortson, Jr. quoted Jones as saying, "What you need to believe in is what you can see ... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father ... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."[11]
In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately stated that he was an agnostic and an atheist.[2] Despite the Temple's fear that the IRS was investigating its religious tax exemption, Marceline Jones admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the United States by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration.[38] She stated that, "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion," and had slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!"[38] In one sermon, Jones said that, "You're gonna help yourself, or you'll get no help! There's only one hope of glory; that's within you! Nobody's gonna come out of the sky! There's no heaven up there! We'll have to make heaven down here!"[11]
Move to San Francisco[edit]
Main article: Peoples Temple in San Francisco
Within five years of the Temple's move to California, it went through a period of exponential growth and opened branches in cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. By the early 1970s, Jones began shifting his focus to major cities because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the headquarters for the Temple to San Francisco, a major center for radical protest movements at the time. The move led to Jones and the Temple becoming politically influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple's instrumental role in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.[42]
Unlike most supposed cult leaders, Jones was able to gain public support and contact with prominent politicians in the local and national level. For example, Jones and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.[43][44] First Lady Rosalynn Carter also personally met with Jones on multiple occasions; corresponded with him about Cuba; and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco Democratic Party Headquarters, where Jones garnered louder applause than Mrs. Carter.[43][45][46]
In September 1977, California assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally.[47] At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours... a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein... Chairman Mao."[48] Harvey Milk, who spoke at political rallies at the Temple,[49] wrote to Jones after a visit to the Temple: "Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave."[50][51]
In his San Francisco apartment, Jones hosted San Francisco radical political figures, including Davis, for discussions.[52] He spoke with friend and San Francisco Sun-Reporter publisher Carlton Goodlett about his remorse over not being able to travel to socialist countries such as the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the Soviet Union.[53] After his criticisms led to increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, Jones spoke at a huge rally healing the rift between the two groups in the Los Angeles Convention Center that was attended by many of Jones' closest political acquaintances.[54]
While Jones forged media alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets,[55] the move to San Francisco also brought increasing media scrutiny. After Chronicle reporter Marshall Kilduff encountered resistance to publishing an exposé, he brought his story to New West magazine.[56] In the summer of 1977, Jones and several hundred Temple members abruptly decided to move to the Temple's compound in Guyana after they learned of the contents of Kilduff's New West article to be imminently published, which included allegations by former Temple members they were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused.[46][57] Jones named the settlement "Jonestown" after himself.
Jonestown's formation and operation[edit]

Jim Jones is located in Guyana

Jonestown


Georgetown


Kaituma
Peoples Temple Agricultural Project ("Jonestown", Guyana)
Jones had first started building Jonestown, formally known as the "Peoples Temple Agricultural Project", several years before the New West article was published. Jonestown was promoted as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco.[58] Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, "I believe we’re the purest communists there are."[59] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist states, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.[60]
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones' authority decreased after he moved to the isolated commune, because he was not needed for recruitment and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank and file members.[61] In spite of the allegations prior to Jones' departure to Jonestown, the leader was still respected by some for setting up a racially mixed church which helped the disadvantaged; 68 percent of Jonestown's residents were black.[62] Jonestown was where Jones began his belief in what he called "Translation," where he and his followers would all die together and move to another planet and live blissfully.
New children[edit]



 Kimo (left) and John (right)
Jim Jones claimed that he was the biological father of John Victor Stoen, although the birth certificate listed Grace and Tim Stoen as the parents of the child.[63] The Temple repeatedly claimed that Jones fathered the child when, in 1971, Tim Stoen had requested that Jones have sex with Grace to keep her from defecting.[64] After Grace Stoen later defected in 1976 and began divorce proceedings against Tim in 1977, in order to avoid potentially giving up the boy in a custody dispute with Grace, Jones ordered Tim to take John to Guyana in February 1977.[65]
After Tim Stoen defected from the Temple in June 1977, the Temple kept John Stoen in Jonestown.[66] The custody dispute over John would become a linchpin of several battles between the Temple and the Concerned Relatives, a group of Temple defectors who began a media campaign accusing Jones and his organization of abuse.[67]
Jim Jones also fathered a son, Jim Jon (Kimo), with Carolyn Louise Moore Layton, a Temple member.[68]

Pressure and waning political support[edit]
Further information: Timothy Stoen and Peoples Temple in San Francisco



 Congressional Pictorial of Leo Ryan
While most of Jones' political allies broke ties after his departure,[69] some did not. As a show of support, Brown spoke out against enemies at a rally at the Peoples Temple, which was also attended by Milk and then-Assemblyman Art Agnos.[70] On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter defending Jones "as a man of the highest character," and claimed that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones' reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies".[71] Moscone's office issued a press release saying that Jones had broken no laws.[72]
In the autumn of 1977, Tim Stoen and other Temple defectors with relatives in Jonestown formed a "Concerned Relatives" group.[73] Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C. in January 1978 to visit with and State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a "white paper" to Congress detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple.[74] Stoen's efforts aroused the curiosity of California congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.[75]
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, including letters and affidavits, that they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones" to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress.[76] In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing alleged crimes by the Peoples Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.[77]
Facing increasing scrutiny, in the summer of 1978, Jones also hired noted JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" by intelligence agencies against the Peoples Temple. Jones told Lane he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive Black Panther who was able to return to the United States after repairing his reputation.[78]
Visit by Congressman Ryan, murders[edit]



 Entrance to Jonestown
In November 1978, Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human rights abuses.[79] His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for various newspapers.[80] The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.[79] Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to the Jonestown encampment on a dump truck.[81]
The delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18 after Temple member Don Sly attacked Ryan with a knife.[82] The attack was thwarted, bringing the visit to an abrupt end.[82] Congressman Ryan and his people succeeded in taking with them fifteen People's Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave.[83] At that time, Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure.[84]
Port Kaituma Airstrip shootings[edit]
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the airstrip, Jones' "Red Brigade" armed guards arrived in a red pickup truck and began shooting at the delegation.[85] The guards killed Congressman Ryan and four others near a twin engine Otter aircraft.[86] At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party that had already boarded a small Cessna.[87] An NBC cameraman was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter.[86] The five killed at the airstrip were Congressman Ryan; Don Harris, a reporter from NBC; Bob Brown, a cameraman from NBC; San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson; and Temple member Patricia Parks.[86] Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, then a staff member for Ryan; Richard Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy at Georgetown; Bob Flick, a producer for NBC News; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, a San Francisco Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members.[86]
Deaths in Jonestown[edit]
Later that same day, 909 inhabitants of Jonestown,[88] 303 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around a pavilion.[89] This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the September 11, 2001 attacks.[90] No video was taken during the mass suicide, though the FBI did recover a 45 minute audio recording of the suicide in progress.[91]
On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not take them after the Temple had murdered Ryan and four others at a nearby airstrip.[91] The reason given by Jones to commit suicide was consistent with his previously stated conspiracy theories of intelligence organizations allegedly conspiring against the Temple, that men would "parachute in here on us," "shoot some of our innocent babies" and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."[91] Parroting Jones' prior statements that hostile forces would convert captured children to fascism, one temple member states "the ones that they take captured, they're gonna just let them grow up and be dummies."[91]



 Christine Miller
Given that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced cherry-flavored Flavor Aid (not Kool-Aid despite the popular phrase).[92] However, later released videos made to show the best of Jonestown shows Jones opening a storage container full of Kool-Aid in large quantities. This may have been what was used to mix the "potion" (as was referred to in several statements obtained by the FBI in the final tape recordings) along with a sedative.[91] One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the beginning of the tape.[91] When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity."[91] Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die," that death is "just stepping over into another plane" and that it's "a friend."[91] At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."[91] According to escaping Temple members, children were given the drink first and families were told to lie down together.[93] Mass suicide had been previously discussed in simulated events called "White Nights" on a regular basis.[77][94] During at least one such prior White Night, members drank liquid that Jones falsely told them was poison.[77][94]
Jones was found dead in a deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head that Guyanese coroner Cyrill Mootoo stated was consistent with a self-inflicted gun wound.[95] However, Jones' son Stephan believes his father may have directed someone else to shoot him.[96] An autopsy of Jones' body also showed levels of the barbiturate Pentobarbital which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance.[97] Jones' drug usage (including LSD and marijuana) was confirmed by his son, Stephan, and Jones' doctor in San Francisco.
Other issues[edit]
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with soliciting a man for sex in a movie theater bathroom known for homosexual activity, near MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.[98] The man was an undercover Los Angeles Police Department vice officer. Jones is on record as later telling his followers that he was "the only true heterosexual", but at least one account exists of his sexual abuse of a male member of his congregation in front of the followers, ostensibly to prove the man's own homosexual tendencies.[98]
While Jones banned sex among Temple members outside of marriage, he himself voraciously engaged in sexual relations with both male and female Temple members.[99][100] Jones, however, claimed that he detested engaging in homosexual activity and did so only for the male temple adherents' own good, purportedly to connect them symbolically with him (Jones).[99]
One of Jones' sources of inspiration was the controversial International Peace Mission movement leader Father Divine.[101] Jones had borrowed the term "revolutionary suicide"[102] from Black Panther leader and Peoples Temple supporter Huey Newton who had argued "the slow suicide of life in the ghetto" ought to be replaced by revolutionary struggle that would end only in victory (socialism and self-determination) or revolutionary suicide (death).[citation needed]
Family aftermath[edit]
Marceline


 Marceline (Marcy) Jones
Jim Jones' wife, Marceline, was found poisoned at the pavilion.[103] On the final morning of Ryan's visit, Marceline had taken reporters on a tour of Jonestown.[104]
Surviving sons
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones did not take part in the mass suicide because they were playing with the Peoples Temple basketball team against the Guyanese national team in Georgetown.[16][102] At the time of events in Jonestown, Stephan and Tim were both nineteen and Jim Jones Jr. was eighteen.[105] Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters,[106][107][108] biological brother,[109] and biological mother,[110] all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan Jones refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.[111]
During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the American Embassy in Guyana in an attempt to receive help. The Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip.[112] Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children.[112] Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.[112] Stephan Jones was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths, and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months.[112] Tim Jones and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Peoples Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify the bodies of people who had died.[112] After returning to the United States, Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.[112]



 Lew Jones, Terry Carter and Chaeoke Jones


 Agnes Jones


 Kimo
When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan Jones had originally avoided two attempts by his father to relocate to the settlement. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third and final attempt. He has since said that he gave into his father's wishes to move to Jonestown because of his mother.[113] Stephan Jones is now a businessman, and married with three daughters. He appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel. He stated he will not watch the documentary and has never grieved for his father.[114] One year later, he appeared in the documentary Witness to Jonestown where he responds to rare footage shot inside the People's Temple.[115] Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage,[102] including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.[116]
Lew, Agnes and Suzanne Jones
Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes Jones was thirty-five years old at the time of her death.[117] Her husband[118] and four children[119][120][121][122] all died at Jonestown. Lew Jones, who was twenty-one years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke.[123][124][125] Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident.[16]
Suzanne Jones married Mike Cartmell; both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on November 18, 1978. After this decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my goddamned, no good for nothing daughter" and stated that she was not to be trusted.[126] In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline Jones directed that the Jones' funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell."[127][128] Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.[129][130]
John Stoen and Kimo
Specific references to Tim Stoen, the father of John Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape," as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Stoen among those committing "revolutionary suicide."[91] At Jonestown, John Stoen was found poisoned in Jim Jones' cabin.[67]
Both Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Louise Moore Layton, died during the events at Jonestown.[131]
Films[edit]
Documentaries[edit]
"Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre" (1998)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Seconds From Disaster - Jonestown Cult Suicide (2012)
Dramas[edit]
Guyana: Crime of the Century aka Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979) - Fictionalized exploitation film (Depicted as "Reverend James Johnson")
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980) - Fact-based drama
California Eden (2013) - Short film shot in Wales, UK [132]
JONESTOWN (2013) - AFI Thesis film directed by David B. Berget [133]
[134]
See also[edit]

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Cult suicide
Doomsday cult
List of people who have claimed to be Jesus
List of Buddha claimants
References[edit]
Explanatory notes
1.Jump up ^ While Jim Jones claimed to be partially of Cherokee descent through his mother Lynetta, this story was apparently not true. (Lindsay, Robert. "How Rev. Jim Jones and Black Spencer Gained His Power Over Followers". New York Times. November 26, 1978). Lynetta's cousin Barbara Shaffer said "there wasn't an ounce of Indian in our family." (Lindsay, Robert. "How Rev. Jim Jones Gained His Power Over Followers". New York Times. November 26, 1978). Shaffer said that Lynetta was Welsh. ("Jones—The Dark Private Side Emerges". Los Angeles Times. November 24, 1978). The birth records for Lynetta have since been lost. (Kilduff, Marshall and Ron Javers. "Jim Jones Always Led — Or Wouldn't Play". San Francisco Chronicle. December 4, 1978).
Citations
1.Jump up ^ Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.Archived 13 February 2011 at WebCite
2.^ Jump up to: a b See, e.g., Jones, Jim in conversation with John Maher, "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 622." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.]
3.^ Jump up to: a b Jones, Jim (1931 - 1978) American Cult Leader, World of Criminal Justice, Gale., retrieved October 10, 2012
4.Jump up ^ Brazil, Jeff (December 16, 1999), Jonestown's Horror Fades but Mystery Remain, Los Angeles Times
5.Jump up ^ Hall 1987, p. 3
6.Jump up ^ Levi 1982
7.^ Jump up to: a b Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 9–10
8.^ Jump up to: a b c Kilduff, Marshall and Javers, Ron. The Suicide Cult. Bantam Books, 1978. p. 10.
9.^ Jump up to: a b Hall 1987, p. 5
10.^ Jump up to: a b Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 24
11.^ Jump up to: a b c Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. American Experience, PBS.org.
12.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 27
13.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 33
14.^ Jump up to: a b "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple - Timeline." PBS.org. 20 February 2007.
15.Jump up ^ Knoll, James. Mass Suicide & the Jonestown Tragedy: Literature Summary. Jonestown Institute, San Diego State University. October 2007.
16.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Wessinger 2000
17.^ Jump up to: a b Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 134." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.]
18.^ Jump up to: a b c Horrock, Nicholas M., "Communist in 1950s", New York Times, December 17, 1978
19.^ Jump up to: a b Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 68
20.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 69
21.^ Jump up to: a b c Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 71
22.^ Jump up to: a b c Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 72
23.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 76
24.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 65
25.^ Jump up to: a b c Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple - People & Events PBS.org. 20 February 2007.
26.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 63
27.Jump up ^ Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 1023." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
28.^ Jump up to: a b "The Wills of Jim Jones and Marceline Jones." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
29.Jump up ^ "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple - Race and the Peoples Temple." PBS.org. 20 February 2007.
30.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 76–77
31.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 78
32.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 79
33.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 81
34.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 82
35.^ Jump up to: a b c Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 83
36.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 84
37.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 85–86
38.^ Jump up to: a b c New York Times, "How Rev. Jim Jones Gained His Power Over Followers," Robert Lindsay, November 26, 1978
39.Jump up ^ Layton 1998, p. 53
40.Jump up ^ Jim Jones, Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 1053
41.Jump up ^ Jones, Jim. "The Letter Killeth." Original material reprint. Department of Religious Studies. San Diego State University.
42.Jump up ^ Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. PBS.org.
43.^ Jump up to: a b Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 302–304
44.Jump up ^ Los Angeles Times, "First Lady Among Cult's References; Mondale, Califano also listed", November 21, 1978.
45.Jump up ^ Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 799." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
46.^ Jump up to: a b Kilduff, Marshall and Phil Tracy. "Inside Peoples Temple." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University. August 1, 1977.
47.Jump up ^ Layton 1998, p. 105
48.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 308
49.Jump up ^ "Another Day of Death." Time Magazine. 11 December 1978.
50.Jump up ^ VanDeCarr, Paul "Death of dreams: in November 1978, Harvey Milk's murder and the mass suicides at Jonestown nearly broke San Francisco's spirit.", The Advocate, November 25, 2003
51.Jump up ^ Sawyer, Mary My Lord, What a Mourning:’ Twenty Years Since Jonestown, Jonestown Institute at SDSU
52.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 369
53.Jump up ^ Goodlett, Carlton B., Notes on Peoples Temple, reprinted in Moore, Rebecca and Fielding M. McGehee, III, The Need for a Second Look at Jonestown, Edwin Mellen Press, 1989, ISBN 0-88946-649-1
54.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 282
55.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 285, 306, 587
56.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 314
57.Jump up ^ Layton 1998, p. 113
58.Jump up ^ Hall 1987, p. 132
59.Jump up ^ Jones, Jim. "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 50." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
60.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 451
61.Jump up ^ McCormick Maaga, Mary. Hearing the voices of Jonestown. Syracuse University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8156-0515-3.
62.Jump up ^ Moore, Rebecca. "The Demographics of Jonestown. Jonestown Institute, San Diego State University, adapted from Moore, Rebecca, Anthony Pinn and Mary Sawyer. "Demographics and the Black Religious Culture of Peoples Temple." in Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America. Bloomington: Indiana Press University, 2005. 57-80)
63.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 130–131
64.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 445
65.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 377
66.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 324
67.^ Jump up to: a b Reiterman & Jacobs 1982
68.Jump up ^ "Jim Jon (Kimo) Prokes". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
69.Jump up ^ Liebert, Larry, "What Politicians Say Now About Jones", San Francisco Chronicle, November 20, 1978
70.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 327
71.Jump up ^ Milk, Harvey Letter Addressed to President Jimmy Carter, Dated February 19, 1978
72.Jump up ^ Moore, Rebecca. A Sympathetic History of Jonestown. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press. ISBN 0-88946-860-5. p. 143.
73.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 408
74.Jump up ^ Hall 1987, p. 227
75.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 458
76.Jump up ^ "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University. April 11, 1978.
77.^ Jump up to: a b c "Affidavit of Deborah Layton Blakey." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
78.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 440
79.^ Jump up to: a b Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 481
80.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 476–480
81.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 487–488
82.^ Jump up to: a b Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 519–520
83.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 524
84.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 516
85.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 527
86.^ Jump up to: a b c d Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 529–531
87.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 533
88.Jump up ^ Who Died?, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown, San Diego State University
89.Jump up ^ 1978: Mass suicide leaves 900 dead. BBC, November 18, 2005
90.Jump up ^ Rapaport, Richard, Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory, San Francisco Chronicle, November 16, 2003
91.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Jim Jones, "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 42." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
92.Jump up ^ http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/blog/the-jonestown-cult-drank-the-flavor-aid-2
93.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 559
94.^ Jump up to: a b Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 390–391
95.Jump up ^ Guyana Inquest — Interviews of Cecil Roberts & Cyril Mootoo (PDF), retrieved February 23, 2010
96.Jump up ^ Jonestown: Paradise Lost, Interview of Stephan Jones, Documentary airing on Discovery Networks, 2007
97.Jump up ^ Autopsy of Jim Jones by Kenneth H. Mueller, Jonestown Institute at SDSU
98.^ Jump up to: a b Wise, David. "Sex in Peoples Temple." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
99.^ Jump up to: a b Paranoia And Delusions, Time Magazine, December 11, 1978
100.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 176–177
101.Jump up ^ "FAQ: Who was the leader of Peoples Temple?" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
102.^ Jump up to: a b c Fish, Jon and Chris Connelly (5 October 2007), Outside the Lines: Grandson of Jonestown founder is making a name for himself, ESPN.com, retrieved August 23, 2008
103.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, p. 565
104.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 505–506
105.Jump up ^ "Who Survived the Jonestown Tragedy?" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
106.Jump up ^ "Janet Marie Tupper" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
107.Jump up ^ "Mary Elizabeth Tupper" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
108.Jump up ^ "Ruth Ann Tupper" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
109.Jump up ^ "Larry Howard Tupper" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
110.Jump up ^ "Rita Jeanette Tupper Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
111.Jump up ^ Reiterman & Jacobs 1982, pp. 474–475
112.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Smith, Gary. "Escaping Jonestown." Sports Illustrated. CNN.com. 24 December 2007.
113.Jump up ^ Jones, Stephan. - "Marceline/Mom" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
114.Jump up ^ Brownstein, Bill. "The son who survived Jonestown." The Gazette. Canada. 9 March 2007.
115.Jump up ^ [1] Netflix.
116.Jump up ^ "22 - Rob Jones." University of San Diego Official Athletic Site. Accessed: 2009-10-03. Archived by WebCite
117.Jump up ^ Agnes Paulette Jones Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple]. San Diego State University.
118.Jump up ^ "Forrest Ray Jones" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
119.Jump up ^ "Billy Jones" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
120.Jump up ^ "Jimbo Jones" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
121.Jump up ^ "Michael Ray Jones" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
122.Jump up ^ "Stephanie Jones" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
123.Jump up ^ Lew Eric Jones Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
124.Jump up ^ "Terry Carter Jones" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
125.Jump up ^ "Chaeoke Warren Jones" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
126.Jump up ^ FBI Tape Q 265 - October 17, 1978 address. Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
127.Jump up ^ "November 18 1978 Letter from Marceline Jones." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
128.Jump up ^ "Letter from Marceline Jones." Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.
129.Jump up ^ Who Has Died Since 18 November 1978? Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
130.Jump up ^ Smith, Gary. "Escape From Jonestown" Sports Illustrated CNN.com. 24 December 2007.
131.Jump up ^ "Carolyn Louise Moore Layton" Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. San Diego State University.
132.Jump up ^ IMDB - California Eden
133.Jump up ^ [2]
134.Jump up ^ [3]
Bibliography
Chidester, David, Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the People's Temple and Jonestown (Religion in North America), 2nd rev.ed., Indiana University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0-253-21632-8
Hall, John R. (1987), Gone from the Promised Land, Transaction Publishers, ISBN 0-88738-124-3
Klineman, George and Sherman Butler. The Cult That Died. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1980. ISBN 0-399-12540-X.
Layton, Deborah (1999), Seductive Poison, Anchor Books, ISBN 0-385-48984-6
Levi, Ken (1982), Violence and Religious Commitment
Maaga, Mary McCormick. Hearing the voices of Jonestown. Syracuse University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8156-0515-3.
Naipaul, Shiva. Black & White. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1980. ISBN 0-241-10337-1.
Reiterman, Tom; Jacobs, John (1982), Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People, Dutton, ISBN 0-525-24136-1
Wessinger, Catherine (2000), How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven's Gate, Seven Bridges Press, ISBN 978-1-889119-24-3
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jim Jones
The Jonestown Institute
FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", Recorded 18 November 1978 (Internet Archive)
Transcript of Jones' final speech, just before the mass suicide
The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
History Channel Video and Stills
Isaacson, Barry. From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre
Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later, Time magazine
Jonestown 30 Years Later photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later
Nakao, Annie.The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it.
American Experience documentary, "Jonestown: The Life And Death Of Peoples Temple", shown on PBS
Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle by Michael Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Published Thursday, November 12, 1998.
Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn? Larry D. Hatfield, of The Examiner staff, Gregory Lewis and Eric Brazil of The Examiner staff and Examiner Librarian Judy Canter contributed to this report. Published Sunday, November 8, 1998.
Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor by Michael Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. And [Haunted by Memories of Hell ] by Kevin Fagan, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Published Thursday, November 12, 1998. Both stories were included in the first of a two-part series.
The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy by Don Lattin, San Francisco Chronicle religion writer. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed by Michael Taylor and Don Lattin, San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. And Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre by Maitland Zane, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Published Friday, November 13, 1998. All stories were included in the second part of a two-part series.
Inside Peoples Temple Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy, Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle. Published Monday, August 1, 1977.

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Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple


Timeline
Wings of deliverance·
 I-Hotel·
 Peoples Temple in San Francisco·
 Jonestown·
 Jonestown conspiracy theory
 

People

Members
Timothy Stoen·
 Larry Layton·
 Deborah Layton·
 Jeannie Mills
 

Congressional entourage
Congressman Leo J. Ryan·
 Jackie Speier·
 Tim Reiterman·
 Don Harris·
 Steve Sung·
 Bob Flick·
 Charles I. Krause·
 Marshall Kilduff
 

Other
Father Divine·
 Charles Garry·
 Mark Lane·
 George Moscone·
 Willie Brown·
 Harvey Milk·
 Angela Davis·
 Huey Newton·
 John R. Burke·
 Mervyn M. Dymally
 


Books
Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy (1980)·
 Raven (1982)·
 Seductive Poison (1999)·
 A Thousand Lives (2011)
 

Films and television

Documentaries
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)·
 Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
 

Dramatizations
Guyana: Crime of the Century (1979)·
 Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980)
 


Related articles
Cult Awareness Network·
 Drinking the Kool-Aid·
 The Mary Pearl Willis Foundation·
 Evergreen Cemetery
 

WikiSource·
 Wikimedia Commons
 


Authority control
­WorldCat·
 ­VIAF: 10637491·
 ­LCCN: n79017289·
 ­ISNI: 0000 0001 2208 7264·
 ­GND: 118558285
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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