Gay Icon Harvey Milk to be Inducted into California Hall of
Fame Next Week
SACRAMENTO, November 27, 2009 (the 31st anniversary of the assassination of
Harvey Milk) –
The late Harvey Bernard Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected
to significant public office in America, is to be inducted into The
California Museum’s California Hall of Fame in a ceremony next week
performed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the State’s ‘First Lady’,
Maria Shriver.
Also being inducted on December 1 are 12 others, including filmmaker George
Lucas, comedienne/actress Carol Burnett, American football commentator John
Madden and author Danielle Steele.
In true Californian style, the stars are expected to be out for the ‘red
carpet’ ceremony which gets underway at 5pm.
Attending the ceremony will be Stuart Milk, the nephew of Harvey Milk, and
Sean Penn who portrayed the San Francisco supervisor (councillor) in the
2009 Academy Award-winning film Milk.
Also expected to attend are State Senator Mark Leno, Assembly member Tom
Ammiano, San Diego activist Nicole Murray Ramirez, Milk Foundation director
Mike Colby, Milk’s campaign manager Anne Kronenberg and Milk campaign
staffer Gwen Craig.
Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in City
Hall on November 27, 1978, by Dan White, another supervisor.
The late Mayor Moscone’s children Jonathon and Rebecca will also be present
at the ceremony.
Harvey Milk, born in 1930 in Woodmere on Long Island, was the first openly
gay person elected to a significant public office in the United States who
encouraged lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens to live
their lives openly, believing that was the only way they could achieve
social equality.
After serving in the United States Navy on submarines during the Korean War
and a stint as a diving instructor at the Navy’s base in San Diego, Milk
moved from New York City to San Francisco and the Castro District in 1972,
immediately becoming a community activist.
He was voted into office as San Francisco City Supervisor for
District 5 (which includes The Castro) in 1977.
In his less-than-a-year in office, Harvey Milk achieved the enactment of
California’s first ordinance barring discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation, which was then the most progressive law in the nation.
The California Hall of Fame will feature 13 exhibits for each of the
inductees.
Harvey Milk’s exhibit will include a time capsule created in 1987 by his
friends and, until recently, entombed in a Washington, DC cemetery.
Items encased in the urn include a
hair cutting a campaign button; an audiocassette dated June 10, 1978, titled
Harvey Milk speech in Dallas, his
city supervisor letterhead; a rainbow flag; an enveloped letter addressed to
Scott Smith; and a film negative of Milk.
Also on display will be his San Francisco City Supervisor badge, a copy of
Proposition 6 (also known as the 1978 Briggs Initiative), San Francisco’s
anti-discrimination statute, campaign button from his various campaigns, a
copy of the New York State College for Teachers yearbook,
and the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, posthumously awarded by President Barack Obama on August 12.