Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in New York, where he acknowledged his homosexuality early, but chose to pursue relationships with secrecy and discretion. He held an assortment of jobs and moved frequently, as he was constantly restless and had no tolerance for boredom. Milk joined the counterculture of the 1960s, shedding many of his conservative views, and moved to San Francisco in 1972.
He moved to SF and held office until he was killed by Dan White:
On November 10, 1978, ten months after being sworn in, Supervisor 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.[95] Milk had also felt the pinch of the decrease in income when he and Scott Smith were forced to close Castro Camera a month before.[note 6] 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.[96] Within days White requested the position again, and Mayor Moscone initially agreed.[97][98] 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 liberal leanings of the Board of Supervisors.[99] On November 18, news broke of the murder of Representative Leo Ryan in Guyana, and the next day came news of the mass suicide of members of the Peoples Temple, who had relocated from San Francisco to build a remote community in Jonestown, Guyana. Horror came in degrees as San Franciscans learned more than 400 Jonestown residents were dead.[100] Dan White remarked to two aides who were working to get him reinstated, "You see that? One day I'm on the front page and the next I'm swept right off."[101] Soon the number of dead in Guyana topped 900.[102]
Moscone planned to announce White's replacement one week later, on November 27, 1978.[103] Half an hour before the press conference, Dan White entered City Hall through a basement window to avoid metal detectors and made his way to Mayor Moscone's office. Witnesses heard shouting between White and Moscone, then gunshots as White shot the mayor once in the arm, then three times in the head after Moscone had fallen on the floor.[104] White then quickly walked to his former office, reloading his police-issue revolver along the way, and intercepted Harvey 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. Feinstein was shaking so badly afterward she required support from the police chief after identifying both bodies.[103][note 7] It was she who announced to the press, "Today San Francisco has experienced a double tragedy of immense proportions... 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".[47][103] Milk was 48 years old. Moscone was 49.
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