Introduction
You often struggle to create lasting political change when entrenched power structures ignore your community. You need a strategy to transform marginalized identities into formidable electoral and economic power. Randy Shilts addresses this challenge through the life of Harvey Milk and the rise of San Francisco's Castro district.
Harvey Milk transformed urban politics by building grassroots economic and political power, becoming the first openly gay man elected to major public office before his tragic assassination.
The book traces Milk's journey from a closeted corporate life to a radical awakening after the Stonewall riots. You follow the transformation of a rundown neighborhood into a thriving gay mecca and the subsequent legislative battles inside City Hall. The narrative examines coalition building, statewide backlash against gay rights, and the violent trauma of the assassinations.
- How do you build an effective electoral coalition from a marginalized minority?
- What tactics work best against entrenched machine politicians?
- How does a community survive a devastating political assassination?
1. Early Life and Compartmentalized Existence
Early gay life in mid-20th century America was characterized by pervasive fear, secrecy, and routine police entrapment. You discover a society where authorities targeted homosexuals in public spaces under minor technicalities.
For the first four decades of his life, Harvey Milk maintained a strict separation between his personal desires and his public conformity, avoiding political militancy.
Police routinely targeted gay men in public spaces like Central Park under minor technicalities such as indecent exposure for taking off their shirts. This instilled intense fear of exposure among homosexual youths.
In August 1947, seventeen-year-old Harvey Milk was arrested and loaded into a paddy wagon during a police sweep of Central Park for men who removed their shirts.
Milk served enthusiastically in the Navy during the Korean War before growing disillusioned with military bureaucracy and facing the constant threat of anti-gay purges. He enlisted three months after college and landed at Officers Candidate School eight months after enlistment. He used his officer status to maintain an apartment in San Diego where he and his gay friends hosted weekend parties and picked up hitchhiking sailors.
Harvey Milk's longest relationship in his early life was a domestic partnership with nineteen-year-old Joe Campbell, characterized by middle-class comfort and romantic devotion. They lived together for several years in New York and briefly Dallas after meeting at Riis Park Beach in 1955. Harvey earned a weekly salary of $140 at Great American Insurance while Joe earned $90 from gilding furniture. Harvey showered Joe with romantic love notes, paid to have Joe's teeth capped, and eventually ended the relationship in 1962 when he felt bored and unsatisfied.
Milk operated as a classic gay everyman who walked a tightrope between sexual expression and social conventionality. He spent forty years as a drifter figuring out his life path while refusing to join early activist efforts out of fear of destroying his career and shocking his parents. When police raided gay establishments or friends engaged in public protests, Milk characteristically slipped out the back door rather than confronting authorities.
2. Stonewall and the Radical Awakening
The Stonewall riots of June 1969 ignited a militant gay liberation movement that challenged police harassment and societal oppression.
You find that early homophile organizations in the 1950s provided mutual aid and a nascent political voice. Faced with police raids and extreme social isolation, activists founded the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis.
Four lesbian couples led by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon formed the Daughters of Bilitis in 1955 to create a safe space for holding hands and dancing.
- Host private parties at members' houses for safe socializing.
- Organize public discussion nights under respectable covers to air complaints.
Entertainer Jose Sarria transformed San Francisco's premier bohemian gay bar into a center of political defiance and community pride. Jose Sarria led patrons in singing "God Save Us Nelly Queens" to prisoners held in the Hall of Justice across the street from The Black Cat bar.
- Stand and form a circle to be proud of who you are.
- If tapped on the shoulder by a plainclothes officer, swallow first, state you are not guilty, and demand a trial by jury.
Early gay activists utilized the legal system and jury trials to challenge police entrapment and establish rights of assembly. The Black Cat successfully fought the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission all the way to the California Supreme Court to defend the right of homosexuals to peacefully assemble.
- Pin a slip of paper reading "I am a boy" to a dress to bypass anti-cross-dressing ordinances.
- Plead not guilty and demand a trial by jury to clog court dockets.
Police photographed and arrested attendees and lawyers at a multi-group New Year's Eve benefit in 1964, provoking fierce condemnation from allied clergymen.
- Deploy a trio of lawyers to challenge police entry into private parties without tickets.
- Mobilize liberal church leaders to form watchdog alliances like the Council on Religion and the Homosexual.
3. Arrival on Castro Street
An influx of gay immigrants transformed San Francisco's Castro district into a liberated zone and economic powerhouse.
As San Francisco shifted toward corporate headquarters and tourism, working-class neighborhoods changed. A massive influx of white, middle-class gay migrants settled in areas like the old Irish neighborhood around Castro Street.
The geographic concentration of a marginalized population can rapidly build formidable economic and political power.
Harvey Milk and Scott moved into a cheap Castro Street apartment in late 1972 and opened a camera store using their last $1,000. By the late 1970s, the influx of tens of thousands of gay men into San Francisco's Castro district transformed the neighborhood into a liberated zone and economic powerhouse, allowing the community to wield consumer boycotts and generate massive commercial revenues.
After a rumor that beer magnate Joseph Coors donated to Anita Bryant's anti-gay campaign, gay bars dropped the popular beer, ending its status as California's top-selling beer.
By 1978, the Castro district had evolved into an international gay tourist mecca defined by a rigid lifestyle, hyper-masculinity, and soaring real estate inflation. An influx of gay immigrants strained housing stock, displaced minority residents, and caused real estate transaction rates and lease prices to skyrocket, transforming the neighborhood into a commercialized enclave.
Harvey Milk's landlord increased the rent on Castro Camera from $350 to $1,200 a month after Milk publicly denounced him for evicting an elderly tenant.
4. Building Power and Campaign Tactics
Harvey Milk leveraged theatrical stunts, grassroots organizing, and labor alliances to challenge machine politics and build electoral momentum.
Traditional political avenues were closed to an openly gay, long-haired hippie in 1973. Instead of relying on money, you used flamboyant symbols, staged press releases, and provocative statements to ensure the press covered your campaign. Milk spent 4500 dollars on his entire campaign and finished 10th in a field of 32 candidates, polling 17000 votes.
Milk created committees like Veterans for Milk, falsely claiming he was dishonorably discharged from the Navy for being gay because he knew the story would make compelling news.
Milk used his camera shop not just as a retail business, but as an informal community center where newcomers could find housing, jobs, and assistance with civic problems. You could use the daily check cashing records at Castro Camera to compile an extensive mailing list for your political campaigns. Milk's network registered 2350 new voters for the governor's race in 1974. The Castro Village Association charged 20 dollars for an annual membership fee.
Milk jotted down a straightforward, nuts-and-bolts procedure for political candidates to follow in order to secure electoral victory during a visit with college professor and Los Angeles gay liaison Don Amador:
- Interviews with all major papers
- Knock on all doors
- Ride buses
- Visit non-gay bars during the daytime and any singles bars at nite
- Coffee shops and restaurants. Stop off early in morning and late at night
- Shake hands
- Shake hands
- As few meetings as possible—just meet the people
- Door to door of registered Demo's is very best thing you can do outside of media coverage
- Don't stop
Milk secured the backing of powerful, traditionally macho trade unions by addressing practical working-class concerns and showing straightforward respect.
Moderate gay groups shunned him and mainstream labor leaders hesitated, but Milk earned the endorsements of the Teamsters, Firefighters, and the Building and Construction Trades Council. You achieved this by supporting labor demands one hundred percent, participating in the Coors beer boycott, and showing up constantly at candidate nights.
Union boss George Evankovich and Stan Smith supported Milk after realizing he shot straight with them and proved his grit. Firefighters went so far as to paint Make Mine Milk on a hook and ladder truck. Jim Elliot's machinist local represented 2300 mechanics, while the Trades Council had 22000 members.
5. The Historic Victory and City Hall Battles
Seventeen candidates filed for the District 5 supervisorial seat. Harvey Milk won by a lopsided margin against sixteen challengers, securing over 30 percent of the vote.
Milk won the District 5 supervisorial seat as the first openly gay official, bringing neighborhood-level ward politics into sharp conflict with conservative board members.
On election night, crowds overflowed into Castro Street as Milk arrived on a motorcycle. You saw him beat both Terrance Hallinan and Rick Stokes by a better than two-to-one margin, becoming the first openly gay elected official in a major United States city.
Milk functioned as a traditional ward healer, mastering the alderman brand of realpolitik. You understood that mundane local concerns directly affected residents' daily lives, ensuring that pothole repairs and neighborhood improvements received top priority.
Milk successfully fought to keep a neighborhood grade school and library branch open. Street sweeping on Castro Street increased, and Milk proudly counted fifty new neighborhood stop signs among his accomplishments.
Dan White became deeply embittered toward Milk after Milk switched his vote on a neighborhood psychiatric treatment center in a 6-5 vote on the board. White opposed Milk's gay rights ordinance and severed communication, voting against the municipal gay rights bill in retaliation before the bill ultimately passed by a 10-1 margin.
White grew close to downtown real estate developers and corporate interests, receiving a fried potato concession at Pier 39 while earning the 800 dollars monthly salary granted to supervisors.
6. The Briggs Initiative and Statewide Backlash
The initial wave of legislative victories for gay civil rights in early 1977 provoked a powerful, highly organized religious and political backlash. Anita Bryant launched the Save Our Children campaign against a Dade County gay rights ordinance, leveraging media strategies and claiming that homosexuals must recruit because they cannot reproduce. On June 7, 1977—known as Orange Tuesday—Dade County voters repealed their gay rights law by a better than two-to-one margin.
A coordinated wave of fundamentalist Christian political mobilization swept across American cities to repeal local gay rights ordinances.
Born-again Christians formed an ardent corps of true believers who organized door-to-door petition drives and referenda to overturn gay rights laws, viewing the fight as a scripturally mandated battle against sin. Wichita voters rejected their city's gay rights ordinance by a margin of five to one.
Temple Baptist Church couples in St. Paul went door to door asking if residents wanted overt homosexuals teaching children, successfully placing a repeal measure on the ballot.
Activists utilized secret, rapid-mobilization tactics to turn legislative defeats into massive, highly visible street demonstrations. When local ordinances were repealed, organizers bypassed traditional permits and used flyers, phone poles, and whistles to summon crowds for spontaneous, disruptive marches designed for television cameras.
At 3 A.M. before the St. Paul vote, Cleve Jones and friends blanketed Castro Street with fliers, leading to a march of two thousand people blowing police whistles.
Proposition 6 in California 1978 became a high-stakes national political battle over gay rights, pitting Harvey Milk against its sponsor, state senator John Briggs. Both Milk and Briggs were forty-eight-year-old Korean War veterans and political scrappers who used buzzwords and apocalyptic visions. Briggs framed the initiative around protecting children and preventing moral decay, while Milk systematically countered with typed notes, arguing the initiative mirrored fascist discrimination and infringed on basic freedoms.
During a televised debate in a Walnut Creek high school auditorium, Briggs claimed that a third of San Francisco's teachers were gay and that homosexuals must recruit children to survive, to which Milk retorted by joking about nuns and pointing out the prevalence of heterosexual family abuse.
Proposition 6 was soundly defeated by a massive margin in the November general election, giving the gay rights movement a monumental victory. Initial polls showing strong early support for the initiative collapsed as John Briggs's tactics alienated voters. The measure failed by over a million votes statewide, carrying a 75-25 percent rejection margin in San Francisco.
On election night, a brass band marched into the packed hall off Castro Street playing San Francisco as final results showed a two-to-one statewide victory against Proposition 6.
Harvey Milk continually urged all gay people to come out of the closet as the ultimate assertion of personal political power. Milk maintained that relying purely on liberal political friends was insufficient; true power came from grass-roots visibility, which shattered harmful stereotypes and proved that homosexuals were an integral part of families and communities everywhere.
Following the victory over Proposition 6, Milk urged the crowd at the celebration hall to have every closeted gay person come out to their families, relatives, and friends.
7. Assassination at City Hall
Dan White systematically assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk inside City Hall, provoking immense grief and a massive candlelight march.
On November 27, 1978, former Supervisor Dan White entered City Hall through a window to bypass metal detectors. He carried a Smith & Wesson .38 Chief's Special revolver and ten Remington hollow-headed dum-dum bullets.
White met with Mayor George Moscone and learned he would not be reappointed. He shot Moscone in the arm, chest, and head, including coup de grace shots. White then reloaded his revolver, walked across City Hall to the supervisors' offices, and lured Harvey Milk into his old office.
At approximately 10:55 A.M., White shot Milk to death because Milk had smirked at him. White fled City Hall using his aide's car and met his wife Mary Ann at St. Mary's Cathedral. Mary Ann held onto his waist as they walked to Northern Station to prevent him from using the weapon on himself. At 11:25 A.M., White turned himself in to former colleagues and confessed on tape.
Following the murders of the nation's first openly gay city official and the populist mayor, you could feel the shock paralyze San Francisco. Less than eleven months after taking office, Harvey Milk was dead.
Organized by the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, mourners gathered at 7:30 P.M. on the corner of Castro and Market Streets. Cleve Jones used a bullhorn to broadcast lyrics by folk singer Meg Christian while thousands of candles flickered in the night.
A silent crowd estimated at forty thousand strong marched from Castro Street to the City Hall rotunda. Joan Baez, Harry Britt, and Dianne Feinstein addressed the gathering beneath the darkened dome.
8. The Trial, Verdict, and White Night Riots
Defense attorney Doug Schmidt successfully engineered a homogenous, all-heterosexual jury composed largely of white working-class Catholic ethnics for the Dan White trial. Schmidt shaped a jury that lacked any black, Asian, or gay members by disqualifying potential jurors who had ties to gay friends or parades.
Prosecutor Tom Norman accepted the jury after only three days and after using only six of his twenty-six peremptory challenges.
An all-heterosexual jury convicted Dan White of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder, sparking the destructive White Night Riots across San Francisco.
The defense utilized psychiatric testimony arguing diminished capacity, claiming that biochemical changes induced by severe stress and a poor diet of junk food caused Dan White to experience an uncontrolled rage. Defense psychiatrists argued that White was a deeply moral, honorable man whose traditional American values were broken by a devious city government.
Expert witnesses testified that White brought a gun as a security blanket and that his choice to shoot Moscone was an impersonal, moral alternative to punching him in the nose.
The jury deliberated for thirty-six hours and returned verdicts on two counts of voluntary manslaughter under section 192.1 of the penal code.
Juror Richard Aparicio beamed at Dan White and rapped his knuckles loudly on the defense table after the verdict on Monday, May 21 at 5:28 P.M., while other jurors and White's family broke into tears. The resulting sentence was 7 years, 8 months for two counts of voluntary manslaughter.
The lenient manslaughter verdicts sparked an immediate, massive, and destructive protest by thousands of gays marching from the Castro to City Hall. Activists like Cleve Jones used Harvey Milk's old bullhorn to mobilize angry crowds chanting slogans against Dan White and the justice system.
Cleve Jones first vomited upon hearing the verdict over the phone, declaring it meant it was all right to kill gay people in America, before rushing out to organize the march.
The protest quickly escalated into an assault on City Hall as demonstrators smashed glass doors, shattered first-floor windows, and set police cars on fire.
10 Key Ideas
- For the first four decades of his life, Harvey Milk maintained a strict separation between his personal desires and his public conformity, avoiding political militancy.
- The Stonewall riots of June 1969 ignited a militant gay liberation movement that challenged police harassment and societal oppression.
- The geographic concentration of a marginalized population can rapidly build formidable economic and political power.
- Harvey Milk leveraged theatrical stunts, grassroots organizing, and labor alliances to challenge machine politics and build electoral momentum.
- Milk won the District 5 supervisorial seat as the first openly gay official, bringing neighborhood-level ward politics into sharp conflict with conservative board members.
- A coordinated wave of fundamentalist Christian political mobilization swept across American cities to repeal local gay rights ordinances.
- Dan White systematically assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk inside City Hall, provoking immense grief and a massive candlelight march.
- An all-heterosexual jury convicted Dan White of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder, sparking the destructive White Night Riots across San Francisco.
- Activists like Cleve Jones used Harvey Milk's old bullhorn to mobilize angry crowds chanting slogans against Dan White and the justice system.
- Harvey Milk continually urged all gay people to come out of the closet as the ultimate assertion of personal political power.