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Gay History Month: Harvey Milk, James Baldwin, Sylvia Rivera
2006-10-18

This article shared 7559 times since Wed Oct 18, 2006
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James Baldwin interviewed by Jim Tillman on a 1968 TV show in Chicago. Harvey Milk photo by Nicoletta

Harvey Milk

Eleven months after his inauguration on San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk was assassinated—along with Mayor George Moscone—in City Hall, the victim of a former supervisor's outrage over the liberal shift in city politics. Milk was instantly made a martyr of the gay community. Sensing the danger of his position within city government, he had created several recorded wills to be played in the event of his assassination. One memorable line is inscribed today in a plaza named for him: 'If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.' The gunman, Dan White, was eventually charged and convicted of manslaughter, serving only five years in prison and committing suicide shortly after. His trial strategy is infamously known as the 'Twinkie Defense,' in which his lawyer argued that White was depressed because of the large amounts of junk food he had ingested. The verdict inflamed members of San Francisco's gay community, and the evening following the verdict, a mob encroached upon City Hall in what was to be known as the White Night Riots. Outraged citizens clashed with police, who took on their own antigay agenda, mercilessly beating individuals and destroying property in the largely gay Castro neighborhood. The following day was Harvey Milk's birthday and, fearing a second night of rioting, the city permitted Castro Street to be closed in celebration of Milk and his legacy. The celebration went smoothly as individuals spoke on a makeshift stage and disco music filled the air, a fitting tribute to a man named as one of the 100 most influential politicians by Time magazine. Milk's political journey ended abruptly, but not without a budding, still-growing legacy. Along with an annual commemorative candlelight march in San Francisco honoring Milk and Moscone, the Harvey Milk High School in New York serves at-risk LGBT youth, and several notable landmarks in San Francisco's Castro district have been named for him, all of which are a testament to his impact on the community in San Francisco and across the country.

James Baldwin

James Baldwin, another noteworthy individual, made his mark on the literary industry long before the budding civil-rights struggles of the 1960s. Growing up in Harlem from his birth in 1924 until he moved to Paris in 1948, Baldwin took both the gay and Black communities under his wing as a writer. He published many essays discussing homophobia as well as racism, linking the two as a byproduct of humanity's severe fragmentation. His most noteworthy books, including the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, deal with his experience and reactions to the racial and sexual prejudice which plagued him during his youth.

Even after his death in 1987, Baldwin continues to be a leading literary figure throughout the world, and an inspiration to the GLBT community.

Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rivera was one of the earliest and most influential members of the Gay Liberation Front, and a vocal presence during the Stonewall riots. Rivera and friend Marsha P. Johnson started the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries ( STAR ) , a needed resource for the transvestite community, which had often found itself shunned and excluded from the traditional gay and lesbian community. As one of the earliest trans activists, Rivera is one of the few transvestites who made a strong impact on the burgeoning civil-rights movement. From her beginnings as a young Puerto Rican drag queen to her death in 2001, Rivera is a loud exception to the white-dominated GLBT movement.

— Jason Villemez


This article shared 7559 times since Wed Oct 18, 2006
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