“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” – Harvey Milk

This summer’s Heritage of Pride celebrations commemorating the 1969 Stonewall riots also coincide with the 30th anniversary of the assassination of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man in the nation to be elected to political office. 

In May 1978 California’s Proposition 6, also known as “the Briggs Initiative,” became the first California ballot measure aimed to prevent gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools.  Introduced by conservative state senator John Briggs, it allowed for the firing of any teacher determined to be “advocating, imposing, encouraging or promoting” homosexual activity. 

Milk organized the campaign to defeat the measure, and in the fall general election voters rejected Prop 6 by a landslide.  Three weeks later, on November 27, 1978, Dan White, a recently resigned member of the Board of Supervisors whom Mayor George Moscone had refused to reappoint to his seat, climbed through a City Hall basement window and fatally shot Milk and Moscone.  He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter based on diminished capacity (the contention that junk food was a contributing factor would later be referred to as “the Twinkie defense”) and was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison. 

The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Rob Epstein, chronicles Milk’s transformation from neighborhood activist to galvanizing symbol of the gay political movement.  Produced by Epstein and Richard Schmiechen and narrated by Harvey Fierstein, the film won the 1984 Academy Award® for Documentary Feature.  

Black Sand Educational Productions.  1984.  35mm.  84 minutes.  Screened by permission of New Yorker Films.