Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk was an American politician was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. Milk was born in New York in 1930 and later moved to San Francisco, California where he remained until the time of his death. He knew that he was gay ever since high school but had chosen to keep his sexuality private even throughout the emerging gay rights movement. However despite this, he began to befriend many gay radicals in Greenwich Village, which at the time was a hub for the growing LGBT community. Milk declared his candidacy in 1973 for a position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors but lost due to his lack of both experience and money. After running and losing again 2 years later, Milk had established himself as a well respected and outspoken leader of the gay community. He won a seat finally in 1977, becoming the first openly gay person elected into office in the United States.
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AssassinationMilk's homosexuality caused a lot of controversy at the time of his ascension into office. Some people had seen Milk's ascension into power as showing a tolerance for homosexuality and allowing the breakdown of traditional family values, as homosexuality at this time was considered to be a mental illness. Supervisor Dan White, a former police officer and fireman, was one of those people and clashed with Milk frequently on different policy issues, He resigned his position claiming that the salary he was receiving was not enough to support his family, but later asked for his position to be reinstated. Mayor Moscone chose not to reinstate his position and chose to instead appoint a more liberal board member. This caused White to become outrage, thinking that Milk and Moscone were going to ruin his city. On November 27 1978, White crawled through a window in the basement to avoid the metal detectors where he went up to the Mayors office and threatened Moscone to reinstate him, the two were heard arguing before he was shot twice in the chest and twice in the head. From there he travelled down the corridor and confronted Milk in his office, shooting him once in the back, twice in the chest and twice in the head. The bodies were found by Dianne Feinstein when she heard the gunshots and went to investigate. White went to a nearby diner and called his wife and after telling her what he had done, she escorted him to the police station where White used to work and he turned himself in.
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AftermathAll flags in California were lowered to half mast as many political figures including the Governor Jerry Brown and President Jimmy Carter expressed their condolences for both Moscone and Milk. Dan White's trial was to become famous as it was to be known as the "Twinkie Defence". His lawyers claimed that White had abandoned his healthy diet in the weeks leading up to the murders, choosing to indulge in doughnuts, cans of coke and Twinkies. He was charged with manslaughter as opposed to murder and ultimately served 6 years in prison, much to the outrage of many in the community. This was largely blamed on the predominantly Roman Catholic, heterosexual, working class and white jury. Demonstrations outside of City Hall after the news of Whites downgraded sentence turned from peaceful to violent. The White Night riots were sparked by his sentencing, when upon hearing the verdict a friend of Milk's called out to a crowd of 500 on Castro Street to get "Out of the bars and into the streets". The crowd grew to 1500 people as the marched through Castro and reached 5000 as they reached City Hall. Police were unsure of how to handle the spontaneous riot and did not know how to proceed. The crowd were convinced that the police had conspired to give White a lighter sentence, so the crowd was very angry and began to try and break down the City Hall Doors. A man kicked in a window of a police car and set the upholstery on fire, an a dozen more cars were destroyed in a similar fashion. During the riots, over 140 protesters were injured during the riots as well as many police officers.
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