I know a lot of my LGBTQ+ friends aren't going to be enamored about any sort of USN ship, no matter what the name is, but having a Navy support ship named after Harvey Milk seems like a story from a different timeline. Having it visit San Francisco Bay makes the story even better.
I sincerely believe Ryan’s speech at the Nex Benedict vigil and march was Harvey Milk levels of powerful. That’s why I’m the only journalist who filmed it. The rest of the local media pretended this never even happened. https://youtu.be/BBiKT4gHR3U?si=VmFz3x06_NXqE5we
Today in Labor History January 15, 1976: A judge sentenced Sara Jane Moore to life in prison. She had attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in front of the St. Francis Hotel, in San Francisco. It was the second failed attempt on Ford that year. Oliver Sipple, a gay marine veteran happened to be standing nearby and thwarted her second shot. Sipple was out of the closet and fairly well-known in the San Francisco gay scene. He was also friends with Harvey Milk, who outed Sipple to journalist Herb Caen. Milk’s rationale: "For once we can show that gays do heroic things, not just all that caca about molesting children and hanging out in bathrooms." However, Sipple who was still in the closet with respect to his family, was devastated. His mother disowned him. Family members refused to speak to him. The president refused to invite him to the White House or offer him a medal or commendation. Sipple sued the San Francisco Chronicle for invasion of privacy. But the courts ruled against him. His mental and physical health deteriorated after this. He started drinking heavily and was found dead in his apartment in 1989, at the age of 47.
Today in Labor History November 27, 1978: Former cop and supervisor Dan White assassinated San Francisco’s mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk. A jury later acquitted White on the Twinkie Defense, claiming that he had gone temporarily insane from junk food. This travesty of justice led to the White Night Riot, after decades of police harassment and physical abuse of San Francisco’s LGBTQ community. People attacked the windows of City Hall. When the cops tried to protect the building, people hurled rocks and bottles at them, forcing them to run inside. Where ever the cops showed up, people threw rocks at them. At least a dozen cop cars were torched. They busted windows in the financial district and in government buildings. Many people were injured. The riot caused hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of property damage to City Hall. And when the riot was finally subdued, the cops made a retaliatory raid on the Elephant Bar, in the Castro District. Cops in riot gear beat patrons. They arrested 24 people.
The double assassination of Moscone and Milk dramatically altered the political landscape of San Francisco. Under Moscone and Milk, the city was moving in a progressive, pro-neighborhood direction. With the new mayor, Diane Feinstein, city politics returned to the traditional, conservative, pro-Chamber of Commerce, law and order framework that preceded Moscone and Milk. And Feinstein parlayed her success as SF mayor into a long and sordid career in Congress, where she was a strong proponent of Capital Punishment, vitriolic opponent of the Green New Deal, supporter of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, and generally supported U.S. imperialist policy abroad.
#DianneFeinstein, centrist stalwart of the Senate, dies at 90
A trailblazer for women in politics, she led the Intelligence Committee and helped mold the federal bench. Amid health setbacks, she faced calls to resign.
It was the morning of Nov 27, 1978, & #DianneFeinstein, a future powerhouse of the US #Senate, had decided she was done w/ #politics. After 9yrs on the #SanFrancisco Board of Supervisors, 2 failed bids for mayor & the recent death of her husband from colon cancer, she wanted out.
Hours later, gunshots rang out in City Hall. A fmr supervisor, #DanWhite, had fatally shot Mayor #GeorgeMoscone & Supervisor #HarveyMilk, one of the first openly #gay elected officials in the #UnitedStates.
“After offering the fmr supervisor a drink, he turned to sit on the couch in his back office. It was 10:50AM.
“White later said he heard a roaring, rushing sound in his head as Moscone talked. The mayor lit a cigarette. White began firing. 2 bullets ripped through Moscone’s chest &, when he fell to the floor, White leaned down & pumped 2 more into his head, execution style.
“Standing over the dead man, he reloaded his gun, then walked down a long marble corridor & asked to meet w/ #HarveyMilk.
“The 2 men entered an empty cubicle & 5 shots rang out. #Feinstein heard them, saw White race past her & smelled gunpowder. Then she found #HarveyMilk’s body, stomach-down on the floor.
“‘I intuitively knew that he was dead, you can tell,’ she recalls. ‘I tried to get a pulse & my finger went into a bullet hole in his wrist.’
“Pandemonium set in. W/a stunned crowd looking on, #Feinstein spoke the words she has never forgotten: ‘As president of the Board of Supervisors, it is my duty to inform you that Mayor Moscone & Supervisor Milk have been shot. And killed.’”
The governor announced the penalty less than 24 hours after a nearly six-hour school board meeting that dissolved into shouts and jeers multiple times.
Can't add much to the remembrance day for #HarveyMilk _ he was on the other side of the world to me and I was very young and probably only became aware of him through his mention in popular music. In particular Tuxedomoon's Special Treatment for the family Man. They were a San Francisco based new wave band who, after Harvey's assassination slowly based themselves in Europe #Music#NewWave
California to fine school district $1.5 million for rejecting materials mentioning Harvey Milk (www.nbcnews.com)
The governor announced the penalty less than 24 hours after a nearly six-hour school board meeting that dissolved into shouts and jeers multiple times.