Harvey Milk

In 1972, Harvey Milk, a Jewish financial analyst from New York, joined the wave of gay men migrating to San Francisco. When he arrived in the Castro, the neighborhood was a dilapidated, largely Irish, part of town with a few gay bars. When Milk died on November 27, 1978, San Francisco had become the unquestioned gay capital of the United States and the Castro, its Main Street. Milk, twice-elected city supervisor, a tireless organizer, and coalition-builder, played a pivotal role in this transformation. During his several campaigns for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (the city council), Milk forged political alliances with conservative unions like the teamsters, gained broad support for gay rights legislation and worked hard to defeat anti-gay measures such as the Briggs Initiative, which would have barred gay men and lesbians from teaching in California public schools.

In the fall of 1978, Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were murdered by Dan White, a conservative Catholic former member of the Board of Supervisors. White had abruptly resigned from the board and then asked to be reinstated, a request which Moscone denied. White thought Milk was responsible for this decision.

When White went on trial for the murders, the jury found him guilty only of two counts of voluntary manslaughter, convinced by the defense team that White was a "family man" derailed by stress, depression and junk food. The news of White's light sentence (only seven years and eight months in prison) sparked a night of rioting that came to be known as the "White Night" riots. A large angry crowd marched on City Hall, surrounding the building for three hours and burning a handful of police cars. The police responded by rampaging through the Castro, indiscriminately beating anyone in their path. Sixty-one police officers and 100 gay men and lesbians were hospitalized. Dan White was released from prison in 1985 and killed himself not long after.