Thread by @CyrusToulabi

🏳️‍🌈TODAY’S PRIDE HERO🏳️‍🌈
Harvey Milk (1930 – 1978)

Visionary #LGBTQ, civil, and human rights leader. One of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S.

His life was tragically cut short when he was assassinated nearly one year after taking office.

#LGBTVoices

Harvey was born May 22, 1930, in Woodmere, NY. Harvey and his only sibling, Robert, worked in the family’s department store, “Milks.” They were a small middle-class Jewish family that had founded a Jewish synagogue and was well known in their community for their civic engagement.

Milk knew he was gay while attending high school, where he was a popular student w/ interests from opera to football.

While in college, Milk penned a weekly student newspaper column where he questioned issues of diversity and lessons learned from the recently ended World War.

Milk graduated in 1951 and enlisted in the Navy.. He soon served as a diving instructor while based in San Diego.

In 1955, he resigned at the rank of lieutenant junior grade after being officially questioned about his sexual orientation.

A Navy ship was named after him in 2016.

In 1972, Milk moved from New York City to the Castro District of San Francisco.

After some locals tried to prevent two gay men from opening a store, Milk and other business owners founded the Castro Village Association, the first organization of predominantly LGBT businesses.

Milk soon leveraged the growing political and economic power of the neighborhood to fight for his beliefs. He ran three times for political office, unsuccessfully.

His theatrical campaigns earned him increasing popularity, and in 1977 he finally won a seat as a city supervisor.

Harvey Milk was inaugurated as a San Francisco City-County Supervisor on January 9, 1978.

He was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country. It was an important victory for the LGBT community and for Milk. His election made national and international headlines.

Milks ambitious reform agenda included protecting gay rights, including sponsoring an important anti-discrimination bill, day care for working mothers, converting military facilities to low-cost housing, reforming codes to revive deserted warehouses and factories, and much more.

Milk was a powerful advocate for safe neighborhoods, and pressured the mayor’s administration to improve services for the Castro like library services and community policing. He spoke out on issues of interest to LGBT people, women, minorities and other marginalized communities.

On November 27, 1978, a former city supervisor assassinated Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk.

That night, thousands spontaneously gathered on Castro Street and marched to City Hall in a silent candlelight vigil that is recognized as one of the most eloquent responses to violence.

Despite his short career, Milk has become an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community. He's called the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States.

Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Members of #LGBTVoices tweeted about a different Pride Hero every day throughout the month of June.

We hope you enjoy reading about these resisters, and the forms of #resistance they used that we echo today.

We hope you RT us and show your support!

twitter.com/i/moments/1002…

#RELATED: In addition to the collaborative #LGBTVoices project...

I also have a personal parallel #PRIDEMONTH SPOTLIGHT thread!

Check it out for more proud #resisters:

https://twitter.com/CyrusToulabi/status/1002744047461634048

#RELATED: Dianne Feinstein and Harvey Milk...

https://twitter.com/CyrusToulabi/status/950925020083249153