Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milkwas an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Politics and gay activism were not his early interests; he was not open about his homosexuality and did not participate in civic matters until around the age of 40, after his experiences in the counterculture of the 1960s...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth22 May 1930
CityWoodmere, NY
CountryUnited States of America
If I do a good job, people won't care if I am green or have three heads.
Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.
We don't want sympathetic liberals, we want gays to represent gays... I represent the gay street people-the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope! They need a piece of the pie!
We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it.
Politics is theater. It doesn't matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, "I'm here, pay attention to me
I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or the potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves.
Coming out is the most political thing you can do
If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around.
I would like to see every gay doctor come out, every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let that world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody would I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights.
It's not my victory, it's yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We've given them hope.
San Francisco can start right now to become number one. We can set examples so that others will follow. We can start overnight. We don't have to wait for budgets to be passed, surveys to be made, political wheelings and dealings.......for it takes no money......it takes no compromising to give the people their rights......it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.
We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets.
The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods.
I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up.