Archive of Hope

by Milk, Harvey

  . . .

  Dear Mr. Mayor,

  The San Francisco Council of Democratic Clubs suspended democracy at their convention on September 2 1st. Their blatant disrespect for their own stated policy on speaking order was just rudeness . . . what makes me angry is their democratic system of voting. They “conveniently” encouraged their delegates to cast their votes early in the evening; before any of their “unfavorite” candidates were allowed to speak. At any convention I have ever attended, the delegates may have already made up their minds before they arrive, but they always listen to all speakers before they cast their ballots. Not so with these people. They invite you to speak . . . give you five minutes to declare your positions, presumably in order to make some kind of judgment. (The incumbents have had four years to make their comments.) Yet, they have this blatant disrespect for democracy by asking people to vote before any of the challengers are allowed to speak.

  Contrary to the very principles of Democracy upon which these organizations are formed to support, the vote was being called for. Evidently, they care about democracy as much as John Mitchell cares about Justice! Why is it even necessary to have candidates come to speak before them, if they are going to treat candidates with this mockery they call “democracy”? And, I, as a life-long Democrat, had to wonder as I watched democracy grinding to a halt.

  The San Francisco Black leadership Forum, The Chinese-American Citizens Alliance, and San Francisco Tomorrow are all out of the same mold . . . a few people controlling the representation of the many for their own power plays. They embarrass me. They make me ashamed to call myself a Democrat. They turn the very word, democracy, into a sham, a hoax, a lie.

  Mr. Mayor, at a time when this nation so desperately needs honesty, it is sad to see the people of our city languishing in a sea of unfairness, especially from the hands of those who themselves call out for equal treatment. You seek to lead . . . (it is said you want to be Governor) . . . I ask you, in all seriousness: Will you walk with these clubs, clubs which are a mirror of back-room political prostitutes, clubs which use the name of democracy for their own corruption, or will you walk with the people?

  5

  “MUNI/Parking Garage”

  Press release, September 27, 1973

  The San Francisco Municipal Railway, known as MUNI, was, during Milk’s residency in the city, the agency in charge of multimodal transit services. The “Transit-First Policy,” passed by the City Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors in this same year of Milk’s first campaign, aimed to prioritize investment in public transportation as part of the city’s development. Such a policy would have fit well with Milk’s drive to achieve paramount quality of life for all San Franciscans. However, word and deed are not always aligned, as apparently had been the case with this policy for decades. Milk fought to ensure that the experience, and thus loyalty of MUNI passengers, would be valued, and their justified complaints addressed. If those bureaucrats and politicians were to make decisions that affected the lives of city residents to live among them rather than in the suburbs, and commute with them on MUNI rather than grid locking the city by driving to work and parking in those multiplying downtown garages, then all their lives might improve. Here MUNI constitutes another component in Milk’s grassroots configuration of the stakes for San Francisco’s future. In addition to this press release, Milk publicized the MUNI issue by collaboratively staging one of many public rallies, street performance that would become a staple of his rhetorical repertoire.

  Milk himself walked the walk, or rode the rails as it were, of this policy position, most notably during his commute to City Hall in 1978. On October 28, 2008, according to the Web site of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), streetcar No. 1051 was dedicated to “the memory of human rights pioneer and transit advocate Supervisor Harvey Milk. Supervisor Milk was the first San Francisco Supervisor to regularly use a Fast Pass.”

  . . .

  HARVEY MILK, Candidate for Supervisor, will continue to take his campaign to the people, holding the first of many planned street rallies Friday at 5:30, at CASTRO & 18™ STREETS.

  Candidate MILK will attack the present MUNI service and will call for a CHAPTER AMENDMENT requiring the mayor, all MUNI inspectors, and especially all 11 Supervisors to ride MUNI every day to and from City Hall. At rally time, petitions will be initiated seeking the enactment of such an amendment. MILK feels that this seems to be the only way that the people of San Francisco will ever get better service from the present supervisors.

  Candidate MILK will further state that the recent voting record of the present Supervisors has been for the creation of even more garages in the downtown area. MILK contends that this will increase the number of cars entering the core area thus competing with MUNI for space on the already congested streets. This leaves little doubt in this candidate’s mind as to where the present Supervisors have placed their loyalty: The garage owners once again triumph over the MUNI rider.

  Harvey Milk for Supervisor Headquarters: 575 Castro Street/ 864-1390

  6

  “Alfred Seniora”

  Press release, September 28, 1973

  Harvey Milk likely concurred with William Shakespeare and Charles Dudley Warner’s familiar notion that “misery and politics make for strange bedfellows.” Angered by the common practice in some San Francisco political clubs of voting for endorsements before all the candidates, especially minor candidates, had had their opportunity to speak, Milk sought to outfox his enemies; score a little retribution; and, most of all, get his platform heard by aligning, if only for purposes of the press spectacle, with a similarly “silenced” Republican counterpart, Alfred Seniora. As Milk dramatized in this and another press release, ideological differences can be put aside momentarily for the sake of fairness and justice in democratic process. Mr. Seniora proved to be not only an ironic juxtaposition and useful “straight man” in Milk’s political theater, but something of a brief political boon when he “borrowed” and publicly espoused and circulated the “gay candidate’s” campaign materials, and positions, as his own. Amid muddy criticism throughout the campaign that he wasn’t serious, or was too gay, or was not gay enough, Milk must have felt somewhat vindicated by Mr. Seniora’s rhetorical theft. Either way, his clever expose evidenced the resonance of his candidacy, even for a neophyte with liabilities canvassing uphill in blustery political winds.

  . . .

  One of the great compliments of the current Supervisorial campaign was paid this week to HARVEY MILK by another candidate. ALFRED SENIORA printed, in the Wednesday issue of the SAN FRANCISCO PROGRESS, a 2/3 page advertisement using as copy, almost verbatim, a letter that MILK sent to the Mayor on Monday and then signed his (SENIORA’s) name to that letter . . . He further paid the additional and more important compliment to MILK by also printing in the ad most of MILK’s platform positions in the form of a “box score” flyer which MILK created and has been using for almost two weeks.

  The fact that MILK, a Jewish Democrat, now has his platform being used, almost intact, by a Republican, buries the issue of MILK’s homosexuality. For if this conservative Republican is willing to put his name on almost the same letter that MILK mailed to the Mayor and also put his name on MILK’s platform, then the Republican must feel that the issues are indeed far more important and that the need for a new direction in our leadership is far more important than MILK’s homosexuality.

  MILK feels that, even as a non-monied candidate, if he has already made this kind of bridge in ideologies, that he does in fact, offer the people of San Francisco a strong leadership that will bring together people of different backgrounds and life styles.

  HARVEY MILK FOR SUPERVISOR HEADQUARTERS: 575 CASTRO ST. / 864-1390

  7

  “Who Really Represents You”

  Campaign flyer, September 1973

  Milk’s impressive if unsuccessful performance in his first campaign for supervisor, garnering 16,900 votes and finishing tenth in a citywid
e field of thirty-two candidates (had Milk’s desired implementation of district elections occurred, he would have emerged victorious; Proposition K failed by a two to one margin) must be attributable in some significant sense to his tireless canvassing of the city. Well beyond the more familiar environs of his Castro neighborhood, on sidewalks and buses, in shopping centers and throughout the financial district, Milk sought out the electorate in an embodied way, to look a voter in the eye, to have a conversation, to debate an issue, to make an impression that might belie homophobic abstraction and perform his populism. Such hand shaking, stumping, and photo opportunism are, of course, the standard currency of political exchange in a campaign season. However, insofar as Milk’s person and platform veered from such straight and narrow paths, by temperament and necessity, his polling of voters appeared to take a different cast; his interest in “your view,” solicited directly and in campaign fliers such as this one, was meant to be constitutive of voter agency and his own voice as a legislator. Milk castigated incumbent Supervisors, all victorious, for election-year lip service to peoples’ concerns, only to baldly contradict them in subsequent votes, as their records evidenced. He saw himself enacting, as he told the Advocate, "Jeffersonian democracy as stated by Lincoln: Of the people, by the people, for the people, and not a Nixonian philosophy that stands for a government of the few, by the few, and for the few.”

  . . .

  CHECK WHERE YOU STAND . . . WHICH ISSUES ARE MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU? WHO COMES CLOSER TO YOUR OVERALL STAND?

  Who really represents YOU?

  8

  “Milk Note”

  Column, Vector, February 1, 1974

  A month before his defeat in the fall of 1973, Milk reasserted in the pages of the Advocate his vision of a gay candidacy and its significance. “To see and hear a gay legislator argue for people and individual rights changes the images overnight and brings respect to all Gays.” From his perspective, those gay establishment politicos in the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club and elsewhere who aggressively worked to thwart his campaign—those who in this editorial for SIR, of which Milk was a member and served on its publicity committee, he would memorably dub “Aunt Marys,” that is, sell-outs or traitors in toadying complicity with oppressive power—errantly believed that patient and loyal electoral support of heterosexual liberals would better the lives of GLBTQ people. After all, candidates and the media during the campaign recognized the influential presence of the “Gay Vote,” and a number of politicians courted it by attending events hosted by Toklas, touring gay bars, and commenting on gay issues.

  In this case, according to this political logic, Dianne Feinstein, whose vote total returned her to the Board presidency and who acknowledged GLBTQ contributors as her largest, would be relied upon as an ally to appoint liberals to key Board committees with the power to advance gay rights in material ways. By contrast, Milk saw in straight politicians only empty pledges, forgotten promises and half measures, mere “crumbs” for the price of votes, donations, and dignity. Echoing the Civil Rights Movement, as he often did, Milk rejected gradualism for the immediatism of freedom, achievable if only his community would empower itself by coming out and coming together to elect their own, to use its voting bloc and economic might as political influence, and to forge deeper solidarity with each other and in coalitions with other groups. In response to San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen’s sardonic question, “What do these people WANT?” Milk exclaimed, “I want freedom for gay people. . . . I reach out to my gay brothers and sisters. I reach out so we can grab each other’s hand and fight for what God and the Constitution has given us and man has taken away from us.”

  That Milk’s vision would remain consistent into 1974, through the postmortem of his first campaign (he was already planning his run in 1975), indeed throughout the remainder of his political career and life, tells us much about his fortitude and optimism, his determination and drive, his unshakeable belief in GLBTQ freedom that would yet come.

  . . .

  January 9 marks the anniversary of the birth of Richard Nixon. January 15 marks the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. One man has divided a nation—he lives. One man united a people—he was killed for that! The irony.

  Dr. King was much criticized for “moving too fast.” His answer to that was total dissatisfaction with the “halting and inadequate attempts of (this) society to catch up with the basic rights of membership in the human family . . . (that black people were) no longer tolerant of or interested in compromise.”

  He saw that the only way the blacks were to gain/win their rights as citizens was to seek not mere survival but full success . . . full citizenship. The implication was broad . . . with the incorporation of blacks into national life, not only were blacks free to offer their full creative contribution to society, but the whites were challenged to reconsider the roles by which they lived. He was uniting the blacks to wield the strength of their numbers in evident blocs of consumers, audiences and votes!

  The longest and most deeply suppressed of all groups refuses to learn from history. In order for homosexuals to win our right to self respect and equality, we must first assert our full existence and then its strength. One of the major differences between homosexuals and other suppressed groups is identification . . . the blacks cannot hide. . . . the homosexual can melt into society. Open avowal of homosexuality is necessary for gays in every walk of life, most significantly of homosexuals in respected and necessary positions. Most homosexuals live in constant fear of discovery . . . the only way to combat this form of oppression is to seek success . . . to join with all other homosexuals and to identify oneself as oppressed . . . the open homosexual opts for full citizenship!

  The black was never to gain freedom while he was lead by “Uncle Toms.” The homosexual will never gain freedom while he is lead by “Aunt Marys.” These are the people who, for whatever personal reasons, tell us that “we never had it so good” and brag about the “crumbs” thrown to homosexuals. They talk about these “crumbs” as if they were the Bill of Rights. They disregard the fact that oppression, real oppression, remains rampant and we remain “criminals” under the law. They brag about the “crumbs” given to homosexuals when the issue is FREEDOM. As soon as the gay community gets rid of the Aunt Marys and puts together their strength in blocs of consumers and votes, as Martin Luther King was doing with the blacks, we will remain oppressed and used.

  But the gay community remains ineffective because of the Aunt Marys and those who remain hidden in their closet and opt to win their rights as citizens by living in constant fear of discovery. The blacks because of their color had no choice . . . remain oppressed or band together so that they ALL could win respectability. The gay community remains oppressed! The Aunt Marys and “those who never had it so good” keep it that way. The answer is for those who really want to win respectability, not only for themselves but for all homosexuals, to fight much harder. To use their influence to combat not only straight oppression but the sell-out by so many gay “leaders.” Someday, somewhere a gay consciousness will take hold and true “gay power” will emerge . . . it will take time, it will bring inconveniences, it will bring bitterness, it will bring hardships, it will bring FREEDOM.

  9

  “Anyone Can Be a Movie Critic: How Not to Find Leadership”

  Editorial, San Francisco Crusader, February 1974

  Harvey Milk was far from a political dove toting an olive branch in the wake of a deluge of gay establishment animus that surely cost him votes in 1973. After all, the title of a commentary by radical gay rights activist and publisher Ray Broshears, in the previous issue of the San Francisco Gay Crusader, suggests reason enough for retributive motive: “Why Milk Lost: Our ‘Milk’ Wasn’t Delivered on Election Day . . . Some Gay Blades Cut the Cartons Open!” Milk and Toklas leader Jim Foster would remain political enemies throughout his career; in his tape-recorded political will, played after his assassination, Milk delivered a p
osthumous come-uppance by smiting Foster as a potential successor with the damning judgment, “The Jim Fosters never understood the movement.” Harvey, like any politician, certainly knew how to get even.

  However, because Milk did understand the movement, he managed time and again to accommodate political ill will and opposition, especially among his own people, keeping his eye on the prize. As he recounted in an interview the same month that this editorial in the Gay Crusader appeared, “About a month ago a respectable middle-aged man told me, ‘I voted for you but I hate your guts.’ He is a businessman who conceals his homosexuality. I made him think about that. He wants to help me if I run again. . . . when some young kid comes up to me and says, ‘Thank You,’ that is the most important thing.” For Milk, who had already begun to look forward to the next campaign the following year, leadership required that one overcome the slights and carping and get on with the business of political transformation. As this editorial argues—and similar appeals appeared prominently in his Sentinel and Bay Area Reporter columns during 1974—debilitating jealousy, bitterness, and hate, focusing on others’ shortcomings, and undermining the efforts within the GLBTQ community, would only enable those homophobic forces that oppressed them. Turning toward rather than turning on each other, achieved through able leadership, was the key to this or any movement: “If all that negative energy was united and turned into a positive force there would indeed be heard a cry that would lead to freedom.”