by Milk, Harvey
He’s never smoked marijuana, he says, even though he’s lived with people off and on for over twenty years who have. He drinks a little wine now and then, but that’s about it. And coffee.
What other people do, he feels, is their affair so long as they don’t harm someone else with it.
“I’d like to know a little more about your past—who you’ve been,” I said, relieved to change the subject.
He smiled and I knew he liked to talk about that, could see he felt good about what had happened to him.
“I was born on May 22, 1930,” he said, “about 20 miles outside New York City on Long Island in a little fishing village.”
“When I was twelve I found out that religion was phony or hypocritical. At fourteen I found out I was a homosexual.”
“That almost brought me back into religion because I went to a rabbi and I told him.”
“The rabbi said something to me that really stuck. He said you shouldn’t be concerned about what people said to you about how you lived your life as long as you felt you were living it right. He said that people spend more time legislating about morality and telling people how to spend their lives than about how to make life more enjoyable. Most legislators want to be god. Since they can’t be, they try to legislate other people. They only think they are god-like. That’s wrong. But instead of being angry and upset about them, you should have rachmones for them—a Jewish word that means: ‘Have sorrow and pity with love and compassion.’“
“That almost brought me back into religion, but I found out he was a rare bird.”
“I left home at seventeen and never went back except for special occasions and therefore grew to love and respect my parents.”
“Went to teacher’s college upstate New York.”
“Campaigned actively for Harry Truman even though I wasn’t old enough to vote.”
“The Korean War was going on at that time and it was then patriotic to fight for you country, so after college I joined the Navy.”
“When I got out, I realized I couldn’t be a teacher because if it was discovered that I was a homosexual it would be the end of that, even though I wanted to be a teacher.”
“I knocked around the country four or five years—yo-yoed between California and Florida and New York. Worked in gay bars. Finally got to New York and settled down somewhat. Had a lover for five years.”
“Got involved in the stock market. Spent eight years working as a research analyst for the stock market.”
“During that time I had another love affair that lasted eight years.”
“Then I met Tom O’Horgan . . .”
And the story goes on.
About the present situation and his campaign he said: “Maybe one day people will do it legally. Maybe they’ll just accept us.”
“Meanwhile I’m going out for the straight vote as well as the gay.”
Harvey gave a wry smile.
“Some of my best friends are straight,” he said.
The things that keep him going are the fact that he has a lover he loves, the music of Mahler and Bruckner, and the words of his rabbi to have rachmones for people, have sorrow and pity for them and love.
2
“Address to the San Francisco Chapter of the National Women’s Political Caucus”
September 5, 1973
Harvey Milk’s first campaign derived its energy and vision from a populism that embraced those effectively disenfranchised people without a representative voice in mainstream politics, those who suffered and struggled in a city of decaying neighborhoods and a system of inequity and injustice. Milk opposed the corporate, or “downtown,” interests and their backers in the Chamber of Commerce and on the Board of Supervisors, challenging the very meanings and entailments of “development.” In this city increasingly symbolized by high rises, Milk emerged as a grassroots Democratic politician mobilizing as his chief constituents the have-nots as electoral agents of change against this “mentality” of the privileged, what elsewhere he characterized as the “Marie Antoinette Syndrome,” and advocating instead for a different configuration of urban infrastructure, dwelling, and community.
Milk’s populist vision surely must have resonated with members of the San Francisco chapter of the National Women’s Political Caucus who comprised his audience for this address. NWPC formed in 1971 with the purpose of recruiting and training feminist candidates for political office to achieve equal representation for women and to resist sexism, racism, poverty and their material consequences. Although many rightly have critiqued the gay rights movement of this era for its lack of inclusiveness of all GLBTQ people (for being gay-white-male-centric), and to a lesser degree Milk’s own insensitivities to women generally and lesbians specifically during his career, this early document attests to the expansive reach of Milk’s originary platform.
. . .
The reason that the economy is fouled up . . . The reason that there is so little meat in the supermarkets and that there is a gasoline shortage is that the same people . . . the same mentality, that handled all aspects of Watergate also handles all aspects of our economy. The reason that the City of San Francisco is becoming fouled-up is that the same people . . . the same mentality that is for spending money to tear down ugly freeways while there is a need for more child care centers; the same mentality that is for building convention halls instead of developing the poverty areas—this mentality is setting the priorities and tax rates for our City. This mentality votes against nudity; votes for the death penalty; votes to maintain a police budget, over 50 percent of which is wasted in attempting to contain victimless crimes while rape, burglary, and/or theft continue to increase. . . . This is the mentality that succumbed so readily to the political pressure applied by MUNI drivers and their union, in spite of warnings from top MUNI officials that service would decrease if the suggested fringe benefits were increased . . . Supervisors don’t ride trolleys. . . so they went ahead and approved the fringe benefits.
A city . . . any city takes one of two basic approaches. It either looks at the immediate present and tries to get through (and through the next election); or it looks at the future and tries to set up a system that will take the city through that future. . . . The Founding Fathers did this with the Constitution. . . . There were things wrong with the original document . . . that is what the amendments have tried to correct. But (with a few great exceptions and I don’t have to tell this particular audience what they are) it works. For it is long range in its thinking. A city can concern itself about the clogged sewers of today and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow and tomorrow’s problems come; or it can prepare itself for tomorrow. . . . This city and its present leadership is too concerned with today, with too little thought of tomorrow . . . that mentality must stop. . . . We must not only do something about today’s problems, but we must also put effort, energy, and money into tomorrow’s city. For we all will die someday and there will be another generation to take our places, and we do not have the right to lay our mistakes at their feet.
3
“Address to the Joint International Longshoremen & Warehousemen’s Union of San Francisco and to the Lafayette Club”
September 30, 1973
If the best-remembered Hope Speech, or more precisely its peroration, has become Harvey Milk’s rhetorical signature, his mantra, then this address should be rightfully recalled as his manifesto. This passionate critique of the status quo and blueprint for economic justice, civil rights, public health—in a word, community—underwrote every argument, every position, every campaign that would comprise Milk’s political career and corpus. The inter dependency, mutuality, and equality of Milk’s city on a hill—indeed, this speech constitutes a remarkable queering of that familiar trope, marking a predominantly conservative rhetorical legacy from John Winthrop through Ronald Reagan to the present day in the United States—provided the foundation on which hope for GLBTQ people, for women, for people of color, for seniors, for poverty-stricken children,
for all, was built. Its fundamental premise, its most eloquent articulation—“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”—should reside in the pantheon of oratorical landmark refrains in U.S. history.
In thinking about the audiences for this address, and its thrust, other aphorisms also come to mind, such as Oscar Wilde’s quip “Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward people whom we personally dislike.” Milk believed such attitudes might be changed, perhaps especially if you could look a voter in the eye, shake hands, or address a crowd. Although Milk’s coalition politics with Teamsters in the Coors Boycott of 1974 and after has been emphasized by historians and filmmakers, he sought to forge solidarity with the working class and labor activists from the very beginning. Likewise he appealed to other constituencies perhaps thought politically unreachable, such as members of ethnic gentlemen’s clubs. An openly gay candidate might reasonably bypass such seemingly incommensurate if not hostile audiences, especially when delivering a rally cry against legislating morality (and its underlying bigotry). However, Milk was as fearless as he was unabashed—and he was a true believer in the promise of that beacon called San Francisco.
. . .
A city, any city can take one of several approaches to the future; whichever approach it takes not only affects the citizens of today but also greatly affects the children of tomorrow—the citizens of tomorrow.
San Francisco, like any other major city, has that choice, and before we get too far down any route we must be sure that it is the route we really want to travel. The present leadership seems to have taken the money route: bigness and wealth. They would like to be remembered as making San Francisco a major money center: a big bank book. The trouble with this approach is that there is no way whatsoever that this city can ever gain anywhere near the wealth that the New Yorks, the Chicagos have. No matter how much we try we will always be somewhere down on the list. If someone ever wants to add up the bank accounts of our cities New York is always going to come out on top.
Or, our city could take the route of becoming the seat of learning. But, there is no way it will be able to surpass the Bostons . . . there are just too many great universities throughout the land. We can never become the seat of learning.
Then there is the route that for some reason or other no major city has ever tried. That is the route that has little room for political payoffs, deals . . . that is the route that leaves little in the way of power politics . . . that is the route of making a city and exciting place for all to live: not just an exciting place for a few to live! A place for the individual and individual rights. There is no political gain in this non-moneyed route, and thus you do not find people with high political ambitions leading this way. There are no statistics to quote . . . no miles of highway built to brag about, no statistics of giant buildings built under your administration. What you have instead is a city that breathes, one that is alive and where the people are more important than highways.
How does this route stand with our present leadership? They are more impressed with statistics than with life. I want a city that is not trying to become a great bankbook.
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 can start immediately by rereading the Constitution of the United States. We can start immediately by no longer trying to legislate morality. The Constitution calls for the separation of church and the state . . . and, yet we find that our legislatures end up spending millions of dollars and years of their lives trying legislating morality . . . that money, that time, that energy should be spent in making the city a place for all people. When our Supervisors are more concerned about tearing down a freeway than dental care for the elderly or child care centers; when our Supervisors are more concerned about MUNI drivers’ benefits and not the least bit concerned about improving service for the riders; when our Supervisors are more concerned about building a multi-million dollar tourist and convention center instead of putting that money into an “Operation Bootstrap” to teach the unemployed of San Francisco skills so that there will not be the need to rely on the tourist for jobs; when our Supervisors realize that the best way to attract visitors is not through convention centers but through giving the people of San Francisco real job opportunity so that we can beat poverty; when such a consciousness takes place, when such a human sense of priorities gains hold, it will indeed be number one.
We can start immediately by giving the people of San Francisco and not the people who live in Marin first priorities. . . . we can start immediately be giving the people who live here and not the tourists first priorities. When we hire someone from outside the city to work for the city that person takes our tax money and spends it in Marin . . . he cannot be loyal towards the city for he does not live here. The rent he pays, the food he buys, the products for his home . . . all that is purchased with San Francisco tax money from business outside the city. He does not understand the problems of the city . . . how could he? . . . he does not live here at nighttime. To make the city a better place . . . to lower the city’s unemployment rate, all city employees must be residents of the city. The policeman who works in the city during the day is not involved in the city’s nighttime problems. Right now San Francisco has seen an increase in police force, an increase in police budget, an increase in stolen cars, an increase in burglary and a decrease in our population! Why? Two reasons: 1. many police do not live in the city . . . I never want to hear what I heard last week . . . a police officer in the downtown sector made this comment to me: “I wouldn’t live in this city if you paid me!”. . . We do pay him! The second reason is that half of the police budget and effort is wasted on trying to enforce victimless crime laws . . . that is trying to bring back Prohibition! All prohibition did was to create the greatest crime waves and syndicates the country has ever had. . . and it created a lot of murder. AND ALL IN THE NAME OF MORALITY!! Can’t we learn? It was the moralist of the ‘20s that created Crime Inc., and now the same moralistic types are once again, in their blindness to force their morality on others, creating organized crime . . . can they not learn? Do they ever read history? Because of the failure of their family, of their church they are attempting to make the police force into ministers while crimes against victims increases . . . this false morality is against the Constitution. If they do not like the Constitution let them amend it. Let them scrap the Declaration of Independence and in the meantime let them go back to God with their morality and become ministers . . . true ministers. Instead of spending time trying to get the death penalty passed let them reread the Ten Commandments. Let them teach the Commandment: Thou Shall Not Kill. I know of no Commandment that says: Thou Shall Not Smoke Marijuana. I know of no Commandment that says: Thou Shall Not Read Dirty Books. I know of no Commandment that says: Thou Shall Not Walk Around Naked. Why are they such moralists when it comes to man-made Commandments and such anti-moralists when it comes to God’s Commandments?
Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Protect my home, protect my streets, protect my car, protect my life, protect my property. Let my minister worry about me playing bar dice. Let my minister and not some policeman worry about my moral life. Worry about gun control and not marijuana control . . . worry about dental care for the elderly and not about hookers . . . worry about child care centers and not what books I want to read . . . worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inabil
ities to adjust to life.
4
“An Open Letter to the Mayor of San Francisco”
Public letter, September 22, 1973
Were the power of public discourse alone sufficient to win elections, then Harvey Milk would have triumphed in his first bid for Board of Supervisors. However, most San Franciscans, including a large number within his own GLBTQ community, ignored or wrote off or deliberately opposed Milk’s candidacy. Thus it was Milk’s challenge not only to argue for his populist vision, but to argue for a platform itself, to use rhetorical artistry in order to attract audiences, to register and circulate in the minds of voters. Getting heard, Milk instinctively knew and better understood in 1973, was more complicated than slapping “soap” on the side of a box in the Castro and delivering a speech.
But Milk’s political talent made him a quick study in the arts of publicity: putting Mayor Joseph Alioto on the spot, for instance, rather melodramatically, regarding fundamental democratic principles and electioneering. The irony of beseeching Mayor Alioto surely was not lost on Milk. Alioto, a socially conservative Italian-Catholic Democrat, had, during his mayoralty, vetoed legislation that would have legalized private sexual activity between consenting adults. He also had been responsible for the homophobic police crackdown on public sex in recent years that had resulted in arrests of thousands of gay men, causing the ruination and death of many. When Milk decried government’s moral intrusions, Alioto might well have been his poster boy; he thought of him in the most derogatory terms, namely Nixonian. Alioto was a “machine” political official, a great champion of downtown corporate and tourist industry development, which Milk diametrically opposed. Just days before, in bitter denunciation of the proposed Yerba Buena Center, Milk called for a “DECLARARTION OF WAR to rid the city of pockets of poverty and crime and to give the people a real chance to learn skills and trades that would make them self-sufficient, which in turn would reduce the unemployment rate, lower the crime rate, and thus bring about a lowering of the cost of government. This, indeed, would be a very real reason to bring tourists to our city.” A year later Milk, in his “Waves from the Left” column in the Sentinel, would impugn the mayor, who had hired a “Director of Information” at a salary of $25,000 while “unemployment rolls remain high,” of harboring “CONTEPMT for San Franciscans.” During the police strike of 1975, Milk filed an unsuccessful class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Alioto and SFPD officials for endangering the lives of the city’s citizens by not providing for their protection.
