I am often asked why I have been such a staunch advocate and leader when it comes to the legacy of LGBTQ icon Harvey Milk these last four decades. First of all, I loved history and politics in school and was a member of the debate team and the editor of my junior high school newspaper “The Inkwell” and ran for student body council where I was elected Chair of the Teenage Republicans (they called us tar babies). Harvey Milk was also a republican in his younger days in New York.
In the late 1960s I met one of my mentors, proud World War II Latino Veteran Jose Julio Sarria in San Francisco, who in 1961, became the first openly LGBTQ candidate to run for public office. Jose was crowned Empress I of San Francisco in 1965 by the San Francisco Tavern Guild, which was the first Gay business association in the country. At that time I was living as a preoperative transsexual and soon José introduced me to what I first thought was a frumpy dressed, long-haired radical hippie who I was informed was going to run for Supervisor in San Francisco, his name was Harvey Milk. After our first long conversation I soon discovered we had a lot in common, he was stationed in San Diego while he was in the Navy and also had supported Barry Goldwater for President. I remember I told him he would never get elected to office unless he cut his long hair and wore a tie and he just laughed at me.
I became involved with, and a leader in the Teddy Roosevelt Club which had chapters in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego and was a Gay republican organization founded by Reverend Ray of San Francisco. I flew to San Francisco a lot, first from my home in Hollywood then San Diego and would see Harvey once in a while. We would have great talks about his politics and Gay rights. He ran for Supervisor and then the State Assembly but lost. His little camera store in The Castro was always his headquarters. On his third campaign, he won a seat on the Board of Supervisors with a lot of support from the Drag community and Imperial Court Members, the leather community, and the progressive Gay community. I remember the majority of the San Francisco Gay elite and establishment did not support him and even ran another Gay candidate against him supported by a good friend of mine who owned The Advocate Magazine and produced the Groovy Guy Contest which my then partner Michael Murray was a contestant of. I gave Harvey some money for his campaign and supported him and was overjoyed when he won.
I believe the last time I saw Harvey Milk was when we were both guest speakers at a dinner honoring Empress Jose I at the War Memorial Building. By then we had both been involved and worked on the statewide anti-Briggs Campaign. Harvey always spoke highly of Jose and of the Imperial Court of San Francisco and I respected him for that. I especially loved his, at times outrageous, sense of humor and when he was assassinated I, like many others, was overwhelmed with grief. I soon named one of the first and oldest Harvey Milk Civil Rights Awards in 1979 for the Annual Nicki Awards and established the first Harvey Milk Student Scholarship within the Imperial Court de San Diego and got a memorial bench in his name dedicated in Balboa Park as President and Founder of the then chartered Harvey Milk Democratic Club of San Diego (Al Best and Jim Cua were also past presidents of the club). In due time campaigns for the first Harvey Milk Street, a US Postage Stamp and the USNS Harvey Milk ship were launched. These campaigns would not have been successful if it weren’t for the support of the International Imperial Court System, many friends, and activists in San Diego. I had the honor of serving on the National Board of the Harvey Milk Foundation and becoming good friends with Stuart Milk, who has not only followed in his uncle’s footsteps but became our nation’s premier LGBTQ Community Ambassador to the world and has become a most highly respected global LGBTQ Human Rights advocate.
It is so important that schools, city streets, parks, even Navy ships be named after the many LGBTQ Americans who have contributed to our great nation. That’s why along with then San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty and the International Court System led the successful campaign to name a street after Empress I Jose. Our LGBTQ heroes and icons deserve the same honors and place in history as any other Americans; Harvey Milk was one of our first and most certainly not the last.
