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Harvey Milk Was Murdered 35 Years Ago Today

As much as Milk's life was devoted to furthering the gay movement, his murder—though senseless—had an indelible effect on the path to equality and respect.

Former San Francisco city supervisor Dan White pled guilty to murdering both Milk and Moscone inside City Hall, but it did little to quell the rising sea of rage among the city's LGBT population.

Gays, lesbians and ethnic minorities were excused from the jury pool during White's trial, and his attorneys put forth a preposterous "Twinkie defense" that maintained this otherwise upstanding man was turned into a killer by a late-night junk-food binge.

[caption id="attachment_134614" align="alignright" width="320"]White Night Riot, SF City Hall, May 21, 1979 Rioters outside San Francisco City Hall on May 21, 1979. (Photo: Daniel Nicoletta)[/caption]

In a verdict announced May 21, 1979, White was acquitted of two first-degree murder charges, which carried the death penalty. He was instead found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to less than eight years in prison. (Thanks to good behavior behind bars, White eventually got out in five.)

The verdict sparked outrage in San Francisco's LGBT community, and lead to the destructive White Night Riots.

As activist Sean Strub writes in his upcoming memoir, Body Counts:

Thousands marched from City Hall, clashing with the cops in hand-to-hand combat, smashing the windows and doors of the building and setting fire to a dozen police cars. The "White Night Riots" remain the most violent, and in a certain sense, the most inspiring gay demonstration in American history.

Extracting a bloody revenge, White's former colleagues on the police force raided a popular Castro neighborhood gay bar—the Elephant Walk—and beat patrons, calling them "dirty cocksuckers" and "sick faggots."

The next day San Francisco gay community leaders called for nonviolence, and the protests were muted, but despite pressure from Mayor Dianne Feinstein and others, they refused to apologize.

Supervisor Harry Britt, who was appointed to Milk's seat, told a press conference, "Harvey Milk's people do not have anything to apologize for. Now society is going to have to deal with us not as nice little fairies who have hairdressing salons, but as people capable of violence. We're not going to put up with Dan Whites anymore."

Though the San Francisco Police Department and the city's LGBT community have healed those wounds, Milk's life and legacy—and the ignorance and hatred he faced—are not forgotten: the Harvey Milk Foundation is leading a vigil on the City Hall steps this afternoon, with relatives and friends of both Milk and Moscone, and filmmaker Dustin Lance Black, expected to give remarks. The Gay Men’s Chorus of San Francisco will also perform, followed by a candlelight march to the Castro's Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro.

"What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary," said Milk's campaign manager, Anne Kronenberg. "He imagined a righteous world inside his head and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us."

Below, view "My Name is Harvey Milk," a multimedia work created by artist Leo Herrera that incorporated images of the suit Milk wore on the night he was murdered, with snippets from an audio statement he prepared in the event of his assassination.

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