The Mayor of Castro Street

[dejavu]

It was an amazing and fantastic interview and to be able to see him and hear him speak was just the best.
Thank you Michael so much for letting me sit in on the interview.    The book is going to have so much more meaning as I am reading it now because of the things Dan spoke about.

Thanks so much again! I am so very lucky!

Linda, I'm glad to hear that you were there for the interview.  Michael, I'll be looking forward to the interview, whenever it does go online.  I'm glad that it turned out be be so interesting.

[michaelflanagansf]

Linda, I'm glad to hear that you were there for the interview.  Michael, I'll be looking forward to the interview, whenever it does go online.  I'm glad that it turned out be be so interesting.

Not to toot my own horn, Deb, but it actually did!  I had never really thought of Harvey as being connected to the Beats, for instance, and when I asked Danny about Harvey's unconventional approach to politics he put it down to that cultural movement - particularly exposure to Lenny Bruce!

But we forgot to get a picture of us together! 

[killersmom]

But we forgot to get a picture of us together! 

Damn I didn't even think of that!! Shoot!

[BrokenOkie]

Michael & John - thanks so much for all your efforts.  You're bringing something fresh, interesting and very informative to the forum and the book club.  Kudos!

And thanks to Linda for overseeing the interview.   And keeping you boys in line.  If such a thing is possible.   

[fritzkep]

Well, she does have the stick, even if it's invisible.

[killersmom]

I actually have it folded up in my Mary Poppins purse, so I am never without it!!!

[fritzkep]

Good to hear, Linda! We never have to worry about being undisciplined when you're around!

[killersmom]

So true!!!!

[michaelflanagansf]

Michael & John - thanks so much for all your efforts.  You're bringing something fresh, interesting and very informative to the forum and the book club.  Kudos!

And thanks to Linda for overseeing the interview.   And keeping you boys in line.  If such a thing is possible.   

Well she did get to see me interacting with somebody I've known since the olden days. 

Glad to do it Glenn.

[michaelflanagansf]

Alright - I alluded to a surprise earlier.  While going through the Bay Area Reporter to find the Randy Shilts review (which I haven't posted yet - but will) I thought - 'why not go back and find some of those columns referred to in the book?'  Here is one of them - from 1977 [so the ex-Presidents in question in the article have to be Presidents Nixon and Ford - they were the only ex-presidents alive at the time].  It's a rather interesting read particularly in that it gives a different perspective on Harvey's relationship with the People's Temple:

Milk Forum
You Drew the Conclusion
by Harvey Milk
Bay Area Reporter
August 4, 1977; pg 8

One of the unfortunate things I sense too often in the Gay community is the lack of understanding of the need to work closely with other minorities.  All to often I hear Gay people overly concerned about "economic" alliances, about which person or group supports which taxes.  I do not hear too much about "social" alliances.  That would be fine if we had our freedom.  But our freedom is still a long way off and forces in the nation are trying to prevent it.

I disagree with publisher David Goodstein.  He claims that there will be no repression.  I ask David to look at the following:

Anita Bryant:  who backed her?  Joe Coors:  where does his money go?  Andy Young:  who is trying to get him out of the U.N. and what is the real reason?  Willie Brown: who started the 'investigation' against him?  Lt. Gov. Dymally:  who was behind the many 'investigations' against him?  The KKK: why, all of a sudden, have there been so many articles in the media?  The Nazis: why, all of a sudden, are they getting so much coverage?

Why is it that any Black leader, appointed or elected, who speaks out - who is independent - becomes the subject of an 'investigation'?

Some Congressmen wave the flag, pound the Bible, send the 'boys' off to battle, then brus over THEIR own graft and taking of funds from Korea...but let a Black speak out or get near a free cup of coffee and these same Congresspeople find that the sky is falling.  It smacks not just of racism but part of an 'agreement' not to let any minority take any significant part of the pie.  The media either goes along with the plan or is part of it.  For the press does not seem ready to allow Blacks and Gays to have a say - a real say - in government.

Does any Gay person think that if the Black movement is set back that the Gay movement will move ahead?  Does any Gay person think that a wave of repression similar to the 50s will not come if the reactionaries win?

We have an ex-president so on the take that it becomes sickening:  he is given favorable press coverage.  We have another another ex-president who stole an election: he is a hero.  We have the CIA, the FBI, and Congressmen all with blood and corrupt money on their hands; it is mentioned but no in-depth attack against any of these is launched.  Yet, the papers blast Blacks who hold important positions.

Isn't it interesting that these same papers use the word "homosexual" every time a homosexual kills, but recently on two consecutive pages of the CHRONICLE there were five articles about heterosexual mass murderers and the word "heterosexual" never appeared?

We must understand just what they really want.  Do you think that these people would like to see the government run by Blacks, Asians, Latins and Gay people?  THEIR government!

It is not a political party issue.  Any Gay person who thinks that Gay people are not on any master list had better go back and re-read the ads from Miami.

We must reach out to every group - be they political, environmental, labor or minorities.  We must not allow the reactionary forces to continue to divide us.  The recent attacks on Willie Brown and Andy Young didn't start from nowhere.

The most powerful church in this city that spoke out over and over for Gay rights is a church that is mostly Black.  It is one that has started to use itself politically.  The Catholic Church - which uses itself politically - is okay to the media.  But a Black church that strongly fights for Gay rights is now being attacked for being political!  I'm surprised that the reactionary forces took so long to attack the People's Temple.

Democracy is a strange thing.  Religion is a strange thing.  And both are misused in this nation.  Whenever a Black or a Gay uses the democratic process or the pulpit, they come under attack by the flag-waving, Bible-pounding right wing.  We had better find our "social" friends and join-together before the reactionaries turn social issues into political issues.  Freedom is not a political or an "economic" issue.  It is a right.  And that right is under attack.

[dejavu]

It's a rather interesting read particularly in that it gives a different perspective on Harvey's relationship with the People's Temple:

That is indeed interesting, Michael.  It shows some depth of feeling on Harvey's part, in that he identifies the repression faced by gays with the repression faced by blacks, and therefore by members of the People's Temple.

It suggests that he may not have been using their services in his campaign just to take advantage of the ready labor they offered to him.  He really seems to identify with their struggles as blacks.  It's too bad that Harvey turned out to be fooled about the evil forces at work in that Temple, but he was far from being alone in that.

[michaelflanagansf]

The Mayor of Castro Street:  The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts
Frank J. Howell
Bay Area Reporter
March 11, 1982; pg 26

'Jim thought Harvey was gearing up for one of his sick jokes.  The only way you'll go before you're fifty is if you finally get somebody in the office so mad that they'll push you out a window on Wall Street,' he joked.

'No really,' Harvey insisted.  'Something will happen before then...

'I've known it since I was a kid.'  Milk persisted.  'I'll never make it to fifty.  There's just something sinister down the road.  I don't know what it is, but it's there.'

Strange how public figures assume a certain God-like status when they meet death by murder.  Their all-too human foibles are glossed over and the achievements and great moments are stressed.  Weaknesses are often played down.  This was certainly the case with John F. Kennedy and might well have been the situation with Harvey Milk.  But Randy Shilts, who needs no introduction to Gays in this part of California has avoided this temptation.

We see Harvey, warts and all.  He was a master of the media and an instinctive politician.  He knew how to dramatize an issue and reach the people on the street.  His personal life was a carnival of mass negligence.  His lovers were always in their late teens and early twenties.  They usually shared one thing in common with Harvey:  an inability to love in any consistent and meaningful manner.  Harvey's camera business was a running disaster waiting to collapse from indifferance.

But he put Gay liberation on the national map and reached such interest groups as organized labor in a way that few other leaders dared even conceive of.

Randy Shilts, currently a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, has interviewed legions of people from Harvey's life and dug into every available corner of his life and times.

The history of sexual and social hanky panky in the Queen City of the West is lovingly detailed.  In the 1930's San Francisco's finest would station a man in a funky theater on Market Street seated with the audience.  When he was cruised, his private parts were painted with Mercurochrome.  When the offending party, after his pleasure in the darkened theater, appeared in the lobby, his reddened mouth usually gave him away and he was arrested.

Throughout the 1950's the madcap Jose Sarria bravely fought police and bluenoses in general.  Shilts recounts all the clever strategy he employed, including wearing a sign, "I am a boy," when the law against cross-dressing was introduced.

We learn about Harvey's early life with his family in New York and how he finally moved West and established himself on Castro Street.  Milk experienced a series of political defeats whenever he ran for office.  It was only during the final year of his life that he was finally elected.  District elections played a significant victory even in this victory.

The infamous Proposition Six, sponsored by Senator John Briggs, is covered at some length.  Shilts witnessed many incidents of the campaign.  He and Briggs struck up a friendship of sorts and frequently conversed on the subject of homosexuality.  He explained his philosophy to Randy...'I don't mean to put you people in prison or anything.  It could be a lot worse....Aren't you guys glad this isn't being led by some crazy?'

Milk was always saddened whenever there was someone he was unable to help.  But he was particularly upset when a seventeen year old boy telephoned him from Minnesota and begged for advice.  His parents were about to institutionalize him.  His Gayness had been discovered.  Harvey urged him to run away.  The boy cried.  He was in a wheelchair and could not escape.

The assassination occurred at the zenith of Milk's career.  He had much on the agenda still to accomplish.

The resulting trial of Dan white exposed the depth of hatred which the San Francisco police held toward the Gay community.  Rumors circulated that some of the men in blue laughed and joked among themselves upon hearing about the double murders.

The district attorney appeared sluggish in his prosecution of White and failed to reveal the true pathology of his personality.  According to Shilts the defense performed a massive snow job on the jury by successfully portraying White as a sincere family man who was so outraged by corruption at City Hall that he became insane with rage and killed.  The riots that followed surprised few observers except police who had once told a group of pro-Gay ministers in 1965: "If you don't enforce God's law, we will."  Sooner or later a disturbance was bound to explode.

Milk's battle with establishment politicians was legendary.  In this connection we meet the others in the political circus:  Jim Foster, Cleve Jones, Harry Britt, David Goodstein and Rick Stokes.  This leads up to the big question as to what Milk's place will be in the political history of San Francisco and in Gay history.  Certainly he sparked a revolution and not all of it concerned just our community.  He managed to inspire ordinary folk who were ignored by Cilly Hall. He fought for many important issues.

It might seem academic to speculate as to what might have been done differently.  There is something pitiful and grotesque about Gay leaders battling each other and not the real enemy like the Moral Majority.  It was foolish of Milk to argue, for example, that Jim Foster never understood the Gay movement.  Foster was instrumental in pounding the streets and registering voters several years before Harvey began to assert himself.  Such attacks are wasteful.  Gays must learn not to squander their energies in such fruitless quarrels while the right wing continues to plague us.

The followers of Milk will appreciate the appendix in the book where his major speeches have been collected.  His verbal will (from a tape recording) is also included.

Randy Shilts has performed a magnificent public service for the Gay community.  He has given a thoroughly or searched and brilliantly researched account of Harvey Milk's life and the social forces that made his success possible.  Reactionary officeholders in California and elsewhere should read this and realize that the love that dare not speak its name is now going to the polls and making history.  Harvey would be pleased.  That is the best monument he could possibly have.

[michaelflanagansf]

It's too bad that Harvey turned out to be fooled about the evil forces at work in that Temple, but he was far from being alone in that.

You bet, including over 900 people who lost their lives.  It's important to remember that before Jones took his followers to Guyana it actually appeared that he was doing good work (we have learned later that he was abusive to people for years - and Shilts book points out the militaristic aspect of the Temple that should have been a warning sign).  There has been some interesting analysis of the Temple including this:

http://northstar.vassar.edu/volume7/moore_pinn_sawyer.html

And here is an interesting series from the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/11/12/MN85578.DTL

[dejavu]

^^^^^

Thanks for the Temple articles.  More reading for tomorrow, since it's almost bedtime here.

Nice supportive review of Shilts book above that, although maybe that's to be expected since Harvey wrote for the B.A.R.

[michaelflanagansf]

^^^^^

Thanks for the Temple articles.  More reading for tomorrow, since it's almost bedtime here.

Nice supportive review of Shilts book above that, although maybe that's to be expected since Harvey wrote for the B.A.R.

You bet Debbie.  The B.A.R./Milk connection is deeper than Harvey's writing for the newspaper.  Both Bob Ross (the publisher) and Wayne Friday (a political correspondent for the newspaper) were big Harvey Milk supporters from early on.

Here are some obits on Bob Ross:

http://cdn.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/12/12/BAGNE3LPLG1.DTL&hw=bobbing&sn=072&sc=176

http://www.aegis.com/news/sc/2003/SC031210.html

And an article on Wayne Friday:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/05/01/DD159306.DTL

I have a Wayne Friday endorsement of Harvey Milk for supervisor from 1977 that I'll put online later in the week.