The crusader of Castro Street

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24971962-15803,00.html

CLEVE Jones got an email recently from a Mormon father of six who had been to see the movie Milk. The man had voted yes on Proposition 8, a move to ban gay marriage in California. Gus Van Sant's movie had changed his mind. The man told Jones -- a longtime activist and adviser on the movie -- that he was sorry and that he would do whatever he could to make up for supporting the discriminatory legislation.

Were he still alive, Harvey Milk would have been at the forefront of fighting it too. He was the first openly gay elected public official in California, winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco (after three failed attempts to gain political office) in 1977. He was the self-declared "Mayor of Castro Street", the city's gay hub, with a signature rallying cry: "You've got to give them hope."

Milk is an astonishing, even landmark film, not for its sexual content but for its politics, plunging the viewer into the social phenomenon of 1970s gay liberation. Sean Penn absolutely inhabits Milk's charismatic personality.

Like so many gay men, Milk came to San Francisco in the early '70s. He opened a camera store in the Castro with his lover Scott Smith, mobilising the gay community against police hostility and the bigotry of shopkeepers. He was a hippy, then cut off his ponytail and started playing politics. In office, he lobbied mayor George Moscone, to sign a gay rights ordinance. He fought the anti-gay campaigns of Anita Bryant and (successfully) senator John Briggs's attempt to ban gay teachers from working in California.

brothers. Can I get a AMEN.
dc

I lived in SF in those days, Noe Valley, I remember the firebrand that was Cleve Jones, he's down this way now. I grieved personally when White shot the Mayor , who I knew from the political circuit. Thank you for the memory, It hurt so much then and I was in a work group with Dan White's nephew or cousin or some relative. It was very uncomfortable

I met him a few times when I lived in SF.