05/22/2008

Harvey Milk Bust to be Unveiled Tonight at SF City Hall

Today, at 6pm, on what would have been Harvey Milk's 78th birthday, a bust (model pictured, below) in his honor will be unveiled at City Hall by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. The bust will occupy a permanent place atop the staircase in the City Hall rotunda.

The decision to place the bust atop the staircase capped weeks of haggling, according to the Bay Area Reporter: "'This bust has been traveling around City Hall like you wouldn't believe,' quipped Joey Cain, co-chair of the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee. Cain said the committee wanted the bust to be in the rotunda. During Milk's time in office, noted Cain, Milk never rode the elevator to the second floor. Instead, he walked up the grand staircase every time. 'Harvey has a quote – I don't know the exact wording of – in which he said when gay people walk into City Hall, they should walk right up those stairs to let people know they are here,' said Cain. 'Putting it outside the entrance to the Board of Supervisors' chamber in this rotunda has great symbolic significance."

Watch the NBC News footage broadcast on the evening of Milk and Mayor George Moscone's assassination, which includes Dianne Feinstein's still shocking announcement of their untimely deaths, AFTER THE JUMP...

Posted 5:48 PM EST by Andy in Gavin Newsom, Harvey Milk, News, San Francisco | Permalink

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Comments

1. Funny, it was such a recent event, but the news footage seems like it was a hundred years ago. Listen to the announcer try uncomfortably to say the word "ho-mo-sexual"...

   Harvey Milk would be amazed at what has happened since then.

   Posted by: The Milkman | May 22, 2008 6:34:05 PM

   
   

2. There is very little about Milk in the clip. Though it was just thirty years ago, it seems that aeons have passed.

   Posted by: Tom | May 22, 2008 6:41:53 PM

   
   

3. Remember, this event (1978) happened less than three years after California decriminalized homosexuality.

   And that vote was razor-thin right upto the last minute. Many conservative Democrats rebelled against the bill. Even with the support of the Democratic leadership, the Assembly passed it with only a few votes to spare. The Senate was actually deadlocked 20-20 (Lt. Governor Mervyn Dymally flew back to Sacramento from Colorado in the middle of the night to cast the deciding vote).

   We've made an incredible difference in only 30 years.

   Posted by: John | May 22, 2008 6:54:12 PM

   
   

4. "untimely death"? They were murdered! It should be called murder not "untimely death"-

   Posted by: hybrid | May 22, 2008 8:16:10 PM

   
   

5. Don't forget that Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, not first-degree murder, and sentenced to seven years in jail.

   Fortunately, he had the good sense to kill himself two years after his release.

   PS Maybe I have gay on the brain, but he always seemed to me to be a major repressed closet case.

   Posted by: Mike | May 22, 2008 10:52:18 PM

   
   

6. Mike, I always thought the same thing about White. Cop AND Fireman? Clearly, he had to prove something... ;-)
   

   Posted by: Chris | May 23, 2008 11:08:41 AM

   
   

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