Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in New York where he acknowledged his homosexuality as an adolescent, but chose to pursue sexual relationships with secrecy and discretion well into his adult years. His experience in the counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and the expression of sexuality.
Daniel James White was an American politician who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall. White was convicted of manslaughter for the deaths of Milk and Moscone. White served five years of a seven-year prison sentence. Less than two years after his release, he returned to San Francisco, and later died by suicide.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the year 1978.
George Richard Moscone was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. He was known as "The People's Mayor", who opened up City Hall and its commissions to reflect the diversity of San Francisco, appointing African Americans, Asian Americans, and gay people. Moscone served in the California State Senate from 1967 until becoming Mayor. In the Senate, he served as Majority Leader. Moscone is remembered for being an advocate of civil progressivism.
The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of a lenient sentencing of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and of Harvey Milk, a member of the city's Board of Supervisors who was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979 in San Francisco. Earlier that day, White had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter, the lightest possible conviction for his actions. That White was not convicted of first-degree murder had so outraged the city's gay community that it set off the most violent reaction by gay Americans since the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco.
The mayor of the City and County of San Francisco is the head of the executive branch of the San Francisco city and county government. The officeholder has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch. The mayor serves a four-year term and is limited to two successive terms. Because of San Francisco's status as a consolidated city-county, the mayor also serves as the head of government of the county; both entities have been governed together by a combined set of governing bodies since 1856.
The Times of Harvey Milk is a 1984 American documentary film that premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and then on November 1, 1984, at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. The film was directed by Rob Epstein, produced by Richard Schmiechen, and narrated by Harvey Fierstein, with an original score by Mark Isham.
On November 27, 1978, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. On the morning of that day, Moscone intended to announce that the Supervisor position White resigned from would be given to someone else. White, angered, entered City Hall before the scheduled announcement time and first shot Moscone in the Mayor's office, then Harvey Milk in White's former office space, before escaping the building. Board of Supervisors President Dianne Feinstein first announced Moscone and Milk's deaths to the media, and because of Moscone's death, succeeded him as Acting Mayor of San Francisco.
Harry Britt was an American political activist and politician in San Francisco. Britt was involved during the late-1960s in the civil rights movement when he was a Methodist minister in Chicago. He was first appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in January 1979 by Mayor Dianne Feinstein, succeeding Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in City Hall along with Mayor George Moscone by former Supervisor Dan White.
Milk is a 2008 American biographical film based on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Dustin Lance Black, the film stars Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as Dan White, a city supervisor, and Victor Garber as San Francisco Mayor George Moscone.
The November 2008 San Francisco general elections were held on November 4, 2008 in San Francisco, California. The elections included seven seats to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, one seat to the San Francisco County Superior Court, and twenty-two San Francisco ballot measures.
The November 2006 San Francisco general elections were held on November 7, 2006 in San Francisco, California. The elections included five seats to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, positions for San Francisco assessor-recorder and public defender, and eleven San Francisco ballot measures.
Ella Hill Hutch was an American politician. She was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, California, in 1977 and reelected in 1980. She was the second African American elected to the Board, and the first African-American woman. Hutch took part in many offices before her service on the Board in 1977. She started her career among the International Longshore and Warehouse Union for 25 years, then branched off and became more politically active concerning policy and political issues within San Francisco. She took part in several councils and boards, including the Democratic County Central Committee in 1966, the Fillmore Tenants Council, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board, and the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. She took public office in 1977 as the member of the Board of Supervisors for District 4, and later citywide. She focused on government-financed housing and public transportation.
The 1975 mayoral election was held to select the 37th mayor of San Francisco, and was held in two parts. In the November regular election, then-Speaker of the California State Assembly George Moscone placed first with conservative city supervisor John Barbagelata second and moderate supervisor Dianne Feinstein coming in third. Moscone and Barbagelata thus both advanced to the mandated runoff election in December where Moscone narrowly defeated the conservative supervisor by 4,400 votes, a margin of less than 1%.
The 1987 mayoral election was held to elect the 39th mayor of San Francisco. Dianne Feinstein, then the incumbent, had served as mayor since the 1978 assassination of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk and had been elected to full terms in 1979 and 1983, and was thus term-limited. Then-California State Assembly member Art Agnos came from behind to defeat Supervisor John Molinari, garnering nearly 70 percent of the vote.
The 1979 mayoral election was held to elect the mayor of San Francisco. Incumbent mayor Dianne Feinstein, who had succeeded George Moscone after his assassination the prior year, was elected to her first full term as mayor of the City and County, the first woman to be elected to the position in the city's history. Feinstein, with 46.63%, and Quentin L. Kopp, with 44.72%, were the top two finishers in the first-round, and advanced to a runoff. In the first round the two of them had beat out musician Jello Biafra, Sylvia Weinstein, Cesar Ascarrunz, Steve L. Calitri, Tibor Uskert, Joe Hughes and Patricia Dolbeare.
The mayoralty of Dianne Feinstein lasted from November 27, 1978, to January 8, 1988, while she served as the 38th Mayor of San Francisco. Feinstein gained the position following the Moscone–Milk assassinations, in which her predecessor, Mayor George Moscone, was killed by Dan White, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She was formally appointed to the position by the Board of Supervisors by a vote of six to two and inaugurated on December 4, 1978.
John Barbagelata was a San Francisco City Supervisor and 1975 mayoral candidate, when he narrowly lost to George Moscone. He was also the owner of a local real estate firm. As of 2020, he was the last Republican to be elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in 1973.
Peg's Place was a San Francisco lesbian bar (1950s–1988) and the site of an assault in 1979 by off-duty members of the San Francisco vice squad, an event which drew national attention to other incidents of anti-gay violence and police harassment of the LGBT community and helped propel a (unsuccessful) citywide proposition to ban the city's vice squad altogether. Historians have written about the incident when describing the tension that existed between the police and the LGBT community during the late 1970s.
