Based in San Francisco, California, the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club is a chapter of the Stonewall Democrats, named after LGBT politician and activist Harvey Milk. Believing that the existing Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club would never support him in his political aspirations, Milk co-founded the political club under the name "San Francisco Gay Democratic Club" in the wake of his unsuccessful 1976 campaign for the California State Assembly. Joining Milk in forming the club were a number of the city's activists, including Harry Britt, Dick Pabich, Jim Rivaldo, and first club president Chris Perry. [2]
The club set forth the following as its organizing statement:
No decisions which affect our lives should be made without the gay voice being heard. We want our fair share of city services. We want openly gay people appointed and elected to city offices—people who reflect the diversity of our community. We want the schools of San Francisco to provide full exposure to and positive appreciation of gay lifestyles. We are asking no more than we deserve: We will not settle for less. [2]
One of the club's early actions was to demonstrate at a speech given by Vice President Walter Mondale in Golden Gate Park on June 17, 1977. When Mondale began speaking about human rights in Latin America, demonstrators held up signs demanding a statement on human rights in the United States. When a demonstrator verbally challenged Mondale to say something about gay rights, Mondale angrily left the stage. [3]
Harvey Milk, unfazed by previous electoral defeats, established the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club to amass greater political backing. He championed for a restructuring of the Board of Supervisors election from a citywide, at-large setup to a geographical district one. Re-entering the political arena in 1977, Milk aimed to broaden his appeal beyond the gay community by advocating for tax code reforms to stimulate industry growth, the creation of affordable housing, and the establishment of day care centers for working mothers. [4]
Following the assassination of Harvey Milk in 1978, the club changed its name to the Harvey Milk Democratic Club in his memory. The club bills itself as one of the largest Democratic clubs in San Francisco. [5]
The club was an inadvertent catalyst of a journalistic scandal for CBS. CBS News producers George Crile and Grace Diekhaus manipulated footage of an appearance by Dianne Feinstein and included it in the 1980 documentary Gay Power, Gay Politics . The National News Council found that this manipulation was a breach of journalistic ethics. [6]
With the onset of the AIDS epidemic, the Milk Club was an early advocate of closing down the city's gay bathhouses. The club also created some of the earliest safe sex education materials in the country. [7]
Shortly before San Francisco's annual Pride parade in 2019, a year that marked the 40th anniversary of the White Night riots, the Milk Club's Executive Board penned an open letter [8] calling on the San Francisco Police Department to apologize for historic acts of violence against the city's LGBTQ community, including the ACT UP Castro Sweep in 1989, [9] the White Night riot in 1979, and the Compton's Cafeteria riot in 1966.
During San Francisco's 2019 Pride parade, the SFPD engaged in a violent confrontation with a group of LGBTQ protesters who blocked the parade, calling for an end to corporate sponsorships of Pride. The Milk Club released another letter shortly after, condemning the SFPD's actions at Pride. “The irony of SFPD committing acts of brutality against peaceful protesters of the Resistance Contingent at the San Francisco Pride Parade on the 50th Anniversary of Stonewall is not lost on us,” the Milk Club wrote. “It warrants outrage and swift recourse.” [10]
On August 26, 2019, SFPD leadership held a community meeting during which Chief William Scott said, "we the members of the San Francisco Police Department are here to reflect and apologize for our past actions against the LGBTQ community. We want to listen to you and want to truly hear you, we will atone for our past.” While Scott's apology was met with "exuberant applause from the room," some attendees at the meeting expressed their concern about the ways in which the SFPD currently discriminates against LGBTQ people.
Anubis Daugherty, a young LGBTQ community member who was homeless for six years, told Scott that LGBTQ people are disproportionately caught up in sweeps of homeless communities in The City. “I was born here, I was raised here,” Daugherty said. “If you want to truly apologize for something you have to stop what you’re doing.” [11]
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin and Phyllis Ann Lyon were an American lesbian couple based in San Francisco who were known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
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.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the year 1978.
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. The lesser conviction outraged the city's gay community, setting off the most violent reaction by gay Americans since the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.
Randy Shilts was an American journalist and author. After studying journalism at the University of Oregon, Shilts began working as a reporter for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for San Francisco Bay Area television stations. In the 1980s, he was noted for being the first openly gay reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.
LGBTQ culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, LGBT culture, and LGBTQIA culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
Stonewall Democrats, also known in some states as LGBT Democrats, is a caucus within the Democratic Party that advocates for issues that are relevant to LGBT Americans. The caucus primarily operates through individual chapters or political clubs supporting LGBTQ rights and affiliated with the Democratic Party.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the 1970s.
Pride is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma, is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBTQ rights movements. Pride has lent its name to LGBTQ-themed organizations, institutes, foundations, book titles, periodicals, a cable TV channel, and the Pride Library.
The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBTQ people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California.
The Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club is a San Francisco-based association and political action committee for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) Democrats.
Craig L. Rodwell was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967 - the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors - and as the prime mover for the creation of the New York City gay pride demonstration. Rodwell, who was already an activist when he participated in the 1969 Stonewall uprising, is considered by some to be the leading gay rights activist in the early, pre-Stonewall, homophile movement of the 1960s.
James M. Foster was an American LGBT rights and Democratic activist. Foster became active in the early gay rights movement when he moved to San Francisco following his undesirable discharge from the United States Army in 1959 for being homosexual. Foster co-founded the Society for Individual Rights (SIR), an early homophile organization, in 1964. Dianne Feinstein credited SIR and the gay vote with generating her margin of victory in her election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969.
Atlanta Pride, also colloquially called the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival, is a week-long annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBTQ) pride festival held in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1971, it is one of the oldest and largest pride festivals in the United States. According to the Atlanta Pride Committee, as of 2017, attendance had continually grown to around 300,000. Originally held in June, Atlanta Pride has been held in October every year since 2008, typically on a weekend closest to National Coming Out Day.
Phoenix Pride is a parade and festival held each year in Phoenix, Arizona to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people and their allies.
The history of LGBT residents in California, which includes centuries prior to the 20th, has become increasingly visible recently with the successes of the LGBT rights movement. In spite of the strong development of early LGBT villages in the state, pro-LGBT activists in California have campaigned against nearly 170 years of especially harsh prosecutions and punishments toward gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ+ populations. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBTQ advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."
The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor is a memorial wall in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, dedicated to LGBTQ "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes". Located inside the Stonewall Inn, the wall is part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the country's LGBTQ rights and history. The first fifty inductees were unveiled June 27, 2019, as a part of events marking the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Five honorees are added annually.
Pride Month, sometimes specified as LGBTQ Pride Month, is a monthlong observance dedicated to the celebration of LGBTQ pride, commemorating the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer(LGBTQ) culture and community. Pride Month is observed in June in the United States, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests.