USNS Harvey Milk Lives!
Who Was Harvey Milk?
Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was born in the New York City suburb of Woodmere, to William Milk and Minerva Karns. Milk graduated from Bay Shore High School in Bay Shores, New York in 1947 and attended New York State College for Teachers in Albany, New York, (now the State University of New York at Albany from 1947 to 1951, majoring in mathematics.
After graduation, Milk joined the United States Navy during the Korean War. He served aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake (ASR-13) as a diving officer. Milk later transferred to Naval Station, San Diego to serve as a diving instructor. In 1955, he resigned from the Navy at the rank of Lieutenant (junior grade) forced to accept an "other than honorable" discharge and leave the service rather than be court-martialed because of his homosexuality.
Milk moved to San Francisco in 1972, where he eventually became involved in politics. After several failed candidacies for roles in local office, Mayor George Moscone appointed Milk to the city’s Board of Permit Appeals, making him the first openly gay city commissioner in the United States, according to the Milk Foundation.
Harvey Milk became one of the nation's first openly gay elected officials when he was elected to a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.
A year after Milk won election to the city's board of supervisors, he and Moscone were assassinated by a disgruntled former city supervisor.
Milk was posthumously recognized for his work advocating for the LGBTQ+ community. A statue of Milk sits in San Francisco City Hall's rotunda, and a terminal in the city's airport is also named after him. In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded him the Medal of Freedom.