Harvey Milk was a gay activist who made big changes in history. Harvey Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office. He was a gay rights activist. He made history by becoming the first openly gay public official in the United States in 1977. Harvey Milk was a very successful man and changed the way our society is today in many different ways.
Harvey Milk Bernard campaigned as a gay populist against the politically conventional gay democratic establishment. Milk began the personal transformation from financial analyst to gay political activist before the 1960s. He encouraged a gay community where many were afraid to live openly. Milk was open and came forward with his decisions and being gay. He wanted other people to feel like it's okay to live freely and be themselves. He was taking inspiration from a gay rights leader. Harvey fought to end discrimination against gays and lesbians and created gay rights groups, labor unions and small business owners. “ He combined his commitment to gay liberation with
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He symbolized the strength of the gay and lesbian community in the face of political opposition. He started the gay rights movement in the 1970’s. He grew up in New York City. While in the navy they discovered his homosexuality and he was dishonorably discharged. “Was dishonorable discharged from the navy, after they found out about his homosexuality”(Cities Across the USA…). Harvey Milk couldn't do much without being discriminated against due to his homosexuality. During the 1950s he was arrested for sitting in central park without a shirt, along with other gay men. After getting arrested he knew there needed to be a lot of changes made to our society. He believed that everyone was not going to be the same and that there are a lot of gay people just like him that wanted to be equal and treated the same as everyone else
...protest movements throughout America and the world.” Among the gay community Stonewall has become the word for freedom, for fighting, for equality. It became a turning point in Gay history, so much so that most books on the subject refer to “pre-Stonewall” and “post-Stonewall” as the lines of demarcation. Of course the journey is still long and fight has not been won. At the turn of the century there were still 20 states that made homosexual sex illegal , any only a few states would recognize the love and companionship of gays through marriage or civil unions. The military policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is still active and prejudices continue to exist. But, as exemplified by any other civil rights movement, it is through the constant grind of activists and lay-people constantly protesting and educating, that change occurs, even if only one person at a time.
Rustin was delivering a lecture for the (A.A.U.W). American association of University Women, when his “Lude” act was committed. Though Rustin did not commit an actual lude or lascivious act, at this time any public display of homosexuality was illegal in every state and was punishable by criminal charges. Rustin did not allow this charge to effect him, in some years following his release from theses charges he became open about him sexuality. newly embracing his gay pride Rustin began to fight and defend gay rights, ting them into and along side his fight for African American Civil
The Times of Harvey Milk suggests that the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the 1980s and 1990s reflect on the dangers of visibility. While the election of the first openly gay politician, Harvey Milk, was a first, representing change in it’s own, the murder of Harvey Milk spoke even louder, specifically the short amount of time his murderer, Dan White, was sentenced. The film suggests that while being openly gay at the time, while accepted by some, remained and still remains a danger. Public leaders within the movement experienced violence, discrimination, and in Harvey Milk’s case murder. Even so, it is shown that with every injustice the community grows bigger and stronger, never losing the support of its community and allies. This is shown in the film by the silent, candlelight parade of 45,000 people on the night of the murder, followed by an angry, violent, riot following the sentencing of his murderer. Though Milk was murdered, a decade before he would have never been elected, he wouldn’t have had support, this was a pivotal point in the growth of the movement.
The Mayor of Castro Street is an inspiring yet emotional and tragic story that takes a look at Harvey Milk’s life and the way it influenced the Gay Liberation Movement. The book goes into detail about Harvey as a person and how that affected his political campaign. In this review I’ll be going over what the book was about, the fear gay people felt and how unfair things were for people in the LGBT community in the 1970’s.
...the first widely public violent resistance protests against oppression and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The riots created a sense of national awareness and a motivation for other homosexuals to join the struggle for civil rights. Carter’s book does an effective job in helping the reader understand the significance of an event that may otherwise seem insignificant to some people. The book adds to the little knowledge known about what exactly happened during the Stonewall riots and what caused the riots to occur. The general audience, or anyone interested in learning about the history of homosexual resistance in the United States, will greatly benefit from reading Carter’s descriptive account of the Stonewall riots.
" That he speaks of homosexuals and heterosexuals is secondary to his idea that all men deserve to live openly, which involves expressing emotions. Men expressing themselves emotionally can be seen in plenty of other places. If one listens to the radio, they are bound to hear a number of songs about sex, and probably an equal number about love or other emotions. All sung by males. The same is true of other mediums of pop culture, such as movies and television.
...e social changes brought about this period. He cites the growing sensationalism of sex covered in the media as a prime driver behind the sexual orthodoxy in American culture (Chauncey 1994, 359). During this witch hunt, he draws a silver lining. Using the scholarship of others such as John D’Emilio, he cites that this period brought a greater bond to the gay community by forging brotherhood of adversity which would then come back into play in the 1960’s as an experiential touchstone for the Civil Rights era (Chauncey 1994, 360). Chauncey nestles his own narrative of the gay community in New York within the larger narrative of gay life in America filling in the gaps of secondary sources through his own primary work.
As his second term comes to a close, your president is milking his gay agenda for all it’s worth. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced the U.S. Navy will bestow its highest honor by naming a warship for former gay rights activist and the first openly gay to be elected to public office as a San Francisco city commissioner, Harvey Milk.
The media considers the1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City the spark of the modern gay rights movement. This occurred after the police raided the Stonewall bar, a popular gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Allyn argues that the new energy and militancy generated by the riot played a crucial role in creating the gay liberation movement. Arguably, the Stonewall Riots have come to resemble the pivotal moment in gay rights history largely because it provided ways for the gay community to resist the social norms. In fact, the riots increased public awareness of gay rights activism (Allyn 157). Gay life after the Stonewall riots, however, was just as varied and complex as it was before. In the following era, ho...
Harvey Milk used his influence to give a voice to those who were quiet and when he was killed, his voice was not just taken from him, but many others who didn’t have a platform. He finally won a seat in government after losing two elections. Milk’s diligence gave the LGBT community
In the 1940s, homophobia was extremely prevalent in the United States. People who were openly gay were often stigmatized. “Homosexuality was discussed as ‘an aspect of three personality disorders: psychopaths who were sexual perverts, paranoid personalities who suffered from homosexual panic, and schizoid personalities’ who displayed gay symptoms” (Kaiser 29). Many regulations and practices discriminated against gays. The military found homosexuality to be a direct threat to strength and safety of the U.S. government and the American people, in general. In 1941 the Army and the Selective Service banned homosexuals from participation in the war (Kaiser 29). All major religions considered it sinful and throughout the country, more and more people found it to be immoral. Life was hard for homosexuals in the early and mid-twentieth century. They were forced to hide their sexuality in order to escape derision or imprisonment.
Harvey Milk said, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”(Aretha 83). Harvey Milk was the first gay politician that moved people’s hearts. He changed the way people thought about gay people back in the 1970’s. Defending homosexuals from criticism, he civilized them with the people. Since the background of homosexuality was harsh which affected Harvey Milk’s early life, he took the action to process of becoming civilized as an officer, and he left many legacies.
James Baldwin, a New York native, was raised with religion being the core of his household. At the age of fourteen, the author began to preach the Gospel. His step-father, David Baldwin, was a fellow preacher who raised the writer as his own; however, James Baldwin and his step-father had a tumultuous relationship (due to James Baldwin’s sexual orientation) causing the young writer to move out of his family home at age seventeen, relocating to another part of New York and then on to Paris. The evolving author’s sexuality not only took a toll in his personal life, but also had an effect in his adulthood. The National Public Radio website (npr.org) discuses the impact James Baldwin’s sexual orientation had in his mature life within an article entitled, “American Lives: James Baldwin, ‘Lifting the Veil.’” NPR quotes author Randall Kenan, writer of James Baldwin the Cross of Redemption Uncollected Writings, to illustrate the numerous adversities James Baldwin encountered as a homosexual man. According to the web article, “Baldwin was ‘mysteriously’ removed from the list of speakers for the March on Washington in August 1963… And when he tried to help the Black Panther Party in the 1970s, his sexual orientation was thrown up at him in very hurtful
The history of the gay rights movement goes as far back as the late 19th century. More accurately, the quest by gays to search out others like themselves and foster a feeling of identity has been around since then. It is an innovative movement that seeks to change existing norms and gain acceptance within our culture. By 1915, one gay person said that the gay world was a "community, distinctly organized" (Milestones 1991), but kept mostly out of view because of social hostility. According to the Milestones article, after World War II, around 1940, many cities saw their first gay bars open as many homosexuals began to start a networking system. However, their newfound visibility only backfired on them, as in the 1950's president Eisenhower banned gays from holding federal jobs and many state institutions did the same. The lead taken by the federal government encouraged local police forces to harass gay citizens. "Vice officers regularly raided gay bars, sometimes arresting dozens of men and women on a single night" (Milestones). In spite of the adversity, out of the 1950s also came the first organized groups of gays, including leaders. The movement was small at first, but grew exponentially in short periods of time. Spurred on by the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the "homophile" (Milestones) movement took on more visibility, picketing government agencies and discriminatory policies. By 1969, around 50 gay organizations existed in the United States. The most crucial moment in blowing the gay rights movement wide open was on the evening of July 27, 1969, when a group of police raided a gay bar in New York City. This act prompted three days of rioting in the area called the Stonewall Rio...
He helped people make better decisions about what to do and what not to do for our environment. He even sued the government over climate change. Every person who plays a role in teen activism changes the world, but everyone can make a