“Gotta Give ‘Em Hope”

Joanne Freeman: Earlier in the show we mentioned that last month marked 40 years since the assassination of Harvey Milk. Today, Milk is remembered for passionately speaking up for equal right in the 1970s.

Brian Balogh: I talked some more with LGBTQ historian Lillian Faderman about the man behind the megaphone. She says Milk’s activism stemmed from his Jewish upbringing.

Lillian F.: During the 1930s on Long Island where he grew up the German American Bund, which was a Nazi organization held huge rallies, his parents of course would’ve been very aware of those rallies and he would’ve been aware of them as well. In 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto fell and he was 13 at that time, it was just before is Bar mitzvah in fact, and he talked about the fact that the adults around him told him that of course the Jews of the ghetto knew that they were fighting a losing battle but he said that they had said if something so evil descends on you, you have not choice but to fight back. And I think that that influenced him always in fighting against homophobia, even at times when it looked as though it might be a losing battle he fought, he gave it everything he had and he was victorious in so many cases.

Brian Balogh: Well he ended life as a politician but he had a lot of other careers, right? Did any of them influence his approach to politics?

Lillian F.: I think every single one of them influences the kind of politician he became. He was a jock when he was in high school and college. He was able to get the endorsement of the San Francisco Firefighters and San Francisco unions because he really knew how to put on a very butch persona and talk to those groups. He was an actor off of Broadway and of Broadway and I think he really learned as an actor how to deliver a speech. He had a speech writer during the ladder part of his political career, but the speech writer said that Harvey would take the lines that were written for him and he knew about repetition, he knew about emphasis, he knew about how to deliver a sentence for its major impact and that’s what he learned in his career as an actor.

Lillian F.: He was a securities analyst on Wall Street for five years and through that he learned something about budgets and so he could present himself to his constituency as being knowledgeable in finances and he took all of those experiences and they became a whole for him when he ran for office. He integrated them into various parts of his political persona, it was brilliant.

Brian Balogh: I don’t think our` listeners will be surprised to hear that Harvey Milk was a Democrat, but he was not exactly a fall in line Democrat, is that correct? Could you give us a sense of the variety of his political views?

Lillian F.: Yes, in 1964 he was actually an avid Barry Goldwater supporter.

Brian Balogh: Wow, how is that?

Lillian F.: Well, Goldwater was a Republican but he was also what we would now a libertarian, the word hadn’t yet been coined in 1964. But one of the things that Goldwater believed was that the government had no place in people’s private lives, no place in people’s bedrooms and of course Harvey believed that too. Harvey fought avidly against this sodomy laws in California. And I think he remained in many ways a middle of the road Democrat.

Lillian F.: Once he changed parties, once he became a Democrat he was not in any sense a radical except perhaps for his support of gay rights and for his support of minorities and the poor. At one point he was asked where he stood on the political spectrum and his response was that those on the right think he’s on the left, those on the left think he’s on the right, it all depends on where they stand. I don’t think he was in any sense radical other than his support for gay rights and for minority rights as well.

Brian Balogh: How did he do with the lesbian community for instance?

Lillian F.: Well, for a long time San Francisco’s lesbian community, very strongly lesbian feminists in those years were suspicious of him, thought that he had no interest in promoting their rights, and so he understood that he had to somehow change the message, convince them that he would be a representative for the entire gay community and for other minority communities as well.

Lillian F.: And so what he did was in his last run for office, his successful run, he hired a lesbian feminist, a woman by the name of Anne Kronenberg and he told her that he really wanted her to pull his coat whenever he did anything that was offensive to the lesbian community, and he told her he wanted her to help him figure out how to serve the lesbian community. And so for instance he became a huge supporter of the equal right amendment which was a burning issue in the 1970s. She also helped him realize when he fought against the Briggs Initiative, a California initiative that would have made it illegal for anyone who was gay or lesbian to teach in the public schools and Harvey was in the forefront of that fight. It was Anne Kronenberg that made him realize that he had to have a lesbian on the stage with him when he debated John Briggs and Harvey did that.

Brian Balogh: Well I can certainly see why Milk was considered to be a figurehead. How did he feel about being a figurehead?

Lillian F.: I think Harvey Milk from his childhood on loved the limelight.

Brian Balogh: So he liked being a figurehead.

Lillian F.: He loved it, yes. He was certainly very sincere in his political positions but he loved being in the limelight. He also understood though that as the first out gay male politician in the country, he had a target on his back and soon after he was elected to public office in November 1977, he made three tape recordings that he distributed to three close friends. He called the recordings his political will and he began each of them by saying that these were to be listened to only in the event of his death by assassination.

Harvey Milk: Knowing that I could be assassinated any moment of any time, I feel it’s important that some people know my thoughts.

Lillian F.: His assistant Anne Kronenberg told me that during the 1978 gay pride parade in San Francisco, Harvey rode an open vehicle, it was a Volvo with a sunroof and so he sat on top, his legs tangling down. Anne Kronenberg said that at one point in the course of the parade Harvey bent down and suddenly said to her, “Anne, do you know the way to the nearest emergency hospital? You better figure that out.” Suddenly thinking this is scary. There’s a huge crowd and anyone could take a pot-shot at him, so he was always aware of that. I don’t think he realized that his assassin would be someone that he knew very well, a fellow member of the board os supervisors, but he knew that he was in a dangerous position.

Brian Balogh: Why should people care about Harvey Milk today?

Lillian F.: Harvey Milk was a revolutionary and a prophet. He was the first elected politician anywhere to say that society had a moral responsibility to help gay youth, not to change them but to help them. And he told gay adults that they had to stop worrying about the ridiculous stereotype that homosexuals where those people who lurked in the shadows ready to pound some adolescent kid and begin to take moral responsibility for the young people in their community. Harvey said that gay adults had to show gay youth that there was a good life in store for them even if they were gay. That they would be able to function in society.

Harvey Milk: I ask for the movement to continue because last week I got that phone call from Altoona Pennsylvania and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. In the after all that’s what it’s about. It’s not about personal gain, it’s not about ego, it’s about giving those young people out there hope, you gotta give them hope.

Brian Balogh: Lillian Faderman is an LGBTQ historian and author of the book Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death.