May 20, 2012
San Francisco Honors Harvey Milk Day
Mark Thompson READ TIME: 2 MIN.
San Francisco, CA - Since 2009, the State of California has honored the memory of Harvey Milk by celebrating May 22, the anniversary of his birth, as a statewide "day of special significance."
The GLBT History Museum in San Francisco will celebrate Harvey Milk Day 2012 by offering free admission on May 22. The museum also will project rare historic videos of Milk on the screen in its Main Gallery periodically throughout the day.
The videos are part of the Daniel A. Smith/Queer Blue Light Collection in the archives of the GLBT Historical Society, the institution that sponsors the museum. The May 22 showing will include unreleased footage of an interview with Milk at the 1976 Castro Street Fair and of Milk speaking at a "No on 6" rally in San Francisco Civic Center in 1978.
In its Front Gallery, the museum also offers a permanent exhibit of Milk's belongings, providing a glimpse into his private life as a resident of the Castro neighborhood. Among the objects on display are the battered kitchen table from Milk's apartment, his well-worn Levi's jeans, and a pair of pink novelty sunglasses that reflect his famed sense of humor. The artifacts were donated to the GLBT Historical Society by the estate of Scott Smith, Milk's longtime partner.
Harvey Milk (1930 - 1978) was the first openly gay elected official in California. After 11 months in office as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, he was assassinated on Nov. 27, 1978. His life has inspired books, plays, an opera, an Academy Award-winning documentary, and a 2008 feature by Gus Van Sant that brought his story to film-goers worldwide.
The GLBT History Museum is the first full-scale, stand-alone museum of its kind in the United States. Currently featured are two major exhibitions: "Our Vast Queer Past: Celebrating San Francisco's GLBT History" and "Life and Death in Black and White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985-1990." The museum is a project of the GLBT Historical Society, a research center and archives founded in 1985 that houses one of the world's largest collections of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender historical materials.
For more information about the Milk Day events at The GLBT History Museum, call (415) 621-1107 or visit www.glbthistory.org
For more information, visit www.glbthistory.org
A long-term New Yorker and a member of New York Travel Writers Association, Mark Thompson has also lived in San Francisco, Boston, Provincetown, D.C., Miami Beach and the south of France. The author of the novels WOLFCHILD and MY HAWAIIAN PENTHOUSE, he has a PhD in American Studies and is the recipient of fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, and Blue Mountain Center. His work has appeared in numerous publications.
