I Was Never Taught About Harvey Milk

"This is not my victory, it's yours. If a gay man can win, it proves that there is hope for all minorities who are willing to fight." -Harvey Milk

The school system handed me an outdated history textbook with a serial number embedded on its spine. I folded a paper cover to fit the edited version of our nation's story with aligned creases. That spine number had more spine than those who were entrusted to teach me about our history as Americans and as occupants of this country, however crude or unpalatable or disdained it is.

Saturated were the pages with historical figures and icons, names and dates, documents and legislations, places and sites, with numbers and tallies, with dogmas and creeds.

The concern was to include JFK, MLK, FDR, the Civil Rights Movement and the Proclamation of Emancipation, The New Deal and Nat Turner and many other monumental American affairs.

But no one ever taught me about Harvey Milk.

Never was his name mentioned and never any references to the first ever openly-gay man to be elected to public office. Never any depiction of the 1960s counterculture of sexuality in San Francisco and the migration of gays to the Castro District. Never any discussion of the contextual impact of a queer political incumbent of both queer liberation and hyper heterosexuality within state houses and capitols.

Or of his campaign's inclusion of not only homosexuals but minorities and women. Feminists. Latines. The poor and unprivileged.  Immigrants. Senior citizens. The rogues, the strays, the rebellious, degenerates and the incorrigibles as they surely were referred as, inevitably.

Of us.

Never a dialogue of his contribution to a coalition of equals, of progressives, of valiant naysayers and hopefuls. Of Milk's candidacy built on the leveraging of collectively consciousness - change is dire.

What did the school system fear? Empowering a student by means of sexual liberation? Of encouraging self-expression instead of repression? Of ill-conduct in the little boy's restroom? Of revamping the destruction of social constructs and inviting sexual and social freedom? Of upsetting the Anita Bryants? Of eradicating identity regulation in our public schooling system? Of a juncture in our nation's history where the gays could have their day and shelf the good fight for at least a few years?

If passed in 1978, Proposition 6 would have banned gays and lesbians from working in Californian public schools. Because there is nothing more fearful than an educated queer; not guns, not Armageddon, not proliferated public health concerns or nuclear warfare or broken homes, not rampant drug use or violent caregivers. Not the flailing and imminent demise of the public's trust in adequate governance.

Proposition 6 did not pass. Thanks goodness.

And yet I was never taught about Harvey Milk. Of the palpable shift in local San Franciscan infrustructures and beyond. Or how Milk helped pass the Gay Rights Ordinance of 1978 which protected homosexuals from being fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation. Or the ridicule and xenophobia he endured. Or the discrimination and prejudice. Or the hate mail.

Or his assassination which took place in his own damn office. Or how he foresaw that the land of the free was not free enough to accept homosexuals as competent politicians and intellectuals, activists and prolific citizens.

Or how his assassin was only charged with voluntary manslaughter and only given a light sentence of seven years for silencing a voice of the people; my people.

Along with so many, I could have benefitted from learning about Harvey Milk. I could have avoided years of tumultuous soul searching and questioning and, instead, could have found solace in knowing the fabric of our nation included someone like Milk. I could have drawn from my identity, from my sexuality and preferences, to build strength and perseverance.

But I was never taught about Harvey Milk.

Harvey predicted his own assassination and taped a messaged which he instructed only be played if the event unfolded. In it, Harvey said "if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."

And even though the LGBTQ+ community at large continues to endure many more bullets, figuratively and literally, along with hate crimes and discrimination, we can all find a source of inspiration in knowing that we have people like Harvey Milk to call our own. His story is mine and yours. It is our own. Claim it. Learn it. Analyze it and devour it. Share it. Proliferate it. Make it so our children know it as well as they know the Boston Tea Party, George Washington, the Trail of Tears, Roosevelt and Truman. So that they know.

So that our history has more spine than that inept textbook.

Teach them about Harvey Milk.