While October is LGBT History Month, there is one local member of that community who stands out: Harvey Milk.

Who was Harvey Milk? He was a human rights and civil rights activist, the first openly gay elected official in the United States. He fought for gay rights, connecting them to the rights of other minorities.

Milk was elected as a supervisor in the county of San Francisco in 1978, a period of time when the LGBT community was facing a great amount of hostility, prejudice, and discrimination.

He didn’t just advocate for traditional minorities and the LGBT community. He considered the elderly to be the most oppressed group in the country. “I don’t think we have a right to take people who raised us who made us strong and healthy and then toss them away like an empty can of beer” he said (quotepark).

Because of his commitment to minorities, he earned support from the elderly, environmentalists, the firefighters union, and many more. In the short time he was in office, he did many things for the community, like improving library services and developing daycare centers for working mothers.

Harvey Milk made a great impact on society. He was a person of much ambition, striving for change. On November 16, 1978, he was assassinated. There is now a statue of him in the center rotunda in San Francisco.

In 2010, California passed SB572 to celebrate Harvey Milk Day on May 22 in memory of him and all the things he accomplished.