Harvey Milk is widely considered to be the Martin Luther King Jr. of the gay rights movement, a martyr of the advocacy. Milk was a strong voice in the thunderous cries for rights for those in the LGBT community, and much like King, he was a victim of an individual who was against his advocacy. (Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, 2017, 1p.)
Born May 22, 1930, to Jewish parents of Lithuanian genealogy, Harvey Milk lived his early life in the middle-class area of Woodmere, Long Island in New York. Even in his earlier days, the act of expressing himself in whatever way he seemed fitting was commonplace. The traditionalistic, post World War II world of 1942 was not fully ready for Harvey and his lack of censorship, as he had been charged with indecent exposure at the age of seventeen after romping around New York City’s Central Park shirtless. (Pearson, John)
After graduating from high school, Milk left home and enrolled in the New York State College for Teachers in Albany to study math and history. After his graduation in 1951, the twenty-one year old had served in the military during the Korean War for four years until his dishonorable discharge for his lack of concealing his homosexuality. For the next twenty years, Harvey was teaching high school math in New York where he hid his numerous
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Despite his small camera shop being relatively profitless, he was happy in the Castro. Months ago, he became the most prominent elected gay official in the country after earning a seat on the Board of Supervisors in November of 1977. He not only captivated and molded the gay community of the time, but he charmed straight families, the elderly, and the working class with his populist agenda. Despite the large amount of support given to him from the general public and other minority groups, he knew that the threat of assassination was always looming. (Martin,