Vigil in San Francisco Marks 44th Anniversary of Milk-Moscone Killing

Sunday marks 44 years since a pivotal and tragic event in San Francisco history: the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk inside San Francisco City Hall. The two were shot and killed by former supervisor Dan White on Nov. 27, 1978. Milk became one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.

In the Castro Sunday night, dozens of people gathered at Harvey Milk Plaza as part of an annual event to remember Milk and Moscone. Organizers said the event feels especially heavy in light of recent violence against the LGBTQ community.

Harvey Milk founded what is now known as the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, explained the club’s current vice president Jeffrey Kwong. Kwong, who also lives in San Francisco, explained that the club hosts this vigil each year.

“We’re continuing that fight, Harvey Milk had a vision for a better San Francisco and that fight continues,” Kwong said.

But Kwong noted, at the vigil this year, grief is compounded by the recent, deadly shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs.

“We want to make sure we come here,” Kwong said, “because a week after the Club Q shootings — the increased violence against LGBTQ folks around the country — we want to stand in solidarity, create space, to remember, to mourn, and also call to action.”

Also present at this vigil was Carol Ruth Silver, who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with Mill. Silver said she has attended vigils for Milk and Moscone each year since they were killed.

“And the crowd has gotten much smaller, the remembrances are much less, but for me, it will never ever go away,” she said.

On the day of the assassinations, Silver said she was having coffee with a consituent.

“I understand from later developments that Dan White was also looking for Willie Brown and for me, and I often say my life was saved by half a cup of coffee,” she said.

Silver believes that if Milk had not been killed, he would have gone on to become one of the most influential leaders in the state.

She also said, it is heartbreaking to see continued violence against the LGBTQ community.

“It’s just difficult to understand how– with all the progress that’s been made since those days [when Milk was alive],” Silver said.

Akeylah Hernandez, who is part of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, pointed out that Harvey Milk was aware of the risk of violence he faced as an openly gay politician. At the start of the vigil Sunday, the club played audio recordings said to be made by Milk to share in the event he was killed.

“The violence against queer people, against queer children, it’s not just coming in the form of bullets killing people,” Hernandez said, “it’s about taking away trans health care, that kills people, especially children.”

Hernandez and other attendees at the vigil say they see parallels between violence past and present.

“I think it’s important to just be in your community together, and to come together and find time to mourn together, to grieve together, to have rage together,” Hernandez said.

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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