The USNS Harvey Milk is a replenishment oiler, which refuels plane carriers at sea.
“He made a distinction. That is the sort of naval chief that we want,” mentioned Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro throughout the christening ceremony.
The ship was co-sponsored by US Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who was the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors when Milk served on the board. She publicly introduced Milk’s assassination in 1978 on the age of 48. He was the primary overtly homosexual elected official within the state of California.
The christening was attended by Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk, who’s the co-founder of the Harvey Milk Basis. Due to Covid-19 protocols, the occasion was not open to the general public.
Who was Harvey Milk?
Milk served within the Navy as a diving officer throughout the Korean Conflict, at a time when homosexual service members weren’t allowed to overtly acknowledge their sexuality.
Throughout his time as a diving teacher in San Diego, California, within the Fifties, his supervisors caught him at a park well-liked with homosexual males, in line with his nephew Stuart Milk.
In 1955, after the Navy formally questioned him about his sexual orientation, he was made to resign with the rank of lieutenant junior grade.
Milk was one of many first overtly homosexual politicians elected to workplace in america, and the primary overtly homosexual official elected in California.
After shifting from New York to California, Milk helped begin the Castro Village Affiliation, one of many first predominantly LGBTQ-owned enterprise teams within the nation. In 1977, he was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors.
Whereas serving as a metropolis supervisor, Milk launched laws to guard the homosexual neighborhood, together with a homosexual rights ordinance in 1978 to ban discrimination in opposition to LGBTQ in housing or employment. He and different activists additionally succeeded in placing down Proposition 6, which might have mandated the firing of homosexual or lesbian lecturers in California.
Lower than a yr after Milk was inaugurated as metropolis supervisor, he and Mayor George Moscone had been shot to demise within the San Francisco Metropolis Corridor by a former fellow metropolis supervisor over a job dispute.
When his killer was sentenced to seven years, riots broke out over what many perceived to be a lenient sentence.
CNN’s Harmeet Kaur and Amy Woodyatt contributed reporting.
