On Harvey Milk Day, Activists Remind Us That His Words are More Powerful Than Ever: VIDEO

Videographer and activist Sean Chapin, along with Andrea Shorter, Randall Mann, Sister Roma, Courtney Walsh, and Aaron Wimmer, produced a powerful reading of Harvey Milk's famous "Hope" speech at the top of the Castro in honor of today, Harvey Milk Day in California.

Walsh and Wimmer are two actors from Dear Harvey, the recent New Conservatory Theater play about Milk's life, Mann is a local poet and winner of the 2003 Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry,Sister Roman is a 20 year veteran of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and Shorter is a  lesbian political consultant who serves on the city's Commission on the Status of Women.

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

Chapin writes:

"What came to be called 'The Hope Speech' was initially conceived as a stump address, wherein Milk attempted to embolden a strong GLBTQ nationalism within the Castro, while also appealing for an alliance with other disenfranchised groups and straight folks," wrote Jason Edward Black and Charles E. Morris III in their anthology An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk's Speeches and Writings (University of California Press, 2013). Milk would revise the speech and recite it several more times at various appearances, according to the introduction written by Black and Morris to the version they included in their book. It was a defiant speech about gay self-acceptance that included Milk's call for LGBT people to come out of the closet and inspire others to do so. For as Milk said, particularly of LGBT youth, "And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope for a place to go if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be alright."

Milk would have been 83-years-old today.

Hateful Group Asks Parents To Keep Kids Home on Harvey Milk Day

This Wednesday is Harvey Milk Day in California; a day which is intended to celebrate this important gay rights activist. One conservative anti-gay organization, SaveCalifornia.com, is using radio ads airing in Sacramento and Los Angeles to urge parents to keep their kids home from school that day. Randy Thomasson, the president of the group explains his reasoning behind the illogical boycott:

According to the Sacramento Bee, the group's president, Randy Thomasson, says: "This is harmful to children...This is not academic, it's brainwashing." Thomasson also explained his feelings on the holiday to CBS13: “Children belong to the parents, not to the state, and to force a sexual agenda and a political agenda upon children, that’s highly inappropriate.”

What is highly inappropriate is the all of the information as well as a video posted on on the group's website which is full of hateful lies and anti-gay propaganda. The alarmist image above is from the group's website.

Watch a CBS13 news segment about the anti-gay campaign, AFTER THE JUMP.

Powerful Anti-Hate Ad Imagines What Harvey Milk, Matthew Shepard, and Others Would Be Like Today: VIDEO

A powerful new ad from the Anti-Defamation League takes a look at a number of well-known figures whose lives were cut short by hate, imagining what their lives might be like today. MLK Jr., Anne Frank, Harvey Milk, Daniel Pearl, James Byrd, JR., Matthew Shepard, and Yitzhak Rabin are included in the ad which marks the organization's centennial year.

The ad is set, appropriately, to the music of John Lennon.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

San Francisco Lawmaker to Propose Naming City's Airport for Slain Gay Rights Activist Harvey Milk

San Francisco Supervisor David Campos is proposing a charter amendment which would put the question of creating Harvey Milk-San Francisco International Airport on November's ballot, the AP reports:

If five of Campos’ colleagues agree to submit the proposed name change to voters and the amendment goes through in the fall, the city would become home to the world’s first airport honoring an openly gay person, said Milk’s nephew, Stuart Milk.

Milk, who runs an international gay rights foundation in his uncle’s memory, said that adding an airport to the list of public venues named for Harvey Milk would mark a milestone since flights to and from San Francisco International serve 68 countries where homosexuality is illegal.

No airport in the country has ever been named for an out LGBT person. The amendment could be voted on within two weeks.

Founding Member of SF Gay Men's Chorus Recalls Harvey Milk's Death at 34th Anniversary Vigil: VIDEO

As many of you know, yesterday was the anniversary of Harvey Milk's assassination 34 years ago. Last night there was a candelit vigil to mark it in San Francisco's Castro district. Activist and videographer Sean Chapin sent along a touching video about his legacy.

Chapin writes:

The video follows an original chorus member (Robert Rufo) who was at the chorus' first-ever public appearance, which was at the candlelight vigil on the steps of City Hall the night when Harvey Milk was assassinated.  Robert Rufo remembers what it was like that night, and how the chorus has been living the legacy of Harvey Milk since then over the last 34 years.  The video shows Robert Rufo and the SF Gay Men's Chorus sining at the 34th anniversary memorial service and marching with candles to the Castro. 

Speakers at the memorial service last night included Supervisor Scott Weiner, Harvey Milk's campaign manager Anne Kronenberg, Mayor Ed Lee, former Mayor Willie Brown, George Moscone's son Jonathan Moscone, California State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, Supervisor David Campos and Harvey Milk's nephew Stuart Milk.  The song/recording in the video is "Thou Lord Our Refuge", which the chorus sung that night at City Hall when Harvey Milk left us in 1978, as re-arranged by chorus member Edwin Morales and performed earlier this year in 2012.  The chorus in June 2013 will be premiering a landmark concert called Harvey Milk 2013, Living The Legacy.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

A Sad Anniversary

Thirty-four years ago today. RIP Milk and Moscone, and thank you.

Happening later this afternoon in SF:

Join the Moscone & Milk Family, Mayor Lee, Mayor Brown, Current & Past Supervisors, the SFGM Chorus, and Friends of Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk today at 4:30 pm for a candlelit remembrance on the steps of City Hall.