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and now an openly gay man was a
trusted city leader.
Milk might have been just a foot-
note in the history books were it not for
a disgruntled former police officer, Dan
White, who had been Milk's adversary
on the board before he himself quit.
Historians disagree what pushed White
over the edge—political jealousy is
posited by some, latent homosexuality
by others—but in 1978, he slipped into
City Hall through a basement window,
foiling the metal detectors, and assassi-
nated both Milk and then-mayor
George Moscone, a hero of ethnic San
Francisco, at point-blank range. Nine
shots altogether, split between the two
men in two areas of the second floor,
plus time to reload. (Current U.S.
Senator Dianne Feinstein was a horri-
fied witness.)
Naturally, the gay population was
crushed and enraged. After years of
having to skulk around in secret, they'd
felt like they had achieved some politi-
cal parity, and the hope had been
snatched from them.
But what came next pushed the
community over the edge: In court,
White claimed that he did it because he
ate too much junk food and sugar—
dubbed in the press as the “Twinkie
Defense.” The verdict came down:
White got off easy, with just five years
for manslaughter. The resulting outrage
by the people in this neighborhood was
swift and violent. A tide of furious citi-
zens swept to City Hall, gradually boil-
ing over with anger and overturning
and burning a dozen police cars, in
what is now called the “White Night”
riots. In retaliation, the police swarmed
into a Castro gay bar, the Elephant
Walk, trashing it and beating patrons
regardless of whether they had been
involved. But this time, gay people
didn't bow to the abuse. Things had
suddenly changed. They decided they
would not permit themselves to be
stepped on and insulted again; the
modern gay-rights movement was
instantly galvanized.
White killed himself in the mid-
1980s, but Milk's fame seems to grow
each year; in 2008, his bust was placed
under the dome of City Hall. This
plaza was named for him in 1997, two
decades after his election to the Board
of Supervisors.
Face Market Street and look left.
2 Rainbow Flag
Standing high above Market Street, you
can usually see an enormous (20
30-
ft.) rainbow flag flying; erected in
1998, its monumental size and place-
ment were intended to function as a
kind of balance to the Ferry Building
tower that anchors the other principal
end of San Francisco's most important
avenue. Like all good flags, the gay
rainbow flag is a political manifesto
unto itself. The spectrum of colored
stripes has nothing to do with Dorothy
and that rainbow; they actually illus-
trate the concept that many different
types can live together in harmony.
The gay flag's design goes back only
to 1978, which because of the assassina-
tions (and other irritants, such as Anita
Bryant's hateful “Save our Children”
campaign in Florida) was perhaps the
most pivotal year for gay rights here in
the Castro. After those indignities, the
community assumed a “we're not gonna
take it anymore” resolve which it has
retained ever since. And that decade, a
too-brief celebratory period after the
darkness of gay oppression and before
the nightmare of AIDS, was the heyday
for the outspoken, if somewhat insular,
gay culture that centered here.
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