November 27, 1978: The Moscone-Milk Assassination

Harvey Milk (left) and George Moscone

November 27, 1978, 40 years ago: A city still reeling from losing hundreds of its citizens in a cult suicide the week before suffers a shocking double assassination.

On November 18, nearly 1,000 people, most of them from the San Francisco Bay Area, died in a mass suicide ordered by the Rev. Jim Jones in the South American nation of Guyana. By the 27th, there were still funerals to conduct, when the next awful thing happened.

Before his descent into paranoia, Jones had been active in city politics, and had been helpful in the election of George Moscone as Mayor in 1975, and that of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors, San Francisco's version of a City Council, in 1977.

Moscone served in the U.S. Navy in the Korean War, became a lawyer, and an ally of the Burton family's Democratic political machine in San Francisco. He was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1962, and to the State Senate in 1966, rising to the rank of Majority Leader.

He was known for his support of poor people, minorities, small business owners, and, before most politicians dared, gay rights. He also helped block construction of a freeway that would have cut the city in half and destroyed Golden Gate Park and some neighborhoods. He sponsored bills creating a State school lunch program and legalizing abortion in the State. And both of these bills were signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan.

He wanted to run for Governor of California in 1974, but was talked out of it, in favor of Jerry Brown, who won. (Jerry's father, Pat Brown, had been elected in 1958, and had beaten Richard Nixon in 1962, but had lost to Reagan in 1966.) Moscone was rewarded for this by being elected Mayor in 1975. Within weeks of taking office, he was instrumental in preventing the San Francisco Giants from moving to Toronto.

He also led the move away from the Board of Supervisors having all at-large seats to having neighborhood seats. This led to the 1977 election of Milk, the 1st openly gay elected official in America; Gordon Lau, the 1st Asian-American elected official in San Francisco; and Dan White, a cop-turned-fireman.

Milk was Jewish, and a native of Bay Shore, Long Island, outside New York City. Like Moscone, he served in the Navy during the Korean War. Unlike Moscone, he was gay, and this was discovered, so had to accept an "other than honorable" discharge. He returned to Long Island and taught in high school, then worked as an insurance actuary in Manhattan.

In 1970, he left New York, and arrived in San Francisco. In 1973, he opened a camera shop on Castro Street, the center of the Castro District, the city's premier gay neighborhood. In 1973, he ran for the Board of Supervisors, but finished 10th among 32 candidates for the at-large seats. In 1975, he ran again, and finished 7th. Under the old system, he had to finish at least 6th.

But with the new system in place in 1977, he only had to finish 1st in his own District, and he did. Part of it was leading the fight against singer Anita Bryant's move to ban gay people from teaching in Florida's public schools. This meant a boycott of the product for which Bryant was a spokeswoman: Florida oranges.

In 1978, Milk was among the leaders of the fight to stop a similar move in California, Proposition 6. He began to get death threats. He made a public statement: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."

Milk had clashed with White on a few issues. White got more and more frustrated in his job, and, on November 10, he resigned, saying a salary of $9,600 -- $43,000 in 2022 money -- was not enough to support his family.

But on November 15, he changed his mind, and asked Moscone to reinstate him. At first, Moscone was willing. But the other Supervisors, including Milk and the Board's President (and thus next in line to be Mayor), Dianne Feinstein, talked him out of it.

The Peoples Temple suicide happened on November 18, and word reached San Francisco on November 19. White told his aides, "One day, I'm on the front page; and the next, I'm swept right off."

Moscone announced a press conference for November 27, at which he would announce his appointment to serve as an interim holder of White's seat, until a special election could be held. White went to City Hall, with its dome making it look more like a State Capitol, and got in through a basement window, avoiding metal detectors. Because he had a gun, his former police issue revolver.

San Francisco City Hall

He went to Moscone's office. People nearby heard shouting, then gunshots. White shot Moscone in the shoulder, then the chest, and then finished him off with 2 shots to the head. White then walked over to his former office, and reloaded his gun. He walked into the corridor, and came face to face with Milk. From her office, Feinstein heard gunshots, and called the police. She went into the corridor, and found Milk down, shot 5 times -- like Moscone, twice in the head.

Moscone had just turned 49 years old. Milk was 48. Feinstein was 45. White was 33.

Now the Acting Mayor, the 1st woman and the 1st Jewish person to hold that post, Feinstein was forced to call a press conference to announce the assassinations, and say that White the suspect. White turned himself in after about an hour.

Flowers were left on the steps of City Hall, and when darkness fell, 40,000 people marched in a candlelight vigil from Castro Street to City Hall. The next day, both men lay in state in City Hall's rotunda.

White's trial was fixed. There were no gay people on the jury, nor any ethnic minorities, nor poor people. It was all white middle-class people, most of them Catholic. White's attorney blamed the dual assassination on his mistreatment by his colleagues, and also on a junk-food binge that messed with his blood sugar. Although Hostess' Twinkies were never mentioned, this became known as "the Twinkie defense." (This dovetailed with the Jonestown Massacre: The tainted drink was Flavor Aid, but everybody remembers it as Kool-Aid.)

On May 21, 1979, White was found not guilty on both counts of first degree murder, and found guilty on two counts of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison. Seven years for murdering two men -- and the Mayor and another major politician of his hometown, no less.

The sadness of the gay community 6 months earlier turned to rage. People began throwing rocks at the front doors of City Hall. Allies of Milk tried to reason with them, but there was no listening. Several downtown buildings were damaged, and a police car was set on fire. It became known as the White Night Riot. When a reporter asked a rioter why they were "destroying parts of the city," the rioter said, "Just tell people that we ate too many Twinkies."

Things would get worse. The 1980s would bring the AIDS epidemic. It would take pretty much the entire decade for the disease to be stripped of its stigma as "gay cancer," or as "God's punishment for homosexuals." Per capita, San Francisco was hit harder by the disease than even the much larger cities of New York and Los Angeles.

In 1981, a Convention Center for which Moscone had lobbied was finished. It was named for him, and it hosted the 1984 Democratic National Convention. Also in 1984, White was released from prison, having served a little over 5 years -- for murdering 2 men. On October 21, 1985, having won his case, but having lost pretty much everything else, including his wife to divorce, he committed suicide. He was 39 years old.

The George R. Moscone Convention Center

Feinstein was elected to a full term as Mayor in 1979, and re-elected in 1983. Leaving office at the beginning of 1988, she ran for Governor in 1990, losing to Senator Pete Wilson. In 1992, she was elected to an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate, and was re-elected in 1994, 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018. She is still alive, 89 years old, and still fighting for the rights of all Americans. It is not yet known if she will run for re-election in 2024, and people who hate her -- being female, Jewish, liberal, and outspoken, she pushes a lot of buttons -- claim that she has dementia. There is no reliable evidence of this.

Milk has gone down in history as a pioneer of gay rights, a "Martin Luther Queen." In 2014, the U.S. Postal Service made him the 1st openly gay American politician to be honored with a postage stamp.

In 1980, Representative Robert Bauman, Republican of Maryland, was outed, making him the 1st member of Congress known to be gay. What's more, he was caught soliciting a teenage male prostitute. He was the 1st Republican politician, but by no means the last, to blame his indiscretion on alcoholism. He apologized for said indiscretion, but lost his bid for re-election. As of November 27, 2022, he is still alive.

In 1983, Representative Gerry Studds, Democrat of Massachusetts, was outed, and had his relationship with a 17-year-old Congressional page exposed. He was censured, but won re-election in 1984, making him the 1st openly gay person to win an election for Congress. He continued to serve his District -- which includes Cape Cod, which includes Provincetown, one of the most gay-friendly places in America -- until retiring in 1996, and died in 2006.

In 1998, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin was elected to Congress, the 1st openly gay non-incumbent to be elected, and the 1st openly gay woman to serve. In 2012, she became the 1st openly gay person elected to the U.S. Senate.

In 2004, Governor Jim McGreevey, Democrat of New Jersey, exposed as having appointed an unqualified lover to public office, came out and resigned. He has never run for public office again. In 2018, Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, having previously been elected to Congress, was the 1st openly gay person elected Governor of any State.

In 2020, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana became the 1st openly gay person to win delegates for a Presidential nomination. When Joe Biden was elected President, he appointed Buttigieg to be Secretary of Transportation, making him the 1st openly gay member of a President's Cabinet. And a few transgender politicians have been elected to local and State offices, though not yet to Congress or Governorships.

One last thing. I was 8 years old, almost 9, in November 1978. I remember seeing the Jonestown story on the news, dominating coverage for a few days, leading into Thanksgiving weekend, November 23 to 26. But I have no memory of seeing the national news cover the assassinations of Moscone and Milk on the 27th. I knew Moscone's name from having watched the 1984 Democratic Convention. But I don't recall hearing Milk's name until I was already out of high school. And I have no idea why that is.