“I’M FROM WOODMERE N.Y.,” Anne Kronenberg drives Harvey Milk, who would turn eight
“I’M FROM WOODMERE N.Y.,” Anne Kronenberg drives Harvey Milk, who would turn eighty-seven today, Gay Freedom Day, San Francisco, June 1978. Picture from the new book, @lgbtsanfrancisco, by Milk’s friend and protégé, Dan Nicoletta. . “My name is Harvey Milk and I want to recruit you…for the fight to preserve your democracy from [those] who are trying to constitutionalize bigotry…I ask my gay brothers and sisters to make the commitment to fight for themselves…we will not win [our] rights by staying quietly in our closets…we are coming out! . We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions! . You must come out. Come out to your parents. I know that is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! . Come out to your relatives. I know that is hard and will upset them but think how they will upset you in the voting booth. Come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors, to your fellow workers…Come out only to the people you know, and who know you…But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions…For your sake. For their sake… . If [they] win [they] will not stop. They never do. Like all mad people, they are forced to go on, to prove they were right. . There will be no safe ‘closet’ for any gay person. . So break out of yours today—tear the damn thing down once and for all! . And to the bigots…let me remind you what America is… . On the Statue of Liberty it says: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…’ In the Declaration of Independence it is written: ‘All men are created equal and they are endowed with certain inalienable rights…’ And in our National Anthem it says: ‘Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free.’ . For all the bigots out there: That’s what America is. No matter how hard you try, you cannot erase those words from the Declaration of Independence…, you cannot chip those words from off the base of the Statue of Liberty…, [and] you cannot sing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ without those words. . That is what America is.” – Harvey Milk, June 25, 1978. #HarveyMilk (at San Francisco, California) -- source link
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