Bay Area Reporter: Milk march attracts huge crowd

FROM THE BAY AREA REPORTER:

By Matthew S. Bajko

Gyl Rosenblum vividly remembers meeting Harvey Milk as a teenager in the mid-1970s when she lived on Castro Street in the heart of the city's then burgeoning gayborhood. Living mere doors down from Milk's Castro Camera store, Rosenblum would frequent the business.

Milk went on to become the first out gay man elected to political office in a major U.S. city when he won a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1977. A year later Milk, along with then-Mayor George Moscone, was assassinated in his City Hall office on November 27, 1978 by former board colleague Dan White.

The night of their deaths Rosenblum joined the crowd in front of City Hall mourning the slain leaders. Now living across the bay in El Cerrito, Rosenblum returned to the city last week to once again remember her former neighbor.

"It felt like it was time to commemorate it," said the 50-year-old Rosenblum, who was joined by her partner of three years, Ann Williams.

Williams, 59, was an out lesbian living in Oakland at the time. Pregnant and near her due date, she was unable to attend the candlelight vigil that night in 1978.

"It was just stunning. It was just an awful thing, to have a powerful gay leader just eliminated so quickly," said Williams. "I remember seeing him walking by once. You could see he could have gone far. He really did have charisma."

The couple joined close to 1,000 people who had gathered in front of City Hall and then marched to the location of Milk's old camera shop on Castro Street Friday, November 28 to mark the 30th year since the assassinations. [The annual ceremony had been pushed back a day due to the actual anniversary falling on Thanksgiving this year.]

The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, whose first public performance was the night of the deaths, returned to the steps of City Hall to sing once again. Friends, relatives, and colleagues of both Milk and Moscone eulogized the men many credit with opening the doors of the city's political power to gays and people of color.

"Tonight is very bittersweet for many. Every time we gather our hearts are heavy with what happened," said recently sworn-in state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a friend of Milk's who followed him into politics. "Harvey Milk would be very bemused today to see where history has placed not only him, but us, the community and his legacy."

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