On the morning of 27 November 1978, San Francisco awoke to the unfathomable: the city’s openly gay progressive supervisor, Harvey Milk, and its mayor, George Moscone, had been shot dead inside City Hall. Milk, who had spent the previous four years chronicling the political tremors of his adopted city and the nation beyond, wrote a weekly column for the Bay Area Reporter under the banner “Milk Forum.” Between October 1974 and late November 1978, he filed 102 such dispatches—brief, insistent notes from a movement still learning its own power. This is the one he wrote exactly fifty-one years ago, and it reads with an unsettling contemporaneity.
Harvey Milk waved to the crowd as he rode in the 1978 Los Angeles Pride parade, a few months before he was assassinated. Photo: Courtesy ONE InstituteYou can simply scroll past—but please don't overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
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You can simply scroll past — but please don’t overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
You can simply scroll past—but please don't overlook the importance of an independent queer press.
Time is now or never.
Queer voices disappear without independent journalism to amplify them.
We document what others won't touch.
We hold power to account when it threatens our communities.
This work exists only because you choose to fund it directly.
Donate over €25/month and receive our limited-edition tote bag — a badge of resistance, a statement that you stand for fearless journalism.
We are grateful!
Can't donate? Sharing our work helps more than you think
At some time in the remote past, a cry went out and man began to come to the aid of his fellow man. As the race grew, man formed into units. Into nations. Somewhere in the process, man lost touch with his unit…his neighbor. He belonged to the nation. He was lost in the mob and out of that grew the Nixons, the Aliotos. Man’s needs on a local level were lost to the needs of the nation. Man’s cries were no longer heard. Things got worse. The problems of the nation, of the state, of the city got worse. Man was stepped on. His cry was not heard as the powerful grabbed whatever they could. Then someone remembered. They remembered the unit.
“Block by block until we drive from office all who are unresponsive.” The cry has gone out. Everyone will claim that he or she was the first to raise the cry. That is meaningless, except to the ego of those who want to be the first. What is important, is that the cry is out: “block by block.” It is starting in many areas of the city: Bernal Heights, the Haight, Castro and on and on….Neighborhood by neighborhood. The only way that the city of man will be heard is to reform the unit. Unit by Unit…until all are linked together. Only then will City Hall understand man’s needs.
Many in the city have been doing it for some time. Many groups are already formed. All are being formed for one reason: To take City Hall away from the politicians and return it to the people. You too can help…in fact you must help in order for it to work. Each person should help to organize his or her own block into a unit. No bigger. No outside help. No outside “know-how.” Each block in this city has people who are intelligent enough themselves to know what to do. Appoint yourself temporary block leader…talk to everyone on your block. Call small meetings…large meetings…talk over what you feel your block and you want from city hall. Make sure all are registered to vote. Make sure all who move into your block join and get registered. Give your block a name: the 3400 block of 15th street, whatever. Start to write letters to the candidates for mayor. Tell them how many people reside in your block. Tell them what your unit wants. Tell them what your unit wants in the way of government… start it now. Keep your block unit together and DO NOT COMMIT YOURSELVES TO ANY CANDIDATE NOW…make them all aware of your unit’s needs…make them come to you and not for you to jump on their bandwagon.
If the government is ever going to be returned to the people, it will only be returned when the people demand it. It will be so stated when the people throw off the political machines, the public relations’ speeches and the crumbs thrown to keep you quiet…it will come when each and everyone of you forms your block into a unit. 2,000 blocks. Each must stay within its own. Each must not try to sway others to think their way. Each must remain active. Each must let their presence be known to city hall. Each must speak out.
It is almost an impossible task. As long as it remains impossible, the Aliotos’ will control our lives, and the police will continue to arrest you for obstructing the sidewalk… (someone else was arrested on a recent Monday at 2 am and there were all of five people on the street). The only way city hall will get the message is not through talks with leaders, but in the numbers of units we form. Go out and form your unit…your block. It is for your own protection…that is what the caveman learned to do…we must learn from him. His forming into units beat back the wild animals. We must also beat back those who prey upon us. Unit by unit. Block by block. Start today with your next door neighbor. “Until we drive from office all who are unresponsive.”
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