The first openly gay man to be elected into a position as a city supervisor, Milk (affectionately remembered as "the mayor of Castro Street") was assassinated just 11 months after taking up office. Arguably, he has become posthumously more famous than he was when alive, a martyr to the progress of gay rights; his political struggles during the 1970s were emblematic of the first major backlash against the gay rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and established the terms by which political clashes over issues of sexuality have subsequently been fought.

Born in Long Island, New York, on May 22, 1930, Harvey Bernard Milk was raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Woodmere. In 1951 he graduated from Albany State College, where he had majored in math. Soon after leaving college he joined the Navy, where he rose to the status of chief petty officer...