Harvey Milk (1930 - 1978) US.

Politician, who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Politics and gay activism were not his early interests; he was not open about his homosexuality and did not participate in civic matters until around the age of 40, after his experiences in the counterculture of the 1960s.

Milk served almost 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city, before being. assassinated on November 27, 1978,

Despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and "a martyr for gay rights", according to University of San Francisco professor Peter Novak.[1] In 2002, Milk was called "the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States"