Harvey Milk parents: Meet William Milk & Minerva Karns Milk

The first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, Harvey Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Milk was born and reared in New York, where he came out as gay as a teenager but continued to pursue discreet and private relationships well into adulthood. His involvement in the counterculture of the 1960s led him to abandon many of his traditional ideas about sexual expression and personal freedom.

He had been restless, working a variety of occupations, and switching residences regularly, but he finally settled in the Castro, a place where gay men and lesbians were at the time migrating in large numbers.

Harvey Milk parents: Meet William Milk & Minerva Karns Milk

William Milk and Minerva Karns welcomed Milk into the world in the Woodmere, a suburb of New York City. His parents were Lithuanian Jews, and he was the grandson of Morris Milk, a local department store tycoon who assisted in setting up the first synagogue.