statute mean without first going through the words of the statute, the -- what a dictionary might say, and then you can go on to legislative history and purpose but there's a different way of talking bought things and go back to eclectic way these thing goes, courts would go on for five or ten pages be the statute. ... a damned conversation with

activist and author jones. we would like to acknowledge or cosponsor for this event, the historical society and the museum and i would like to welcome gerard who is the communications director who will say a few words about the historical society. [applause] thank you so much. the historical society was founded 33 almost 43 years ago in san francisco at the archives of the museum research center public history center and we are honored in fact to be one of the places that hold a tremendous collection of material on when the escape was settled more a few years ago we received all of the personal belongings his friends had kept for all those

years so if you come to the museum we have a permanent display on perhaps the most profoundly moving object is the suits that he was wearing when he was killed that makes the act of violence very real and we have a wide range of material you don't need to be a researcher for those of you here in san francisco please consider becoming a member free admission to the programs and it is your support makes our organization survive and grow and thrive and i'm sure the message is the same for the mechanics institute. we are thrilled to be cosponsoring the event. take a look and you will find a mentioning of our museum. of course for those o of few tht are new to the institute we would like to invite you to come

for a free tour of the library and also to see the rest of our beautiful building. also, consider becoming a member and attend most of our programs for free. the institute continues to be one of the most vital cultural and literary centers in the area with ongoing events, discussions on topical issues and our series on friday night, book clubs, writers groups, tournaments and so much on that's going on here seven days a week. also, after our program tonight books by both of our authors will be on sale and they will be signing books for you. we invite you to join us down at the bar for a postevent gathering on the first floor.

harvey milk is commemorated and celebrated today throughout the country and especially in san francisco as we pay tribute to his work as a community leader and civil servant. we salute his passion for equality, human rights and social justice. right now more than ever, we need harvey to inspire us to make our voices heard, to stand up to speak truth to power and to make a difference in our democracy. so tonight to talk about his life and work we have two experts who have deep personal ties to harvey milk and his causes. william is an internationally known scholar of and lg bt history as well as ethnic history and literature.

"the new york times" named three of the books on the notable books of the year including surpassing the love of man, on the girls and twilight lovers and the revolution. the work has been translated into numerous languages and among her honors are six awards, two american library association awards and several lifetime achievement awards for the scholarship including the universities award, the horowitz award, the publishing triangle were, the golden crown literary trailblazer award and many others. he began his career as an activist in san francisco in the 1970s when he was befriended by pioneer leader harvey milk. after his death, jones cofounded

the san francisco aids foundation and conceived the idea of the memorial quilt which memorializes over 35, 85,000 americans who died from aids. he lives in san francisco and works as a labor activist and is the author of when we rise, my life in the movement which won the 2017 literary award, so please welcome williams and cleave jones. me >> it's good to see you. as you may be able to tell and have a terrible cold but i dragged my butt out of bed because i wanted to be here to see you especially on his birthday and i post on social

media that meeting harvey was the most important thing that happened to me in my whole life and it's hardly an overstateme overstatement. i also want to acknowledge the society some of the founders were among my dear friends in the early to mid-1970s and also to say that it's very clear to me that his blowhard is on display at the smithsonian. so at its moment for many years that i've borrowed it back to be at the smithsonian for three years and then it will be returned to san francisco activist of society hopefully in a new museum from an institution worthy of your support and i think he would want me to shut up now so we can hear from the

author. >> thank you. like any california in the 1970s of course they had heard of harvey milk. the first time i heard about him was during the anita bryant debacle that remember in 1977 she founded to save our children and managed to repeal the miami-dade ordinance. in big cities all over the country there were protests. it was orange tuesday. in san francisco, harvey led the charge with his able assistant, and of course i heard about how brilliantly he led the protest and averted the right because as

you can imagine, the community was furious. so i first came to admire him in 1977 are on orange tuesday of 1977, and then i heard about him when he ran for office as the first out man to run for significant office. there were two lesbians who had been elected that he was the first gay man elected into political office and then of course i heard about him during the fight against the initiative in 1978. the initiative battle was beautifully organized up and down the state, but harvey was the face of much of it and his debates with sally and on

television was brilliant and memorable. he was the one the media often came to, so i knew about him for that. and then i was shocked and saddened as all of us were when he was assassinated, and infuriated as all of us were when dan white got something like seven years in eight montht months and only served about five years because of the defense his lawyers managed to argue he wasn't himself. he had sugar poisoning because he was so upset about losing his job that he had twinkies and coca-cola. and of course i knew about the white light riot that followed it and that's about all i knew about harvey until i started

doing research for my book. i started that about 2010. and what i found is someone who was so much more complex and complicated and interesting. and of course i always thought he was heroic, the even more than i thought he was in the course of my research i describe all of that. the book was an 800 page book that came out in 2015 but i covered from 1928 and i only spent about a dozen pages and so when yale university press asked if i would be interested in writing a biography for this series, of course i was thrilled and i jumped at it immediately. i was very familiar with the

mayor of castro street, but i already knew form a research that there were things i could add. there'd been a number of letters that were not available to him that for instance his chief correspondent from 1955 to the early 60s was a young woman by the name of susan davis that he wrote dozens and dozens of letters to and he really bared his soul and i was able to see a part of him i don't think randy schultz could see in his wonderful book. his feelings about relationships and who he was.

another thing that wasn't available to harvey was the cache of letters that boston university correspondence that harvey had with the director of hair and jesus christ superstar, and he was very important in his life. harvey worked with and for him for a number of years and brought a whole new aspect of life. i was able to include what i found at the boston university collection in the book and then i also interviewed a member of his relatives and extended family and i was able to find out a good deal about his immigrant grandfather and his father and mother. so there's a lot of material in

the book about how his jewish background influenced him and his politics and the big person that he became. and of course randy scholz in that wonderful book couldn't know what would happen with harvey in the subsequent years. he has been more honored than any gay person in modern history. i first found out about the time "time" magazine in 1999 article of the 100 most important individuals of the 20th century, not 20th century america, but every one. the whole world in the 20th century, harvey was included in a section called heroes and icons, together with anne frank, check of their, the kennedys and mother teresa. [applause]

said he was the only alex gay person to be included in the list of 100 most influential individuals of the 20th century. but as you all know, there's a wonderful documentary about him that came out in 1984, and of course the 2008 film "milk" that cleave jones was important in. and it's just the honor is that he'honors thathe's received hase astonishing. he's received from president obama the medal of freedom, which is the highest honor that an american who's not in the military can get in 2009. the governor of california proclaimed in annual harvey milk day. in 2014, the u.s. postal service issued a stamp with his image.

in 2016, the secretary o secrete navy announced that a ship was being built that would be named after him and as you know, and i don't know how harvey would like that, but a terminal, and i say that because he was so against airport expansion and a terminal is being named after him. [laughter] >> i do think that he would appreciate [inaudible] [laughter] >> thank you. so, but i've tried to do in this book is not only present a lot of material that randy scholz didn't present, and i should say also that the newspapers are important and vital for anybody that does research so i studied his papers at the san francisco library and extensively there was a lot of material he did not include in his book that i did

include in my book from his papers so i'm very grateful to him. but i've tried to suggest in the book this complexity. i didn't want to write a page biography. he was a very complicated man id i really grew to love him. he was very admirable and hero heroic, but i try not to hide all of the words. he had a genuine passion for justice and it was deep but he also had a genuine passion for the limelight come and i talk about that. one story i discovered about him when he was eight or 9-years-old, he was to go to -- he lived in whitmire long island and he used to love to go to the

movie theater for matinees on saturday afternoons. what he loved was not the movies. he didn't care about the movies but before they started, the manager of the theater would have a raffle and the kids who won the raffle got to run up on stage and bow and harvey loved that. just a lovable image that i come back to several times in the book because i think he genuinely loved the limelight. he loved to be in front of audiences from the time that he was eight or nine until the end. he fought fervently for all of the people who were discriminated against but senior citizens, workers, racial and

ethnic minorities and he could be outrageously insensitive to individuals and i do not hide that in the book. i think it is just a part of his great complexity. he was a very joyous participant in the wildly sexual gay culture in san francisco and new york, and yet he could be so emotionally faithful to his partners even when it seemed quite hopeless, and i'm thinking particularly of jack, the young man that he lived with for a couple of years who committed suicide. harvey's friends told him he wasn't salvageable and jack wouldn't be a good partner if

harvey became supervisor, if he were serious about his political career and yet there was no way harvey could give up on him to the very end. that is just such an interesting complexity about him. he was a camellia and who could change his appearance. i'm sure all of you have seen pictures of him when he first ran for office, the first one in 1973 with his bushy pony tail and big mustache and denim shirt. of course there were no district elections in 1973 and he realized that wasn't going to cut it. he got 17,000 votes and there was no way he was going to win office, said he shaved his

mustache, cut his hair, he got some secondhand suits and ties and looked very dapper and it was a whole different harvey milk on the surface, but inside, he remained the same. i don't think that he ever changed she was deep inside. he changed his style easily but he was just very steadfast to his principles. so, in this biography i hope to make my readers feel what i came to feel a and that is how interesting and complex and lovable he was, warts and all. i will stop here and maybe cleave jones will say a few words if we will have questions. >> i would like you to speak about the series that the book is part of because i don't ever remember him speaking about

religion. his jewish identity was very much at the core and when i think of him coming to age in such a dark period and the tragedies were unfolding in europe and i first heard about this project i was particularly excited about that part of it. >> as i mentioned the book was published for the yale university series and harvey likes more than half of the subjects in the series was a secular jew. he wasn't at all religious. he had a ba bar mitzvah and that was kind of the end of religion for him but interestingly enough, walter who is here tells me that he attended passover atwater's house and his last

year they were there in october and he did attend the jewish synagogue in depth last year and was within his hearwhat was in e attended i don't know. terrible things have happened to him and all of san francisco in the country that last year. in fact just a month or two before the his lover had committed suicide. harvey's was under investigation by the fbi, an investigation that was called by the people who'd been instrumental in 330 grove. i think they are for al there wf trauma is that bothered him the last couple of months of his

life. i don't know if that is what brought him to attend a bit in any case he was there for both a. i think the reason his jewish background was so important had to do with the time that he grew up. he was born in 1930. he was certainly cognizant of what was going on in europe at that time and on long island there was actually the german-american nazi organization that had huge rallies only a few miles away from where he lived he was certainly aware of that. he actually talked about the

fall of the warsaw ghetto in 1943. his parents of course were very upset about it and he said that the adults in his family told him that the jews of the warsaw ghetto fought and fought valiantly even though they knew that it was a losing battle because when such evil descend on the world, you have to fight and that became an important metaphor to him through many of his speeches. they often mention the holocau holocaust. through the holocaust he gave a warning to gay people about how it was important to see early on where our enemies were and to organize and fight back. and over again in his speeches that was a metaphor and i think another thing that was important to him that his judaism is the

constant repair of the world. his mother i think was very influenced by that and died in the early 60s, in her early 60s and it was 1962 she died of a heart attack that she had when she brought a 24-pound turkey to a settlement house so that indigent people could have turkey for thanksgiving. she was in the hospital for five days and she died ironically on november 27 which was the same date rv guide decades later, but my important point here is i think that he learned about this from his mother and also from his grandfather, his immigrant grandfather whom he loved very much. he said his grandfather used to

tell him don't hide your green hair. people will see it anyway. meaning if you are different, don't be shy about it. just be who you are and i think that influenced him. his grandfather started out as a pillar in lithuania as a dairy man and had five kids, came to kansas city to work for his step brother, couldn't make it there. he went to long island, got a paddlers pack, did well for a while, opened up a dry goods store, did well and then opened up the first department store on long island. it wasn't a huge department store by macy's standards, but it was a department store, and he became a philanthropist and i think he was very influenced by

that, by the idea you have to help those that are not as privileged and you have to help people fight poverty and deprivation and discrimination. >> therthere's still quite a fef us left that still knew the guy and we all shared our stories over the decade. it's important when i talk to people and welcome the few under 40 that are here tonight i want them to know his life was a mess in a lot of ways and he suffered through so many of the challenges and defeats and humiliations most of us have to

endure into the story more powerful now that he's been portrayed by sean penn and office this tendency in our culture to create these artificial superhero characters and i find in your book even though i thought i heard every story there was to hear about him almost every page there was something i didn't know especially the details about his family and it was a joy to read and it left me with a deep sen sense. i will probably have questions and comments from the audience. i talk about this at length in

the book and it is very sad and it happened in the last weeks of his life it was a wonderful community center and it was going to be demolished to make way for a parking garage and the mayor was very pro- gay said that he would help 330 grove to get grants to open another center elsewhere and he asked paul who was the director to write a proposal, so he did come and he gave it to harvey and he thought the proposal didn't cover the things that he thought were necessary to cover so he rewrote the proposal and

submitted a proposal that received a grant from the city and the committee that gave them the grant had some very pro- gay people that had been appointed and paul and others said harvey stole the proposal and the committee was stacked and he promised in the proposal he would open a community center. he found a place for a site that paul and others got the fbi to investigate whether there was hanky-panky going on about the proposal with george moscone e d harvey milk and it became a moot point after both were killed. that's the sad story that i didn't want to hide.

>> there was no evidence of hanky-panky though. >> no come and of course the investigation didn't go on for very long. >> a turf war. >> i have a question over here. i heard you earlier talk about harvey and george and the relationship. can you talk about that had they known each other a long time before harvey was elected or before muscovy became mayor? >> i think that he admired him because moscone sought to repeal the law was repealed in 1975 come and he knew that moscone was a good friend of the community.

harvey ran for office several times, he ran in 73 and lost. he ran in 75 and lost, he ran in 76 and lost and finally one in 77. in 75, when he ran and lost, as soon as he knew he lost, he immediately turned to the to the headquarters. moscow in had been the president of the california senate and wanted to be the mayor of san francisco. he did a wonderful job bringing out the gay vote for george, and moscow moscone won the vote against dianne feinstein and others and he had a runoff by a man who was very anti-gay.

he won by over 4,000 votes as i said coming into there was a big party afterwards and he particularly thank harvey milk because he attributed the winning of the 4,000 votes to the community and he hoped to get out the vote. harvey milk by then, this was his second run for office but she was becoming a little more savvy as a politician. he said at one point i would really like an appointment as a commissioner and he appointed him to the board of appeals, the board of permit appeals. harvey did a fabulous job. he wasn't on it for very long but his third day on the board, a case came to the board of a woman who wanted to open a

massage parlor and she was denied a license and appealed it. two men came to talk about why she was denied a license and she said they wouldn't give her a license because she couldn't speak english and she couldn't understand the rules and regulations about massage parlors. harvey said this is ridiculous. i don't want to see you here again unless you have a complaint. he essentially send them running with their tails between their legs and the woman got her license for the massage parlor. so he was wonderful and brave on permit appeals, but it was about a month when the assembly district seat in his district opened up and he decided he would run for assembly and he couldn't know about california

politics. he couldn't know that george moscone already promised leo mccarthy that he would endorse heart for the assembly. when george moscone found out, he told him you can do that and harvey did it anyway. george moscone told the san francisco examiner if he runs he's going to be the shortest commissioner san francisco had and i'm not talking about his height said he fired him from the commission and at that point they didn't like each other very much but once he became a supervisor he worked very closely and it was a very productive relationship but they did have their difficult

moments. the >> could you talk about the relationship with his fathers and brothers and sisters and how that impacted his life? when he left his grandfather came to america as well as often the case the man of the family got someone to sponsor him. he came alone and made enough money to bring the rest of the family with him, so his father was six months old when they

left. they couldn't bring the family to america until his father whose name was william, by then it took about five years until he had enough money to bring them and i think that's william as he liked to be called had a very hard time and we can imagine why very easily. he left the family they come here and here is this tall american stranger who takes over his mother's love.

harvey's grandmother died and married again and that was difficult. they had a contentious relationship with his father and at the risk of being an amateur psychologist we have that contentious relationship with the parents. i think there was physical abu abuse. i don't think roberts took him very seriously. robert was four years older and even when he ran for office,

robert admitted he thought that's harvey being harvey again. what he remembered was that image of the eight or nine year old kid running on stage and bowing and he didn't take him seriously. robert was a sort of conventional guy and harvey never made a lot of money and robert made a decent living and those were his values so it was always a contentious relationship with his family. not with his mother and grandmother but with his mother i think it was difficult. harvey cut roberts specifically out of his will. he has a clause in his well where he specifically says a thing is to go to robert, not that there was a lot of financial stuff that he could pass on, but it was just the hard time they both had together that was reflected.

>> did harvey milk like dan white? >> that was a very complicated relationship. dan white ran telling his district, which was a working-class district that when he got on to the board of supervisors he would make sure all of the social deviance in san francisco were put in their place. he said he didn't like the way san francisco was going come and he meant particularly i think gay people. he was extremely conservative. san francisco voted almost unanimously against the initiative in almost every

precinct the initiative went down except for the four precincts and those were all in his district, so those were the people dan white was representing and they put him there for a reason. one story that i tell that i think is sad but nevertheless was the truth and i didn't want to hide the truth and i describe it as act one of the tragedy. there had been a contentious relationship on the board of supervisors, but he had one issue that excited him and that was that there was a home for wayward girls in his district but by the 1970s, girl girls wee

not contrite as they were in the 1950s and so not many went into that home and so the nuns who ran the home decided they would sell it to a citigroup that would make a home for troubled youth. the people in his district didn't want troubled youth living there. they felt that the thought thatd lose on the streets and it was like not in my backyard. and that became his big issue. what happened in the meantime is harvey immediately proposed the ordinance to the board of supervisors and dianne feinstein who was the head of the board said that this ordinance has to go to committee. so it went to the police fire

and safety committee and she put dan white in charge of the committee because he'd been a fireman and a policeman and of course he wouldn't let the bill out of committee. he wouldn't even let the committee discussed it. harvey by then knew how t ben ky the game of politics. he said if you released that bill from the committee, i will support your opposition to the home for troubled youth. he was pretty sure of the votes on the board. there were 11 people you had to be up to count six and harvey would have been the sixth vote, so he immediately gave an incredible speech, not at all characteristic of him that he

wanted to get the bill passed so he told the people on the committee that he had served with a gay people and black people in vietnam and they knew he could do as good a job as anyone else and it was unfair to discriminate against black people and people in the committee and they should vote in favor of the bill and get it out of the committee and that's what they did. it went to the board of supervisors and the board of supervisors was going to vote on it. damdan white's bill came up and harvey couldn't do it. he just couldn't do what he promised and so he voted against the opposition to have a home for troubled youth built and opened up to the troubled youth in his district.

dan white was furious. he immediately made a motion as soon as the bill came up to send it back to the committee and of course nobody would go a long lg witway for that notion because t was obvious what he was doing. so his bill passed on a first reading 10-1 and the one against it was dan's vote and the second was 10-1 with one vote against it of course and then it was signed into law by the mayor, but he never forgave harvey for that and then as i'm sure you all know, he resigned from the board of supervisors in novemb november 1978 and he had a lot of pressure from his supporters like the board of realtors because he knew people wanted

rent control in san francisco and then life would argue against rent control and a few days after -- and the board of supervisors voted to accept the resignation a few days after he re-signed. he came to the office to say he made a mistake and wanted his job back. according to the testimony, he said anyone can make a mistake when they figure out how to do this. when harvey found out that he was going to reinstate dan white, he said are you crazy, why in the world what you do woo this, it is a right-wing kook and you have an opportunity to put a liberal on the board of supervisors. why are you going against what your constituency would like you to do, and he knew i think harvey had discouraged him from

reinstating him, so i think that together with his homophobia that never changed despite the speech to the committee is what made him do what he did. >> harvey took to the horse trading like a duck to water. he knew how it worked and i think that he promised him before he got the commission appointment that he wouldn't run for office. but he was just always at sea and i do recall occasions where he was gentle with him and -- [inaudible] that is a fair word, i think she attempted to mentor him. that's my take is that he was probably not that bright, have

possibly been traumatized by his experiences that anything most of us would think of as normal give and take in the political dealing he thought of as moral outrage but i think that he just couldn't process it and make it happen and harvey could be so snide and i think that the idea that this guy was mocking him a is probably what pushed him over the edge. >> that's true. and carol who was on the board of supervisors then told me she sat here and harvey sat here and dathen wipes out in the middle d would say such crazy things they would pass notes back and forth saying like can you believe it again and i think that he knew. he was in way above his head.

he was the youngest person ever elected to the board of supervisors at 31-years-old. he had no advanced education. he was a fireman, a policeman and thought for a while he would be a writer but that didn't work out. in many ways he was a lost soul and he didn't know how to do his homework. i don't think that he ever knew what was going on in the board of supervisors and harvey was the opposite. he would do his homework so meticulously and there was a lot of hostility because he felt people didn't respect him, dan white felt people didn't respect him. >> harvey used to tell me to wear my tightest jeans because it drove them like crazy. [laughter]

was harvey involved in any way in the production of hair? >> he was a gopher. i found this interesting article in "the new york times" the reporter had come to interview tom and harvey was there. the reporter describes harvey at great length with long hair and be lying on some pillows in the room where he was being interviewed into the implication is that harvey was so high on pot he'd just really didn't know what was going on. but that was his involvement. [laughter]

>> which of his family members were you able to interview? >> i interviewed michael salem, who i found out about michael because i found this wonderful video on youtube, and i suggest you all go home and watch it. at the age of 11, it is quite incredible. it was a ceremony called pidgin hopping which is a jewish ceremony for a firstborn who's not a part of the historical priestly class in the jewish religion. the video shows like three minutes of fame, but he's standing on he isstanding on a , 11-years-old. michael salem was i think 30 days old, it has a 30 day ceremony of the firstborn male.

>> who is michael to harvey? >> he is a second cousin to. >> michael's mother was harvey's cousin and she married a man by the name of salem who actually turned to harvey once in a while for financial advice. they were very well b wealthy tt harvey was a securities analyst. in any case, the video is just quite incredible. i'm sure you all know transparent. remember at the beginning of transparent, there is a young man who is kind of posing. that's exactly what he does. he's standing on a staircase, the camera is on him very shortly, but he's kind of like this. [laughter]

if you get on youtube, i have it any note, i think it's something like harvey milk family movies or something like that, you will see it in my notes in the book if you look at the book you will find the video. so i interviewed michael and i interviewed a man by the name of sam who was also a second cousin of a. his mother had been the sister of bill and his mother, helen, who died about six months before we started giving the interview, she was the family historian. but he kept all these pictures and i have the most incredible picture of the grandfather who as i told you came into the country with nothing and ended up in this picture but you will

see looking like a noble man if you go back. i interviewed another second cousin by the name of sherry fienberg who didn't know him well but to tell me some interesting things about she got married just about the time jack killed himself and harvey was invited to the wedding. robert was there of course and didn't want to say that harvey is a homosexual in san francisco and his mother has just killed himself. so all he said is harvey is too busy to come. he's in politics in california. then i interviewed a woman by the name of wesley who had

married into the family and became something of a historian for the milk family. so they were all very helpful. and sam from his mother was the family historian and a was able to send me in the direction of the kansas city census in 1900 i think i found on my own in the manifest when he came by himself and the whole family came. i got wonderful material from harvey's family. >> when dan white entered city hall where he was going after george. is there anywa any way of knowif he intended to define the harvey

or if he just turned out to be accidentally in the way? >> he intended it. he loaded his gun and then he put ten more bullets in his pants pockets and he killed moscow any data -- moscone. he walked to the other side and harvey was standing talking to someone. dan white said can i see you in my office and incredibly harvey followed him into the office but that was intentional.

i don't remember the exact language that something like the lowest snake of the bunch or something like that and if she had arrived at city hall in her usual time she would be that iff she had breakfast this morning with a big donor to her campaign and came much later and by then he left city hall know if was not a spur of the moment thing it was very clear he wanted to do that. >> then joe campbell and harvey broke up, campbell [inaudible]

it seems like a logical sort of connection. >> it was but that isn't anything i was able to trace that it is logical that they were very cutting edge in what they did. i think that joe campbell got involved before joe. they remain friends and remaind some stories about that. i don't think harvey ever met andy warhol. >> did you find any evidence of the dealings? >> i did. that was heartbreaking stuff. jim jones took every progressive politician in the san francisco am and the fact is when he was

in san francisco he did some wonderful things. he clothed the naked to quote the bible and he was very much in favor of the 1975 marriage that wasn't finally recognized with andrew sullivan and his partner. he actually got his congregation to campaign for harvey and i found some letters at the california historical society where he wrote to jim jones about his claim to the people'ss temple and harvey could be very gushy and romantic in his letters and he said something like i saw today what you wanted me to see and i will be back. it was this lovely letter about how much he appreciated jim

jones and at one point he'd taken people to town and there were a lot of complaints from family members in the area and if they complained to the department of education and they told the post office do not mail social security checks and he said can you help me please my people are not getting social security checks. he actually wrote to the post office and said this is unfair. these people worked all their lives for these checks and i'm sure he was using the lions but he said they are doing something very important. they are learning new agricultural methods that can feed the hungry all over the

world and it was a lovely letter. and of course he couldn't know who he really was. i can imagine how traumatized and awful it must have been for him when those 900 people died. i went to the people's temple of a couple of times once with harvey and another time i remember him saying beautiful they have the whole place bugged but i think it's important this is a part of the story i find the most troubling like every politician in 2020 nobody then

had come to peopl the people ind he was a megalomaniac but i don't think anybody could have imagined in their wildest nightmare was going to unfold. he also was the head of this incredible army and they had a newspaper that was delivered to writing every doorstep in san francisco in every paragraph had a quote by family is also from indiana and that we were cousins. i thought i hope not. [laughter] out of the mistakes made that was the most terrible and the only way to mitigate the response is to understand no one could have possibly imagined

that. i found another letter at the california historical society that they'd written to the minister saying he would do wonderful things for the country so they had taken in and all he could do is mobilize his congregation to get out the vote and they distributed thousands of leaflets. how could a politician who didn't understand how terrible he was, how could you resist if someone says they are going to distribute thousands and thousands of.

when he took vacation to appoint someone to the interim or acting mayor she appointed harvey and he did fantastic things. she went to a ribbon cutting and said i'm probably the only mayor in the whole country will cut the ribbon and then put it in my hair. [laughter] he took people on his staff to the limousine and was interviewed by the san francisco

examiner. they wrote a little memoir. they said let us think. he really did want to be mayor. as i said earlier, he ran against art but he sold with a

great politician he was and at one point when he was in the assembly, he turned to him to help with a bill to push it through and he promised he would help him in subsequent runs but perhaps he was already thinking of the next run for supervisor and he said he would be the honorary chair of the committee. he had real ambitions and i have no doubt they would have been fulfilled. they could have done wonderful things. >> i went to work after harvey was killed and a part of that

legacy was the commitment to introduce the nondiscrimination bill each year. it took forever to get it out of the committee. the. the difference that might have made at the outset to have been openly gay man who was the mayor of a major american city, that is the part that causes me the most grief when i contemplate what might have been. given that you are there in the 70s and stayed in the city up

until now, it will be interesting to hear your thoughts whether you think that this reputation has changed a. >> now he is so well-known thatt his memory was fading very quickly and part of that was the loss of a generation and their stories. when i was a kid on the streets here i loved learning about their experiences and how they survived. so much of that was disrupted by the epidemic. but his family i remember seeming very ambivalent about him. for 30 years we were doing everything we could to keep his name alive by getting the school named after him, the subway, the statue in city hall, all these

things and i don't recall any involvement from the family and it was becoming really painful for me because i began traveling constantly visiting the about of campuses, colleges and universities and the story is connected because they have the idea at one of the candlelight memorials and they would begin my story by saying how many of you know who harvey is a and usually it's just one or two professors in the back and his name was just vanishing. it speaks to the power of popular culture. it took an oscar-winning film to bring his name back and i don't get great pleasure from saying

that but it speaks to who we are and our thoughts about history and lack of respect tha but they took that home to bring his name back and that comes with great peril. i was glad you've referenced rent control. people seem to think all he cared about are what we now call lgb p. q.. he's one o of the most empathetc people i've ever known. he could play act, he could break deals, he could break the game but he would look at you and he would be there for you to so that's another reason i am so grateful to you for doing this but because even for me i could

talk about this man every day of my life since that day and i learned so much more and have beeaneven greater respect and le for him. thank you. >> do we have time for more questions? >> over here. >> the times of harvey said they often walk heads and head for action. i was wondering if you could tell me if that is true with your experiences. >> i think it is essentially true. he was first in san francisco in 1969 and dianne feinstein ran for office and one and harvey at that time slaughter as a rich

lady in pearl's death she was much more than that. i don't think that harvey liked her very much. he thought she was in the hands of the real estate developers and cost elected because she had a rich father and husband. [laughter] she just gave a beautiful speech at his memorial about how his homosexuality would see other people's oppression and identified the oppression, but i think they have a hard time together. [laughter] it's interesting.

diane announced her retirement and i think another thing that is interesting is when you revert to the vote was split on the board. we are still there and have a constant one-vote hanging in the balance whether they are going liberal or left and they think that he saw as part of the ruling class of the city and it's kind of a line of succession. and i do think that he probably underestimated her at the beginning, something people should never do because like her or dislike her she is extremely

intelligent and the extent of her career is extraordinary but no they didn't like each other and also diane was very proper and harvey was not. [laughter] and lee harvey would need a tape directing throug who to appoints successor in the event of his assassination and i knew the tape existed and i used to make fun of it like yo you're not important enough to get a shot. you are not doctor king or bobby kennedy. the team left the instructions only who would be acceptable but also who would be unacceptable and one of the names was somebody most of us rallied around a. how long did she believe that it was weeks and weeks at least six

week. everybody was getting more and more anxious and then finally said something about bein beinga nice young woman that she would show up at a board meeting in leather pants and diane was not present, n no weather in leathee chambers. [laughter] >> i think we have one last question here. >> and then we are going to have to wrap up. >> i wanted to know if you could talk about his military experience. >> he told people that he got a dishonorable discharge. i think that he was making a political point that they were hounded out of the military in

the 1950s but he kind of stretched the point and that wasn't true. he was stationed into and had e time in san diego. i would like to thank you for an amazing evening. [applause] please take this compassion from his savvy and his humor out to the streets and into the public arena. thank you for joining the mechanics institute we will have books for sale and signing and you can come up and meet them

personally. please come back to the institute and thank you for the evening. [applause]

good evening everybody. i am the