>> good evening, everybody. let's hear it for the san francisco display men's anchors. let's hear it. (clapping.) >> i'm your any objection c for today's hearing thank you for being here for the thai annual

harvey milk and encountering moscone. i want to thank you he thank our interpreter for being here and mayor ed lee for soobl us here tonight and reflect autopsying all that happened in november in 1978 and where we are today. i want to recognize in addition our public defender jeffrey is here. defense attorney george mukdz from your city college board of trustees and walt is here from senator will keenz office and a

gentleman from nancy pelosi office. and the amazing teresa sparks as well >> so we are here to remember and to honor two extraordinary men mayor george moscone and supervisor harvey milk. who together literally changed the face of san francisco. we're here to keep the flame of their violation brp and their memories alive. or as ted contend would say the work goes on the cause endures and the dream shall never today. george and heather were two different people living two

different lives who strangely found their fate historically intertweend but they found they had in common was a passion for justice. and a soulful commitment to fight for civil rights aid workings right and customer rights and at that particular time and seniors and fought for children and the disabled they fought for muni any. 1978 was quite a year i want to share with you a short list of those efforts that began in 1978. the council of community you housing organization the chow chow leader in the affordable

housing housing unit formed. the pro-choice california was born in 1978 and gilbert acres rain both flat and the newspapers at the john sims gay marching abandon and was off and on and, of course, the san francisco gay men's chores who had their first impromptu performance before a crowd of 37 thousand people 37 years ago from tonight and performing though lord has been our refugee and there was the brings issue

the proposition 6 and anita bryant save our children caption and the joan town tragedy. it was a year for those of us who we will never forget and those who have arrived since that will come to remember. i wanted to share just two harvey milk stories that are part find my being. feeling it's been an extraordinary honor and privilege to serve in the state legislature while harvey race to serve 26 years before a gay man would serve in the assembly. i want to take a moment to remember all the 4rb community who have served on the san

francisco board of supervisors supervisor harvey and roberta and tom. leslie devon and scott wiener david campos are serving successfully as county supervisors and supervisor susan so every year in sacramento we assist high school students to come by but the inform sacramento to come to coerce lobby day it's an opportunity to get a civics lesson and how to lobby a lover so they get a little bit of training and those are kids sometimes 13 and

fourteen and 15 years old their high school students always pressed more and more kids are of the themselves to come out as gay or lesbian and seeing people coming out as transgenders people as well. amazing to have the insight to take on the world at a young angel. i remember among all the young students you've met through queer lobby do i day one girl 17 years old hadn't heard of harvey milk and the only other people she knew in per alive was her heroin addicted mother she i7b8gd her future was to be like

her mother there were no other options for her. it was to her mothers credit she was forced to come to sacramento for this day and saw here energy in her body and on her face and she said shooe she never heard the story of harvey milk she doesn't know how he lived or died and she said she know knows because of heather's life she didn't have to be like here mother. that's giving her hope

(clapping) you know, it took us too tries to get our special day of remembrance harvey milk day into state law. we knew we had to do something especially from this young woman we couldn't create a state holiday and but there's something in statute called a day of special significance from teachers and we had a day of special decision 6 for the poppy flower we could have a day of special significant for harvey milk. it's the first of its kind in the country for an lgbt person so on a party line vote we got

it to governor schwarzenegger detesting and he voted it. he said he understood and respected the intent of the legislation but that we should keep it in 70 san francisco kids where harvey milk had had his greatest significance. we came back a second year with our sponsor the quality of california and reintroduced it. i remember so many reporters ask me why do you think oourj urging to get a second response from the governor this time around from last year and my response was well, since this veto message the governors wife nominated harvey milk for the

california hall of fame the the president of the united states barack obama bestudy upon harvey milk the metal of freedom and there was that feature film that won academy award and that's the one thing arnold schwarzenegger understand it's the box office he signed the bill (clapping) so it is now my pleasure and honor to introduce our hardworking committed dedicated and glob troet mayor, mayor mayor ed lee thank you, mr. mayor. for brifg bringing us here today >> thank you again for gay

men's chores. folks let me acknowledging as well, the presence of all our elected officials it's wonderful to join them i really appreciated the sxharts explanation of what was going on back in 1978 you had to realize how difficult things were in the city it would an easy city. let me add another aspect back in 1978 in addition to all the things that happened in 1978 we had to start the rent strike in china town. and it was the instructional of those resident most of whom were of chinese-american descendent

wanted equality they wanted their how did to happen in the city that happened in so things were difficult. what awe rods what the instructional and particularly the leadership of mukdz and supervisor milk was the beginning of combraidz and understanding diversity. let me put it simple to you at this point. i don't think i would be standing in front of you all as the mayor of san francisco but for the leadership of supervisor harvey milk and moscone. that's how significant i side their contribution here and i make that personal point because they were such leaders of

diversity it was hard at that discuss it the make up of the board of supervisors of all the other elected positions the struggles in our our community across town whether japan down or china town everything was struggling how to get their viewpoint and recommendation. it was very threatening to do so we must understand the history in order to appreciate how beautiful it is today to be part of a government that windshield wipers that diversity and expresses it everyday when all the officials get to share this limp with me. we still have to structural and make things work for everybody.

we don't rest on the fact that when gavin 91 so many declared this should be a town where same sex marriage should continue now with prop 8 and doma we don't only celebrate this but when 289 percent of our homeless are lgbt are background we've got to do something about that. i really appreciate it it when devon got developed involved and lgbt x connect and made it at that lgbt center we're going to respond to that. san francisco has always been there for people pea this is

what our government will continue to do. we'll invite people to celebrate the diversity and we'll like this fire engine we'll come to the rescue of those in need (clapping.) (laughter.) >> this is the spirit of our city and i want to make sure as long as i've got the privilege of being the mayor we'll continue this tribute and understanding the history and working together collaborating finding solutions to people's problems and especially during the holidays making sure we talk to another person who got it a little bit better than us come in and help identify city succeed for everybody yes support the season of giving and

the nonprofit organizations in our community help them help us to succeeded and we have continuous opportunity for those who are succeeding b will help us bring everybody into the rest of the city. thank you very much for this tribute (clapping) and speaking about diversity there's a young man who taught me a lot of things oversee the years hose now, of course, the democratic elapse for the state of california he's also that paid attendance and that's congressmen john bird

(clapping) >> thank you ed. you know if willie brown were here he wouldn't have let those first degree engines go by he would have fired the cohesive (laughter) >> but the mayor didn't mess up the fight of the red triple for the tenant against the howard's authority efforts the lawyer that led the fight (clapping.) but this is a tough day for me speaking about diversity a separate male. heather i knew george i loved george and i group together.

if it would for george i won't have passed the bar he took me four days and asked me legal questions i learned 63 years in law school. what encountering brought to the city it's what heather brought not 9 the city of state but to the country george brought the neighborhoods into city hall. up until the time he was mayor the downtown groups and i don't say that in a negative way but they actually didn't control city hall but if you looked at every commission they almost all looked like me in her opinion all people from the more affluent parts of town that's

with an a not an e. george was elected by the people in the neighborhood he made those commissioners allocating look like the city of san francisco and george was a guy it's really weird having you have to be my angel but it's lekts for mayor in 75 was literally seen by some as a fight for the soul of the city those who opposed george and what he stood for and harvey milk stood four was change and a inclusive and taking care of what we needed in government. those who were opted to george wanted the city to stay the same, same, they were upset by

gay rights and civil rights march and upset by anything that would change the status quo. if he were brought up in a city the status quo was good but not for everybody heather and george understood that we thought it was a time for the city to change and to change for the better (clapping.) which is a novel thought but one of the things i want to mention and heather i had the misfortune or every time heather ran for office he ran against a friend of mine but i supported my friends. heather didn't hold it against

me he understood it. and when the alice b club i believe they endorsed against heather so heather started his only democratic club which is the lgbt lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenders he started the city club. i had to go and speckle before them when i ran for the house of representatives it's in the hotel i remember he was wearing jeans and this big belt buckle and a blue don't ask me what i had for prevent i was going a wait for him to take a shot at me he trod me with grace and a

lot of respect that said a lot to me about heather i think i was 0 and 3 against him. but everybody talks about heather and somebody said mark some woman didn't know who he was again harvey is an icon you'll not get who don't know who moscone is they think moscone is a convention center and most of us we call the moscone playground the if you happened to the playground. one thing talk about prop 8 but there's another thing coming down the pike they found out

they're fighting against fair housing and started out migrants gay marriage and they thoutd told you they can't do much about that but now they're going against transgender youth. and now we are going to side once and for all we can't be harassed (clapping.) i believe and, you know, clearly i did not know i can't imagine how it is to be a young person to be questioned about your sexiest and given when tommy passed the bill they said they were going to be another

referendum and it's going to be one we're going to win because picking on people who they don't think they can fight back young people who can't fight back but we fight back for them and that's what we're going to do. thank you (clapping) and i'd like to introduce a friend of mine who's a colleague of harvey's on the board of supervisors carol rue silver. (clapping.) >> thank you very much john. thank you for the remarks and a giving us a complexities for the evening that we are here i won't

say celebrated but oubdz it was thai years ago that i stood many of you stood many of you were not born yet i guess by those of us who are old enough to remember stood on those very steps and we 340ur7bd and we tried to make some codify sense of what had happened. we thought about it we talked about if this was the without doubted the most unbelievable set of circumstances in san franciscoed political history or at least recent history interest if you go back enough you'll find there's things but we

didn't have people who were elected officials pulling out a gun and taking out the mayor and another city official. i mean just how strange was that. but you have to also feel the strangeness of that in the year as senator leno mentions in which we've had the strangeness of jim jones i hope some of you who remember a local minister who took a thousand people into the jungles of south america and fed them cool laid for a mass suicide. harvey's leg is acy was he was

able to sue semi late all the strange thipgdz in san francisco and his candidatecy was very, very strange you couldn't believe there was any gay person elected to anything in america anything. now jose had republic as a gay man and had broken that code so that he was the harvey was not saying i'm the first to have had the opportunity to run for office but he was the first to win. and when harvey will you please it wasn't because all the gay people rows up and voted for

harvey but a little old lady voted for harvey and the shopkeepers and they voted for harvey because harvey was there in neither shops and another their doors every little meeting everywhere in san francisco in that district and that's why harvey won. it's a very, very wonderful thing we're remembering him thai years and very wonderful we're remembering george moscone back up because if we forget the sfakdz that were made for our freedom then he risk the back peddling that will cause us to lose it. we also know freed