Shilts, Randy. The Mayor of Castro Street: the Life and Times of Harvey Milk. Atlantic Books, 2009.
Randy Shilts' "The Mayor of Castro Street" is a biography of the life and times of the tragically assassinated San Francisco politician Harvey Milk. Shilts was the first openly gay journalist who expands on the life of Harvey, the first openly gay politician who became the face of the Gay movement arising in the 1970's in America. Throughout the book Randy brings up countless interviews and journal entries and expands upon Harvey's importance in the political and gay rights scene. Throughout the narrative Shilts does a fantastic job showing the true and personal side of Harvey Milk that the public did not see. This book should be the of …show more content…
But it wasn’t until joining the campaign of Barry Goldwater that he realized his closeted outlook on things needed to change. A lover of Harvey’s, likewise to himself, loved theatre, and introduced Harvey to the cast and director of the show “Hair” in San Francisco. Upon meeting like minded people, Harvey decided to move to the Bay area himself. Living a double life, Harvey was a financial analyst by day, and a progressive avant garde beatnick by night. Taking the world progressively by storm, the gay rights movement caused many to get arrested, one being Harvey. After getting arrested he knew he needed to go back to New York, but his friends new his heart belonged in San Francisco. It was not long before Milk came to sense and booked his flight back to California for good. He opened up a camera shop in the heart of the gay community called Castro Street. The camera shop spurred many ideas out of Milk, one being becoming San Francisco supervisor due to how small businesses, like his shop, were being treated. Even though Milk did not win a seat, he planted many political ties that would later help him in the future. Harvey was truly making strides with in his community, someone commented on his activity and said, “ Every Time you pick up the paper, there’s Harvey doing something new,”(202). He was not in the political ring for being gay, he was in it to make changes in general, so whenever news …show more content…
One of his opponents, Dan White was not fond of the gay community or Harvey. Dan was quoted to “not accept failure,” (234) and that the gay community was “in for a surprise” (234). It was not until November 27, that the former supervisor crept into city hall with a revolver killed Mayor Moscone , and then following that Harvey as well. They pinned Dan White’s actions on his bad diet made him go crazy, therefore claiming the “twinkie defense”. Dan post murdering both the mayor and Harvey attempted to run for supervisor
Randy Shilts' "The Mayor of Castro Street" is a biography of the life and times of the tragically assassinated San Francisco politician Harvey Milk. Shilts was the first openly gay journalist who expands on the life of Harvey, the first openly gay politician who became the face of the Gay movement arising in the 1970's in America. Throughout the book Randy brings up countless interviews and journal entries and expands upon Harvey's importance in the political and gay rights scene. Throughout the narrative Shilts does a fantastic job showing the true and personal side of Harvey Milk that the public did not see. This book should be the of …show more content…
But it wasn’t until joining the campaign of Barry Goldwater that he realized his closeted outlook on things needed to change. A lover of Harvey’s, likewise to himself, loved theatre, and introduced Harvey to the cast and director of the show “Hair” in San Francisco. Upon meeting like minded people, Harvey decided to move to the Bay area himself. Living a double life, Harvey was a financial analyst by day, and a progressive avant garde beatnick by night. Taking the world progressively by storm, the gay rights movement caused many to get arrested, one being Harvey. After getting arrested he knew he needed to go back to New York, but his friends new his heart belonged in San Francisco. It was not long before Milk came to sense and booked his flight back to California for good. He opened up a camera shop in the heart of the gay community called Castro Street. The camera shop spurred many ideas out of Milk, one being becoming San Francisco supervisor due to how small businesses, like his shop, were being treated. Even though Milk did not win a seat, he planted many political ties that would later help him in the future. Harvey was truly making strides with in his community, someone commented on his activity and said, “ Every Time you pick up the paper, there’s Harvey doing something new,”(202). He was not in the political ring for being gay, he was in it to make changes in general, so whenever news …show more content…
One of his opponents, Dan White was not fond of the gay community or Harvey. Dan was quoted to “not accept failure,” (234) and that the gay community was “in for a surprise” (234). It was not until November 27, that the former supervisor crept into city hall with a revolver killed Mayor Moscone , and then following that Harvey as well. They pinned Dan White’s actions on his bad diet made him go crazy, therefore claiming the “twinkie defense”. Dan post murdering both the mayor and Harvey attempted to run for supervisor