The U.S. Navy has christened a ship named after slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk



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The U.S. Navy launches the USNS Harvey Milk in San Diego, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021.

Alex Gallardo/AP




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Alex Gallardo/AP

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In this April 1977 file photo, San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk sits in the mayor’s office during the signing of the city’s gay rights bill in San Francisco. The Navy is naming a ship in honor of the late gay rights leader, who served in the Navy for four years before he began a career in San Francisco city government.

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In this April 1977 file photo, San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk sits in the mayor’s office during the signing of the city’s gay rights bill in San Francisco. The Navy is naming a ship in honor of the late gay rights leader, who served in the Navy for four years before he began a career in San Francisco city government.

STF/AP

Harvey Milk served in the Navy from 1951-1955, including during the Korean War. His nephew said the Navy provided the Milk family with the documents outlining his discharge and it was «less than honorable.»

Milk says the Navy approached him about reversing his uncle’s dishonorable discharge posthumously, but that he decided against it as a reminder that not everyone was treated with honor.

«We have to teach our history to prevent ourselves from going backwards,» Stuart Milk said Saturday. «This navy ship sends an important message to the world.»

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In 1977, after his Navy career, Milk became the first openly gay elected official in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. But he was assassinated just one year later by a former city supervisor.

The two sponsors of the ship were Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Paula Neira, a Navy veteran and the clinical program director at the Center for Transgender Health at Johns Hopkins University.

Neira christened the ship by by breaking a bottle of champagne on the hull, which is a Navy tradition.

All six new ships are part of a program named after the late civil rights leader and former Georgia Congressman John Lewis. The five other ships in the fleet are also named for leaders who championed civil rights: former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, Robert F. Kennedy, Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth and Lewis.

  • navy base san diego
  • us navy
  • Harvey Milk



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