This segment offers a rare look at the sculpture in San Francisco's City Hall of civil rights leader and local hero, Harvey Milk; its sculptor; and its meaning to San Francisco and the queer community. Produced for the San Francisco Arts Commission, which oversaw the artist selection process, this segment shares anecdotes from Milk’s friends and colleagues including: Charlotte Coleman, the first lesbian bar owner in San Francisco; Anne Kronenberg, Milk’s campaign manager; Harry Britt, Milk’s successor to the Board of Supervisors; photographer Daniel Nicoletta; Assemblyman Tom Ammiano; and Eugene Daub, the bust’s sculptor.
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Piece Description
This segment offers a rare look at the sculpture in San Francisco's City Hall of civil rights leader and local hero, Harvey Milk; its sculptor; and its meaning to San Francisco and the queer community. Produced for the San Francisco Arts Commission, which oversaw the artist selection process, this segment shares anecdotes from Milk’s friends and colleagues including: Charlotte Coleman, the first lesbian bar owner in San Francisco; Anne Kronenberg, Milk’s campaign manager; Harry Britt, Milk’s successor to the Board of Supervisors; photographer Daniel Nicoletta; Assemblyman Tom Ammiano; and Eugene Daub, the bust’s sculptor.
Transcript
Eighty-five-year-old Charlotte Coleman remembers when the bust for Mayor Moscone was placed in City Hall.
CHARLOTTE: we had a memorial made for the mayor and I knew Dianne Feinstein a little bit so I asked her – “So if we get a bust for Harvey Milk, can we put it in the City Hall? And she said “Yes, we’ll find a place for it.”
That was in 1994.
[unveiling fades up]
In 2008, on what would have been Harvey Milk’s 78th birthday, Charlotte finally got her wish.
[unveiling peak]
Dan Nicoletta, a close friend of Milk says the sculpture was a community project.
DAN: Hundreds of people had a part in it. And it is the voice of the community saying that people are really thinking in terms of HM and the LGBT civil rights movement as an idea whose time has come.
[unveiling fade out]
[background of Ellen]
Today, the founder of the City Hall docent program leads a class of high school students t...
Read the full transcript
Intro and Outro
INTRO:By now, many people are familiar with Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco supervisor who helped build the gay and lesbian civil rights movement. People also know Milk for the tragic way he died: assassinated, along with Mayor George Moscone [mah scone ee], by former supervisor Dan White in City Hall.
In 2004, the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee formed. They invited the San Francisco Arts Commission to co-manage a sculpture competition to select the artists with the exciting task of creating a bust of Harvey Milk for City Hall.
This segment looks at that bust, the sculptor who created it, and what the bust means to San Francisco and the queer community.
OUTRO:Over a thousand people celebrated the placement of the Harvey Milk bust outside of the Board of Supervisor’s chambers on May 22nd, 2008, which would have been Harvey’s 78th birthday.
Additional Credits
San Francisco Arts Commission
