Harvey Milk Plaza

The rainbow flag floats proudly in the air at the intersection of Market and Castro street, you’re obviously at the entrance to San Francisco’s famous gay district. The rainbow flag was born here in 1978, at the request of Harvey Milk. Gilbert Baker is the one that invented it. He gave it 8 stripes of color, each with its own definition. The first, pink, represents sexuality; the second, red, stands for life; the third, orange, is the symbol of healing. Yellow is the color of the sun, green is for nature, turquoise is for art and magic, blue symbolizes harmony and serenity, and the last, violet, is the symbol of the spirit. The following year, pink and turquoise, too expensive to print, disappeared from the flag, leaving us with the famous 6-stripe flag we all know. Since then, new, increasingly inclusive variants have emerged, such as the 2021 intersex-inclusive progress pride flag, created by British activist Valentino Vecchietti, which includes the often overlooked intersex people. The small square accessible via the stairs pays tribute to Harvey Milk. You’ve probably already heard of him, perhaps even seen the film about his life. Arriving in San Francisco at the age of 40, he settled with his partner in the heart of the gay district and opened a camera store. Elected San Francisco city counselor in 1977, he was the first openly gay politician and quickly became a popular figure in the fight for LGBT rights. He preaches a message of peace and tolerance, and became a true symbol of hope for an entire community. During his term he opposed a bill to fire homosexual teachers, although he frequently received death threats. A year after his election, Harvey Milk and the city’s mayor, George Moscone, were murdered on city hall premises by a former councilman, Dan White. His trial is commonly known as twinkie defense, in reference to an American candy. It is a derisive term used by the media to describe Dan White’s unlikely defense. Dan White’s lawyer argued that his depressive behavior was accentuated by an abuse of junk food with a high content of sugar such as, Twinkies. The jury was predominantly white, Christian and heterosexual, and Dan White was sentenced to just a few years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, even though it was clear that it was a murder. This blatant injustice led to a feeling of incomprehension and powerlessness within the gay community, leading to numerous riots. Violently repressed by the San Francisco police, these riots mirrored those of Stonewall in New York, marking the beginning of the modern gay rights movement in the United States. This dark event in the city’s history became known as the “White Night Riots”. On the other side of the plaza, you can also visit the pink triangle memorial. It is dedicated to the homosexual victims of the Nazi regime who forced them to wear a pink triangle as a distinctive sign, and deported thousands of homosexuals to concentration camps.