NOVEMBER 27, 1978: Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated in San Francisco City Hall.

November 27, 2021

I constantly hear or read San Franciscans lamenting that, with the Covid-19 pandemic, the surge in homelessness, the rise in violent crime, public corruption and the Fentynol crisis, this is the darkest time in San Francisco history. And while I agree that the City has a host of problems, they are not nearly as terrifying as the violence that shook the City throughout the 1970s. The idealism of The Summer of Love^[1] had faded into the reality of homelessness and drug abuse. The Zebra Murderers^[2], the Zodiac Killer, Patty Heart’s kidnapping and the Doodler murders^[2A] were all happening in this time frame. And then, in November 1978, Jim Jones, leader of the People’s Temple and a respected City leader, committed a mass murder-suicide at his commune in Jonestown, Guyana^[3]. Mayor Moscone broke down into tears when he was given the news. Nine days later, he and Board Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated in their offices at City Hall. As the San Francisco Examiner^[4] stated in its headline the next day, the City was in agony. But just like the 1906 Earthquake and Fires^[5] that decimated the City, San Franciscans proved once again that they were resilient. Like the advertisements for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition^[6] that claimed San Francisco was the phoenix that had risen from the ashes, so too would Dianne Feinstein^[7] use those words to describe the City to potential business investors soon after being sworn in as Mayor. San Francisco would see prosperity in the 1980s.

George Moscone was born in San Francisco in 1929 and was raised by a single mother in Polk Gulch. He attended St. Ignatius Prep^[8] where he joined the Debating Club and was an All-City basketball player. He got a scholarship to University of the Pacific where he earned an undergraduate degree in 1953. After college he joined the US Navy for three years and served in the Korean War. He married in 1954 and the couple would have four children. He obtained a law degree from UC Hastings^[9]. While there, he had a night job as a janitor alongside fellow law student Willie Brown. They called themselves “The Broom Brothers” and became lifelong friends. Moscone started out in private practice. In 1960 he ran but lost a bid for the California Assembly. Three years later he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was in part responsible for blocking construction of a proposed freeway that would have cut through Golden Gate Park. In 1966 he ran and won a seat in the California State Senate, where he was elected Majority Leader. He held that seat until 1974. While in office, he sponsored a bill legalizing abortion that was signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan, and along with then Assemblyman Willie Brown he supported a bill repealing California’s sodomy law, which eventually passed and was signed in to law by Governor Jerry Brown.

In December 1974 Moscone announced his intention to run for San Francisco mayor. He had the support of those City organizations that supported minorities and the poor, including Glide Methodist Memorial Church^[10], Delancey Street^[11] and Jim Jones’ People’s Temple. Moscone was elected by less that 5,000 votes. After his election, Moscone appointed Jim Jones Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Commission.

Moscone’s election into office was the end of Irish/Italian Catholic City leadership and the birth of San Francisco’s liberal progressive movement that still exists today. He hired Charles Gain as Chief of Police, who drove out drunks, burnouts and bullies on the force. Both Gain and Moscone were despised by the old rank-and-file within the police department. But Moscone became known as “the people’s mayor” as his appointments reflected the diversity of the City. He appointed Harvey Milk to the Board of Permit Appeals, making him the first openly gay City Commissioner in the United States. Milk announced his run for California State Assembly five weeks later. He lost by less than 4,000 votes.

Harvey Milk was born in 1930 in New York. After graduating from State University of New York at Albany in 1951, he joined the Navy during the Korean War and served on a submarine rescue ship. He was honorably discharged in 1955. He moved around the country, finally settling in San Francisco with his partner Scott Smith in 1972. They opened a camera store in San Francisco’s predominantly gay Castro District^[12]. It was then that Milk developed an interest in politics. He founded the Castro Village Association and organized the Castro Street Fair. In 1975 Milk gained national fame by outing an ex-Marine named Oliver “Bill” Sipple. On psychiatric disability leave from the military, Sipple thwarted an assassination attempt against then President Gerald Ford^[13] and was lauded a hero. Sipple did not want his sexual orientation disclosed, but Milk, convinced that Sipple would give credibility to the LGBTQ community, called the Chronicle. Herb Caen^[14]would publish that Sipple was both gay and a friend of Milk. Milk was mentioned as often as Sipple in the national news stories that followed. Realizing that he was not being taken seriously as a political candidate he cut off his long hair, gave up marijuana, and ceased visiting gay bath houses. He ran for a total of four times for political office before finally being elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977, just as Moscone survived a recall election. Also elected that November was Dan White, a former police officer and fireman.

Dan White grew up in Visitacion Valley which, during his childhood, was a conservative, white, Catholic neighborhood. He served in the Army during the Vietnam War before becoming a San Francisco police officer, then fireman. He made headlines in 1977 when, as a firefighter, he rescued a woman and child from a 17-story burning building. He ran for a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1977 and won. He and Milk were friends of sorts: they met once a week for coffee and made joint public appearances. But all ties were severed when Milk was the deciding vote that allowed a mental health facility for troubled adolescents to be built in Visitaction Valley, a project that White had vehemently opposed. Feeling betrayed, White would vote against everything that Milk sponsored from that point on. The most notable example was Milk’s bill that banned discrimination in housing and employment on the basis of sexual orientation: White was the only Board Supervisor who voted against it. White saw Milk and Moscone as the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the City.

On November 19, 1978 White abruptly resigned from the Board of Supervisors. But pressure from the police department and the real estate industry who feared Moscone would appoint another liberal and tip the scales of the political makeup within the Board of Supervisors convinced White to change his mind. He asked Moscone to reappoint him, but Moscone, with support from Milk, refused. Half an hour before Moscone’s press conference naming White’s replacement, White, armed with a .38 police revolver, snuck into City Hall through a basement window to avoid the metal detectors. He hunted down both Moscone and Milk in their offices and shot them both multiple times. Both Moscone and Milk died. Moscone had just turned 49 three days earlier. Milk was 48.

As the news of the assassinations broke, people began gathering at City Hall. There were an estimated 30,000 people at that evening’s candlelight vigil. Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors with the plan of retiring from politics, was sworn in as the new mayor. White turned himself in. It is said that when word of the assassinations got to the Hall of Justice, scattered cheers broke out. Public outcry against the Police Department only grew louder when it was revealed that the police and fire departments had raised $100,000 for the Dan White Defense Fund.

Moscone’s and Milk’s bodies were laid in state in the City Hall Rotunda. Governor Jerry Brownordered all flags in California be flown at half mast. Moscone’s funeral was held at St Mary’s Cathedral and he was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. There was a small service for Milk at Temple Emanu-El^[16], followed by a memorial service at the Opera House. Half of his ashes were scattered in the San Francisco Bay and the other half were mixed with the cement beneath a plaque on the sidewalk in front of 575 Castro Street. There is also a memorial for Milk at the Neptune Society’s Columbarium^[17]. While he was only in office for eleven months, Milk became a martyr for the LGBTQ community. In 2009 he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

White was charged with two counts of murder and held without bail. He was eligible for the death penalty. He never showed any remorse for his actions. His defense team introduced the concept of “diminished capacity”, convincing a jury that White was overwhelmed by growing pressures in his life as evidenced by his binging on Twinkies and other junk food (coining the term “the Twinkie defense”). On May 21, 1979 a jury convicted White of the lesser crime of manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years with two years already served. Outraged by the lenient sentence, a crowd of 5,000 stormed City Hall in what would come to be known as the White Night Riot. Protestors smashed windows and torched a row of police cars. A riot squad not only broke up the crowd, but pursued protestors back into the Castro where they then raided bars and attacked people on the street. It took a personal visit from Chief Gain to get it to stop.

White was released from prison in 1984 after having served a little over five years. His release brought on a fresh wave of protests. He was at first paroled to Los Angeles, but stubbornly returned to San Francisco when his parole was over. A year and a half later, he committed suicide. He was 39.

^[1] Summer of Love: story coming January 14th

^[2] Zebra Murders: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2934

[2A] Doodler Murders: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4994

^[3] Jim Jones: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4114

^[4] San Francisco Examiner: story coming June 6th

^[5] 1906 Earthquake and Fires: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2849

^[6] 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition: story coming February 20th

^[7] Dianne Feinstein: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4348

^[8] St. Ignatius: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=3496

^[9] UC Hastings: story coming November 22nd

^[10] Glide Memorial: story coming September 22nd

^[11] Delancey Street: story coming April 10th