Mike Hendrix, right, and his partner, the Rev. Dr. Neil Thomas
After multiple campaigns for public office, Harvey Milk took his seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in November 1977. Almost immediately he began to speak for the people who had put him there: the gays, minorities, seniors, the disabled — the “us’s,” he called them.
Milk left a life dedicated to street activism to sit alongside the most powerful group in San Francisco and whisper in their ears. And they listened. Within months he helped pass the city’s first gay rights ordinance at a time when the earliest of such ordinances were being reversed in many places across America.
That’s a fitting lesson this year as Harvey Milk Day draws near (May 22). If we are going to win the freedoms we deserve as Americans, we must use both the bullhorn and the bully pulpit.
Cleve Jones, who three decades ago fought alongside Milk and helped get him elected, recently told the New York Times how Milk handing off his iconic bullhorn when he became an elected official didn’t mean he was handing off the fight: “He knew he was going to be on the inside. But he also knew that we needed to keep up the pressure on the streets,” Jones said.
Milk knew that when the pace of change is too slow, it is necessary to demonstrate power passionately in the streets. He also understood that there are times to show strength more diplomatically from within the chambers of power.
Change is never easy, but it’s never more difficult than when those who really want it get discouraged and divided. Harvey Milk believed in achieving victory by fighting on all fronts and in many ways — but always arm-in-arm.
Today, our queer community finds itself at a bit of a divide in terms of tackling a threat as large as Christian Nationalism. Although we have been faced with systemic threats from our state government before, never before has there been a time where the LGBTQ community has been so visible and active within that government. Lobbyists and nonprofit organizers alike, from all across the state, have been hammering in at the Capitol, working to safeguard the community.
In more recent legislative sessions however, the missions of many of these groups have become rather divided, with some groups aiming to minimize the effects of harmful legislation through calculated discussions with members of power, while others work to exert pressure through public influence on their legislators. And in recent weeks, this controversy has led to a split within the LGBTQ community.
Powerful voices are critiquing each other as being ineffective to the cause. The reality of the matter is not that one method of creating change is preferable to another. Instead, both methods have their distinct benefits to protecting queer voices in Texas.
Every week, in my relationship with the Rev. Dr. Neil Thomas we understand that every branch has a valuable part to play in this fight. I — as a lobbyist — fight under the state Capitol dome, meeting with lawmakers and fighting the bills that harm our community.
Neil, my partner and senior pastor of Cathedral of Hope UCC, challenges the political establishment from the pulpit with a message of unity, love and acceptance, working also with social services to bring our community the resources we need.
Activists march in the streets, making sure ALL of our voices are heard boldly and loudly and showing those in power that united we are powerful and we will not be ignored or tread on any longer.
Harvey Milk knew when to work with his colleagues in the chamber and when to march along with the community in the streets. Despite his position, he always remembered that his commitment was to the people whose lives he was working to improve. As he famously said, “I represent the gay street people — the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio.”
While we must remain vigilant about the forces that threaten our community, this is about focusing on what unites us as members of the LGBTQIA community, as Texans. We have much to take pride in. Remember, it wasn’t long ago that a Pride Parade wouldn’t have been possible even in a city as welcoming as Austin.
Campaign Manager Anne Kronenberg, once wrote: “What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary. He imagined a righteous world inside his head, and then he set about to create it for real, for all of us.”
Harvey Milk’s example is what guides me and my political activism. No matter how hard things get, I remember how much harder they once were.
This year, as we fight to protect our rights by testifying, meeting with legislators and, yes, marching proudly together, arm-in-arm, I will be thinking of Harvey Milk and the many others who helped pave the way so that we can celebrate. And I will say THANK YOU to each of them for all they have done.
I will refocus my mind, my energy and my spirit so that I may truly be an agent for change here in the Lone Star State, and I will remember that Harvey Milk reminded us that “Hope will never be silent,” that “It takes no compromise to give people their rights,” and that “Freedom is too enormous to be slipped under a closet door.”
Let us be thankful for what has been accomplished and what, by working together, we can and will accomplish in the future.
Mike Hendrix is a lobbyist working in the Texas Legislature. He is also publisher of the digital magazine LESLIE.