Joseph Scott Smith was a gay rights activist best known for his romantic relationship with Harvey Milk, for whom he was a campaign manager.
Scott Smith at 575 Castro Street photographed by Harvey Milk, 1973
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in New York, where he acknowledged his homosexuality as an adolescent, but chose to pursue sexual relationships with secrecy and discretion well into his adult years. His experience in the counterculture of the 1960s caused him to shed many of his conservative views about individual freedom and the expression of sexuality.
Harvey Milk (right) and his older brother Robert in 1934
Milk, dressed for his brother's wedding in 1954
Milk, here with his sister-in-law in front of Castro Camera in 1973, had been changed by his experience with the counterculture of the 1960s. Dianne Feinstein, who first met him in 1973, did not recognize him when she met him again in 1978.
Harvey Milk buttons