Harvey Milk honored with namesake SFO terminal

San Francisco Board of Supervisors Tuesday voted unanimously to name San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 1 after The City’s first openly gay politician, the late Harvey Milk.

The legislation went to the full board for approval after The City’sthe Board of Supervisors budget and finance committee voted last month to recommend it.

Milk was elected to the board in 1977 and assassinated the following year, along with Mayor George Moscone, at City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. Milk was known as a pioneer for gay rights and also fought for migrant farm workers, low-income tenants, laborers and homeless youth.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano said Tuesday at the board meeting:

“I can’t tell you the depth of what this means not only to the LGBT community but also to its allies.”

Rather than turn the community inward, he asked that we turn the community outward and look at other marginalized communities and embrace them and give them empathy, be angry with them and adopt their goals as well, Ammiano said of Milk.

Ammiano worked with Milk in 1978 to defeat the Briggs Initiative, a proposition that would have banned LGBTQ people from working in California public schools.

“He fought for progressive causes and tried to make the world a better place,” said former Supervisor Harry Britt at today’s meeting. Britt was appointed to the board in 1979 by then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein to fill Milk’s seat after his assassination.

Britt said of Milk’s accomplishments:

“It was a great surprise as a gay man to see that it was possible. And it means a great deal to me, as it still does to lesbians, gay men and queers of various kinds all around the world, that we’re still honoring him.”

The terminal’s naming has been a long time in the making, as former Supervisor David Campos first attempted it in 2013, however, that idea was abandoned in the face of opposition. Instead, Campos reached a compromise agreement to form a committee to recommend which of SFO’s terminals or other facilities should be renamed.

In 2017, following a vote by the Airport Facilities Naming Advisory Committee in support of the renaming, Supervisor Hillary Ronen introduced new legislation to begin the process of renaming the terminal.

Also at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, supervisors unanimously voted on final approval for a ban on the sale of fur products citywide.

The ordinance, sponsored by Supervisor Katy Tang, also received unanimous support in the first Board of Supervisors vote last month.

The ban will go into effect on Jan. 1 and San Francisco will join Berkeley and West Hollywood as the only U.S. cities to remove all fur clothing and accessories from shopping racks.