HARVEY MILK HONOURED WITH STREET NAME

The late Harvey Milk’s 82nd birthday will be marked by the renaming of a street in his name in the Californian city of San Diego.

The San Diego City Council voted 8-0 on Tuesday to rename the street in the city’s Hillcrest area, which has a large gay and lesbian community, in the iconic gay activist’s honour.

The two block street leads to a local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender centre.

“I believe this is an appropriate way to honour Harvey Milk’s tremendous contributions. This is the culmination of years of work by many San Diegans and will ensure the civil rights leader is never forgotten in our city,” Councilman Todd Gloria told the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

While Milk’s life is mainly associated with his work in San Francisco, he first served as a diving instructor in the U.S. Navy in San Diego.

Milk is noted as the first openly gay man to hold public office in America, having been elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.

He was assassinated in 1978 at the age of 48 by a disgruntled city official. His birthday will celebrated on 22 May, which is marked annually in California as Harvey Milk Day.

In 2009 he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the U.S.