Gay school's students get a history lesson with 'Milk'
Teens feel pride for attending Harvey Milk High after watching the film about the slain politician. But they and school officials say discrimination is still a problem 30 years after his death.
Reporting from New York — Gay students who attend this cozy third-floor Greenwich Village high school did not live through the launch of the national gay rights movement, which unfolded a few blocks away, and until recently many knew little about the man their school was named after: Harvey Milk.
But the new movie "Milk," on the life of one of the first openly gay politicians to hold office in the United States, has given students at the nation's first public school dedicated to teaching gay, lesbian and transgender youths a glimpse into the leader's legacy, connecting them to a history many never knew.
"When it finished, I just felt so proud that I go to his school," said Matthew "Matty" Agnostini, 18, who watched an advance screening with classmates from Harvey Milk High School. "After he died, when they showed the people marching and there was a long line of people holding candles, I remember thinking if I was there I would have been walking too."
Orville Bell, a teacher at the school, said after watching the movie, "I almost felt like screaming into the audience, 'I teach at that school!' "
Harvey Milk High School opened more than two decades ago as a privately funded program. In 2003, the New York City Board of Education expanded public funding to the campus and doubled its enrollment. Nearly 100 students now attend, including a few straight students, although most are gay and transferred from campuses where they faced discrimination and harassment because of their sexuality.
Harvey Milk was born and raised in New York. He was elected a San Francisco supervisor in 1977 and is widely known for his successful battle against Proposition 6, a statewide measure that would have banned gays from teaching in California public schools. Milk was assassinated in 1978 at San Francisco City Hall by another supervisor who had resigned, Dan White.
"I'm glad the film has come now for students to see the man and what he fought for," Bell said. "It really showed a man who sacrificed for me, and for them."
Bell, a teacher in public schools for 30 years, recalled the 1970s and '80s, when he worked in Maryland and did not feel safe enough to reveal to colleagues that he was gay. "I remember very clearly playing the game, saying, 'Yes, I had a girlfriend, and we were planning to get married.' It was all a sham."
