October 11th, 2013
Stuart Milk, the gay nephew of slain San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, made the announcement on Facebook:
Breaking! It is official! The USPS will confirm this week that my uncle, Harvey Milk will be commemorated on a 2014 US postage stamp. Another first! My deep gratitude to everyone that supported this effort! More details including the image to come via USPS soon! “Hope Will Never Be Silent” and that enduring message of hope will be on millions of letters represented by Harvey’s image!
The first openly gay American citizen to appear on a US stamp, as far as I know, is Bayard Rustin’s in 2001. (Please speak up in comments if you know of an earlier one.) Milk will be the first openly gay elected official to appear on a US postage stamp. So now when you sit down at your chippendale desk to pen your letter to the Family Research Council on lavender-scented stationary, you’ll once again have an appropriate stamp to adorn your envelope.
UPDATE: My source was wrong. There was no Bayard Rustin stamp. That’s a gross oversight that should be corrected. However, we do have these:
– Poet Walt Whitman: 1940
– Blues singer Bessie Smith: 1994
– Playwright Tennessee Williams: 1995
– Conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein: 2001
– Artist Andy Warhol: 2002
– Author James Baldwin: 2004
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Richard Rush
October 11th, 2013
Harvey Milk gets a stamp. Linda Harvey gets apoplectic.
She’ll milk it for all it’s worth.
werdna
October 12th, 2013
I’m not sure what your standard is as far how self-identified as LGBT someone needs to have been to be included, but I’d think you could include the Cole Porter stamp from 1991 and the Elizabeth Bishop stamp from 2012. Some would argue for the inclusion of Lincoln stamps (and coins!) as well…
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