Shilts, Randy. The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.

New

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982.

Randy Shilts, author of The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of

Harvey Milk, chronicles the life of Harvey Milk, the first gay man elected to office.

Shilts uses this work to argue that anyone can make a difference, even after the age

of forty, by introducing the reader to the gay rights movement, beginning in the

1940s and 50s, explaining the events of the Stonewall Riots of 1969, and then

introducing the character of Harvey Milk through a personal friendship, interviews

and other primary sources. This book was very well written and researched.

Although the author was a personal friend of Harvey Milk, he remains objective,

adding another great work to the history of the gay rights movement.

Shilts was one of the foremost authors of the gay rights movement, and had

written for newspapers like The Advocate and The San Francisco Chronicle. During

his student career at the University of Oregon, he came out publically as a gay man

and chose to run for student office. Shilts himself had trouble finding employment

because he was openly gay, but became one of the first American reporters to bring

gay issues to the popular press. Shilts would devote the later part of his life to

publicizing AIDS, of which he would later die in 1994.

This book is intended for a more popular audience, since the author was a

reporter and sought to publicize the gay rights movement. However, it is very well

footnoted and researched and could easily be used in an academic context. The

author uses several new primary sources, making this a revisionist work. Two of
Harvey Milk’s lovers are interviewed in the book, and Shilts is able to add his own

knowledge of the movement since he was a primary witness to many of the events

documented in this book.

Overall, this book is thoroughly enjoyable and readable. Anyone interested in

the individual’s struggle against the majority, politics or gay rights should read this

book as soon as possible, and then pass it on to their friends. The Mayor of Castro

Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk remains a valuable piece of writing,

especially in the modern world, when America still struggles to answer many of the

issues addressed in this historical work.

Erin McKenas