In San Francisco, children attend elementary school at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy. Travelers pass through the Harvey Milk Terminal at the airport. At Harvey Milk Plaza at Castro and Market streets, a giant rainbow flag dedicated to him can be seen for miles.
Mr. Milk is the gay rights figure who won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, becoming California’s first openly gay elected official. Just 11 months after taking office, he was assassinated in his City Hall office. Sean Penn played him in the 2008 movie “Milk,” and California celebrates Harvey Milk Day every year on May 22, his birthday.
Thousands of miles from San Francisco, in the body of water President Trump calls the Gulf of America, sits another tribute to Mr. Milk.
For now, anyway.
The United States Naval Ship Harvey Milk, a tanker currently moored in Mobile, Ala., may soon lose its name to, as the Pentagon put it, better reflect the country’s “warrior ethos.”
One of the lesser-known chapters in Mr. Milk’s biography was his four-year stint in the U.S. Navy. He served during the Korean War on a submarine rescue ship and later as a diving instructor. He was issued an “other than honorable discharge” in 1955 after his superiors learned he was gay.
In 2021, the Navy christened a tanker in the name of Mr. Milk, the first Navy ship to be named for an openly gay man. At the ceremony, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said he felt compelled to be there to make amends for the wrongful treatment of L.G.B.T.Q. people in the military “and to tell them that we’re committed to them in the future.”
That commitment to Mr. Milk appears poised to end.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of ship names, including the one honoring Mr. Milk. Other ships also under review include those named for Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two Supreme Court justices, and Medgar Evers, a civil-rights leader.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
In the Castro neighborhood on Wednesday, people reacted to the news with frustration. It was one more sign, they said, of the Trump administration’s being cruel, bullying and distracting.
“I think Donald Trump and the people he puts into power are some of the most bigoted, meanspirited people on this planet,” said Harry Breaux, 80. “I love this country, but I don’t love what’s happening to it.”
Wearing a sun hat decorated with sequins, Mr. Breaux knelt on the pavement in the Castro, painting a progress pride flag on the ground of a plaza across the street from the one named for Mr. Milk. The flag includes the traditional rainbow stripes along with additional colors to recognize transgender people and people of color.
Mr. Breaux said he still remembers shaking the hand of Mr. Milk when he ran for the Board of Supervisors in 1977 and voting for him, too. Mr. Breaux is gay and had moved to the city in the 1970s for the rare chance to live as his true, authentic self. He recalled once having a beer bottle thrown at him and another time being punched for being gay.
“I know what it’s like to be in a closet, or a cage, as I call it,” he said, adding that Mr. Milk had helped make the Castro a place where the fear of being openly gay dissipated.
“I’m going to get emotional,” he said, his voice cracking.
Mr. Milk, who would have turned 95 last month, was born in Woodmere, N.Y. He studied mathematics in college and intended to be a schoolteacher but enlisted in the Navy after graduation.
After his discharge, he bounced around the country and between occupations, working as a stock analyst and an insurance actuary. He was rather conservative as a young man, even working on Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Republican presidential campaign.
In the early 1970s, he moved with a romantic partner to San Francisco, opening a camera shop on Castro Street. As a small-business owner, he grew interested in local politics and made a name for himself with his fiery speeches and charisma. He worked with labor groups and civil rights leaders and dubbed himself the Mayor of Castro Street.
After a couple of unsuccessful campaigns for local and state offices, Mr. Milk won a seat on the Board of Supervisors, San Francisco’s equivalent of a city council, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country.
Soon after his election, he helped pass an ordinance granting San Franciscans the most sweeping gay rights protections in America. He also helped defeat the Briggs Initiative, a statewide ballot measure that would have banned gay people from working in public schools.
He had once said that if a bullet ever entered his brain, “let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country.”
Cleve Jones, now 70, remembers working as an intern for Mr. Milk and being sent by the supervisor on an errand on the morning of Nov. 27, 1978. He returned to City Hall to find total chaos. Dan White, a former supervisor, had shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and Mr. Milk.
“I had never seen a dead body before,” Mr. Jones recalled in an interview. That night, he helped lead a candlelight vigil and march to City Hall from the plaza that would later be named for his boss.
Mr. Jones, who would go on to create the AIDS Memorial Quilt, said he had a feeling after Mr. Trump’s re-election in November that the president would strip Mr. Milk’s name from the ship. It seemed, to Mr. Jones, the kind of “petty, vindictive” action the president relishes.
“I rather doubt that many Americans are sitting around the proverbial kitchen table today talking about how removing Harvey’s name from this ship makes them more secure,” Mr. Jones said.
Mr. Jones noted Mr. Trump’s other recent attacks on California and San Francisco. In recent weeks, the president has threatened to defund the city’s Presidio park and turn Alcatraz back into a federal prison. The city attorney is a main plaintiff in six lawsuits against the Trump administration.
San Francisco leaders were especially miffed by the timing of Mr. Hegseth’s order, which a senior defense official said had purposefully been issued during Pride Month as part of the administration’s attempt to rid the federal government of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Mayor Daniel Lurie said on Wednesday that Mr. Milk had served his city and country “with courage and distinction.”
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a 51-year-old gay man who represents the Castro, said he found it especially ironic that Mr. Hegseth wanted to ensure that ship names reflect the country’s “warrior ethos.” To Mr. Mandelman, that is precisely what Mr. Milk and others who fought for equal rights represent.
“That entire generation that fought its way out of the closet and created space for queer people like me, they were our greatest generation,” Mr. Mandelman said. “They stepped up to win these rights. We’ve got to step up to keep them.”
Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.
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