Diversity breakfast celebrates legacy of Harvey Milk

The legacy of politician and LGBT activist Harvey Milk was celebrated during the annual Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast in Palm Springs Friday, 40 years after he and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone
were assassinated.

The seventh annual breakfast will be held at the Palm Springs Convention Center. Organizers say that more than 1,000 people expected to attend, Friday’s event was the largest Harvey Milk celebration nationwide. About 250 students from local middle and high schools as well as College of the Desert attended.

“He helped out a lot of people in his community even talking about him right now gives me so much historical background,” Jesus Pedregon, a sophomore at Coachella Valley High School, said.

Recognition will go to Mandy Carter, co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition, who will receive the 2018 Harvey B. Milk Legacy Award, and Cleve Jones, author and founder of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, who received the 2018 Harvey B. Milk Leadership Award.

Carter is also the co-founder of Southerners on New Ground, an organization focused on creating an LGBTQ base in the southern United States.

Jones befriended Milk during the 1970s and worked as a student intern at his San Francisco office. Following Milk’s death, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and later conceived of the NAMES Project Memorial Quilt, dedicated to those who have died of AIDS-related causes.

“I think Harvey is an example that ordinary people can change the world and he wasn’t a saint. He wasn’t a genius, but his life changed the lives of millions of people,” Jones said.

Event proceeds will benefit Coachella Valley youth through Gay Straight Alliance clubs and LGBT youth related programs.