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With the recent weekend of San Francisco’s 2010 Pride festival, I couldn’t help but think about Harvey Milk and all that he’s done for our community. Here is a man who recognized that inequality was ruining the lives for thousands of gays and lesbians around the country, particularly in his residence of the Castro District of San Francisco. He was a visionary. He was an advocate. But the most memorable trait Harvey Milk possessed was that he was a natural born leader; someone who took a grass roots approach to get citizens to listen to his message about hope. Attached to my thoughts of Harvey Milk, bouncing around in my head like a rubber ball, was a simple question that I really had no answer to:
Who will be the next Harvey Milk? In all that he made happen in his lifetime, and I might add in the little time span he used to accomplish his mission of making a difference, I don’t know if I can point out one individual who puts a face to the modern day “Gay Activist.”

I recently watched a documentary on Logo called On the Downlow that got me thinking about coming out and the challenges we face for those who are out, regarding same-sex marriage. And I know that not only is this a hot button for some, but it feels like to me we are beating a dead horse in the matter. But the fact is that a small percentage of people really made a difference in the relatively recent outcome of the repeal of Prop 8. Sadly, after watching this documentary I realized that as an African American gay man, it’s my ethnic brothers and sisters who are holding us back. Sure we’ve focused on the Mormon group because they forked over the most money and they were the most visual of all opposition, but there’s also the dark horse of the race that pushed us back a couple of steps.