On November 27, 1978, Dan White snuck into City Hall and assassinated gay rights activist Harvey Milk and San Francisco’s mayor, George Moscone.
Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions and/or images of violent, disturbing, or otherwise potentially distressing events.
Robert Clay / Alamy Stock PhotoSupervisor Dan White in San Francisco City Hall in January 1978.
According to his constituents, Dan White was an “All-American” man. A supervisor for San Francisco’s eighth district in the late 1970s, White was a working class Catholic, a Vietnam War veteran, and a former policeman and firefighter who championed small-town values.
But less than a year after he was elected to the Board of Supervisors, Dan White would crawl through a basement window of City Hall with a revolver in his pocket and assassinate both the mayor and White’s fellow supervisor, Harvey Milk — one of U.S. history’s first openly gay elected officials.
In the wake of the murders, thousands took to the streets to protest the injustice inflicted upon the mayor and Milk, whom many believed was targeted for his sexuality. Even today, the assassinations are remembered as one of the darkest moments in San Francisco’s history.
But who was the man behind these infamous crimes?
Dan White’s Early Years In California
Mike Weiss / San Francisco Public LibraryDan White, the man behind George Moscone and Harvey Milk’s assassination.
Daniel James White was born on Sept. 2, 1946 into a working class family in California. He was the second of nine children, and grew up in the Visitacion Valley neighborhood of San Francisco.
As a child, he attended Catholic school and made a name for himself as a star athlete until he was expelled for getting into a fight. He later graduated from a public school before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1965.
White fought in the Vietnam War as a sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division. He was discharged in 1971 and moved to Alaska, where he worked briefly as a high school truant officer and guidance counselor.
Later, White moved back to San Francisco and took a job as a police officer for the San Francisco Police Department. This, too, was short lived; he quit the force after reporting a fellow officer for beating a suspect who was in handcuffs.
White later took a position as a firefighter. In 1977, The New York Times reports, White made headlines after saving a woman and her child from the 17th floor of a burning building. This rescue won White the favor of many of the city’s residents, who viewed him as a local hero.
That same year, White pivoted to city politics. With the support of San Francisco’s police and fire departments, he was elected to the city’s Board of Supervisors for District 8, a predominantly white area that was notably hostile toward the city’s growing gay community.
It was through this career pivot that White became acquainted with Harvey Milk.
Dan White’s Relationship With Harvey Milk
Robert Clay / Alamy Stock PhotoMayor George Moscone (left), newly elected supervisor Harvey Milk (center), and State Senator Milton Marks (right) in front of San Francisco City Hall.
While serving as a supervisor for the City, Dan White established himself as a straight-laced, middle class Democrat with small-town values.
“It’s old fashioned values that built this country. To me, this is what society is all about,” White once told an interviewer. “If you see someone in trouble, you go to help them out.”
During his time as supervisor, White worked alongside Harvey Milk, California’s first openly gay man to be elected to public office.
Milk had moved to San Francisco in 1972 and quickly involved himself in city politics. Over the next few years, Milk garnered public support by advocating for the San Francisco gay community and fashioning himself as “The Mayor of Castro Street.” He was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977 alongside Dan White.
Although the two men appeared to have little in common, they initially had an amicable relationship. They regularly had coffee and meals together, and Milk reportedly even attended the christening of White’s son.
Still, White was inconsistent in his stance on gay rights. He was the only supervisor to oppose an ordinance forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 1978. He also openly disapproved of Pride parades.
“The vast majority of people in this city don’t want public displays of sexuality,” he once said, according to a 2021 The Stranger article.
However, he also sided with Milk on some important gay rights issues, hired a gay man as his campaign manager and chief of staff, and attended a fundraiser in opposition of a ballot measure that would allow schools to fire openly gay staff.
In early 1978, however, Milk and White reportedly fell out after Milk voted in favor of the construction of a home for troubled youth in White’s district — a move which White vehemently opposed.
Meanwhile, White was dealing with financial difficulties. The salary for a supervisor was less than $10,000 a year, and White was forbidden from retaining his job as a firefighter to supplement his low salary. Instead, White attempted to bolster his income by opening a potato-themed restaurant at Pier 39, but it flopped.
On Nov. 10, White resigned as supervisor, citing financial troubles. He quickly regretted his decision to leave office, however, and rescinded his resignation just four days later. Mayor George Moscone reportedly considered reinstating him — but changed his mind after Harvey Milk persuaded him to appoint someone else.
On Nov. 26, Moscone officially denied White’s request to resume his role.
Jobless, under financial strain, and feeling betrayed by Milk and Moscone, Dan White had reached a breaking point — one that would prove fatal for his former colleagues.
Inside George Moscone And Harvey Milk’s Assassination
Steve Rhodes/FlickrA candlelight memorial following the assassination of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.
On Nov. 27, 1978, the day George Moscone was set to announce Dan White’s replacement as supervisor, White entered City Hall through a basement window, effectively side-stepping the building’s metal detectors. He marched to Mayor Moscone’s office and, after a brief argument, shot him four times at point-blank range.
Then, White walked down the hall to Harvey Milk’s office and asked to speak with his old coworker. Once they were alone, White shot Milk five times.
After Milk was dead, White fled the building. That same day, he turned himself in to the very police department he had worked at years before, and confessed to the murders.
The Murder Trial Verdict Sparks Outrage In San Francisco
Leading up to Dan White’s murder trial, the San Francisco fire and police departments raised funds for their former colleague’s defense.
During the proceedings, the defense argued that the attacks were not premeditated, but rather that White’s violent outburst was the result of a severe depressive episode. White, they said, had been at his wits’ end with the financial and political pressures he was facing.
They also claimed that White’s mental health struggles had caused him to eat too much junk food, including Twinkies and Coca-Cola — leading this tactic to be infamously known as the “Twinkie defense.”
On May 21, 1979, the jury convicted White of manslaughter, rather than first-degree murder. He was sentenced to less than eight years in prison for the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.
The announcement caused an uproar across San Francisco, especially among members of the gay community. Outraged by the lenient verdict, thousands marched to City Hall in what became known as the White Night riots.
The protests soon escalated into chaos when the police started to beat some of the protestors with night sticks. The protestors, already infuriated that the police had helped fund White’s defense, fought back, and the demonstration gave in to a full-blown uprising. By the time the demonstrators finally dispersed, 59 officers and 124 protestors had been injured, and about a dozen police cars were damaged.
Afterward, a group of rogue police officers raided the Castro neighborhood in retaliation, where they assaulted passersby at random, vandalized a gay bar, and shouted anti-gay slurs as they attacked its patrons.
“San Franciscan turned against San Franciscan last night. Bottles, rocks, broken glass, blood,” the San Francisco Examiner wrote at the time, according to a 2022 SFGate article. “That’s the memory of the night the White jury came back.”
The Death Of Dan White
Daniel Nicoletta / CC BY-SA 3.0Protestors setting police cruisers ablaze during the White Night riots.
Dan White served out his sentence and was paroled in January 1984. He spent a year in Los Angeles before moving back to San Francisco to live with his wife and children. However, he struggled to start his life anew there.
Disgraced, unable to hold down a job, and paralyzed with the fear of retaliation for his past crimes, White died by suicide on Oct. 21, 1985.
For some residents of San Francisco, White’s death was poetic justice for the chaos and pain he had unleashed onto the city years before. But for those who knew him, his death was an unspeakable tragedy.
“We’ve said all along there were three victims in this,” White’s lawyer, Douglas R. Schmidt, told The New York Times in 1985. “Today Dan White became the third victim.”
“I don’t think that this is the kind of book that’s been written that needs an epilogue,” said Police Chief Cornelius Murphy. “It’s time to close the book on Dan White. Let the White family and the City and County of San Francisco get on with its business.”
After reading about Dan White, the man behind Harvey Milk’s assassination, meet nine brave LGBTQ veterans who were forgotten by history. Then, discover some of history’s greatest speeches, including Harvey Milk’s “Hope Speech.”
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or use their 24/7 Lifeline Crisis Chat.
