Human rights activist Cleve Jones reflects on friend's legacy with arrival of USNS Harvey Milk

The USNS Harvey Milk is just one of the many honors bestowed on the late San Francisco supervisor, and one of the more notable, given Harvey Milk's dishonorable discharge, and the U.S. military's history on LGBT rights. 

For those who were close to Milk ... 

"Yeah, when you've been portrayed by Sean Penn and had navy ships named after you and then subway stations, the mythology gets a bit much for me at times," said LGBTQ+ Activist Cleve Jones. "I think it actually strengthens his legacy for people to know that he was an ordinary guy, who, rather poorly, ran sort of a pathetic little store on this [Castro Street] block, you know?"

There are countless names stitched into the history gay rights movement, but few are larger than that of Jones, a legend in his own right, and forever linked to the life and times of his friend Harvey Milk.

"He was in many respects an ordinary man," Jones said. "He was not a genius. He was not a saint. He had all sorts of challenges and failures and humiliations in his life. He was a kind man, and I knew him quite well, and what I remember the most is just how funny he was, how much he cared about people, and how much he cared about the neighborhood."

And now a Navy ship bearing Milk's name sits in San Francisco Bay. For Jones, it's an odd lens on how much has changed in 45 years,

"There's all sorts of irony around this," Jones acknowledges. "I mean, he is being honored by a military institution that gave him a dishonorable discharge for being gay."

"It's also the first ship in the world named after someone who was dishonorably discharged," explained Stuart Milk, Harvey's nephew,

Stuart is in town for the ship's arrival and celebration in San Francisco. He opposes any move by the Navy to change his uncle's dishonorable record. He says that legacy should be remembered.

"I think it sends a very important message that as a society we progress and we make mistakes and our institutions make mistakes," Milk told KPIX. "And so this ship is going to travel to many countries where it's currently illegal to be LGBTQ or societally unacceptable. And those people are given hope that here this ship named after someone who is forced to resign from the Navy, this ship is actually celebrating that community."

"As I drove down, I was thinking what he would make up all of this, and you know I think he would get a kick out of it," Jones laughed. "The irony would not be lost. People often ask me, what would Harvey say about this or what would Harvey say about that. I don't know. He's been dead a long time. And we live in a world, much of which I think would be unimaginable to Harvey. I have no doubt if Harvey was here he would celebrate the goals that have been achieved in the progress that's been made in the lives that have been saved. He would be very, very worried and very cautious, and want everybody to know that this could all be swept away in the blink of an eye. And that's not hyperbole. That's not rhetoric."

Ask anyone who was in the Castro in the 60s & 70s and they will tell you how much has changed since then, in the country, and in this neighborhood even. But Milk's legacy is a fixture here now, the monumental accomplishments of someone who was just a regular guy.

"But who, nonetheless, had a huge impact," Jones said. "So I think that this is something we can all aspire to, that you don't have to be a movie star, you don't have to be some legendary, epic, mythological figure. You can just be an ordinary person and make the world a better place."