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Plan To Rename Hillcrest Street After Civil Rights Leader Harvey Milk

A proposal to rename a two-block street in Hillcrest in honor of slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk will go before the San Diego City Council on May 8, council President Tony Young said today.

Blaine Avenue, which contains a handful of houses and apartment complexes, would become the first Harvey Milk Street in the country, according to Young.

While Milk mainly is associated with San Francisco, where he was a county supervisor, he was stationed in San Diego when he was in the Navy.

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"Harvey Milk is an important figure in the ongoing struggle for full equality for all Americans," Young said. "I'm pleased to put Harvey Milk Street on the docket and hope my council colleagues will join me in considering this landmark effort."

Young said Councilman Todd Gloria has been working with his constituents in Hillcrest to get the name changed in time for Milk's birthday, May 22.

Milk would have been 82 years old this year.

Milk was one of the first openly gay politicians to hold public office when elected to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco in 1977.

He pushed through a gay rights law before he and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were shot to death in late November 1978 by former supervisor Dan White.