Aug 21, 2009  |  By: Lou Chibbaro Jr.  | COMMENTS     

The nephew of the late gay rights leader Harvey Milk said President Obama spoke to him about his uncle’s life and vision at a White House reception shortly after Obama honored Milk and lesbian tennis star Billie Jean King with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Milk and King were among 16 activists, athletes, scientists and entertainers to receive the medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, during an Aug. 12 White House ceremony led by the president.

Stuart Milk, Harvey Milk’s gay nephew, accepted the medal on the family’s behalf.

“The president did ask me, ‘What would Harvey have thought about receiving this?’” Stuart Milk recounted to reporters after the ceremony. “He said, ‘Wouldn’t he probably have been surprised?’”

“And I said, no, he wouldn’t have been surprised because he could see, even though he wasn’t alive … to see the progress that we have made, he envisioned it. He knew it was going to happen.”

Other relatives attending the ceremony said they were honored and thrilled that Harvey Milk was being recognized as an important civil rights leader.

The president, in speaking about each of the recipients during his opening remarks, praised Harvey Milk for delivering a “message of hope” as “one of the first openly gay Americans elected to public office.”

He described King, who attended the ceremony, as a world-class tennis champion who broadened “the reach of the game to change how women athletes and women everywhere view themselves … regardless of their sexual orientation.”

Obama greeted each of the recipients before placing ribbons bearing the medals around their necks. Where medals were awarded posthumously, such as to Harvey Milk, Obama handed a decorative box containing the medal to a relative or spouse.

Other recipients included retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), the late Republican Congressman Jack Kemp, actor Sidney Poitier, actress Chita Rivera and retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.

In speaking of King, Obama noted that at age 11, she purchased a tennis racket for $8 that she earned from chores and declared her goal to become the world’s No. 1 tennis player.

“Yet, what we honor are not simply her 12 grand slam titles, 101 doubles titles, and 67 singles titles,” the president said. “We honor what she calls all of the off-the-court stuff. What she did to broaden the reach of the game to change how women athletes view themselves. And to give everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, including my two daughters, a chance to compete both on the court and in life.”

He added, “As Billie Jean once said, we should never, ever underestimate the human spirit, nor should we underestimate Billie Jean King’s spirit.”

Of Harvey Milk, Obama said the former San Francisco supervisor “was here to recruit us, all of us, to join a movement and change a nation.” He noted that Milk did not publicly disclose his sexual orientation during his early life, referring to Milk’s early career as a closeted investment adviser on Wall Street.

“In the prime of his life, he was silenced by the act of another,” the president told the White House gathering. “But in the brief time in which he spoke, and ran and led, his voice stirred the aspirations of millions of people.

“He would become, after several attempts, one of the first openly gay Americans elected to public office. And his message of hope — hope unashamed, hope unafraid — could not ever be silenced. It was Harvey who said it best: ‘You gotta give ‘em hope.’”

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosted a private White House reception for the honorees and guests after the ceremony. The honorees did not speak at the ceremony.

President Harry Truman established the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1945 to recognize the key role that civilians played in assisting the country during World War II. The White House said President Obama selected the 2009 recipients because of their work as “agents of Change.”

Milk’s family recalls ‘a civil rights leader’

Several of Milk’s relatives and friends attended a separate reception in Milk’s honor following the White House events. The latter reception was organized by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a Washington-based group that helps elect openly LGBT people to public office.

In speaking at the Victory Fund event, Stuart Milk, who lives in Wilton Manors, Fla., told of how his uncle helped him grapple with his own sexual orientation.

“I join you as a member of the LGBT community, as somebody who had Harvey in my life for my first 17 years,” he said.

“It took his death for me ...