Danielle Ohl

ENGL282
Speech Analysis
Oct. 5, 2015

Ciceronian Styles in Harvey Milks Hope Speech

In 1978, Harvey Milk gave a speech at the first Gay Pride Parade, then called the San

Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. The then-city supervisor stood before an audience of both

gay and lesbian community members and politicians and called them to action. As Milk notes in

the famous address, the country had just begun to battle over gay rights. Singer Anita Bryant

organized a campaign to strip gay citizens of their rights in Dade County. John Briggs, a

California gubernatorial candidate, garnered support for Proposition 6, which mandated schools

fire gay teachers. Across the country, headlines blazed and citizens took sides, either

condemning discrimination based on sexual orientation or supporting it. (Harvey Milk

Foundation, 2016)

That was the America Harvey Milk, Californias first openly gay elected public official,

faced when he stepped to the podium in 1978. He could have tiptoed around his point, reverting

to double-speak and euphemisms to keep feathers unruffled, but he didnt. In the Hope Speech,

Milk is direct. He uses humor, conversational exposition and finally inspiration to transition from

low to high style speech. Meanwhile, he debunks media narratives and rather, establishes his

own credibility through anecdotal accounts of his experiences. Milks strategy allows him to

effectively establish a sense of inclusivity among a group of otherwise marginalized individuals

to inspire political action while advancing his political and moral positions.
 Milk uses humor as a sort of low style to disarm his audience, which is made up of not

only gay pride supporters, but also politicians. He notes. Ive never been able to talk to this

many political people before. He tells a joke about the pope, the president and the mayor of

Chicago, at that time Richard J. Daley. (Biles, 2005) In the joke, the three make their case for

saving themselves, as theyre drowning and the only piece of debris around can support just one

of them. In the end, Mayor Daley wins a vote 8-2, though only the three voted. The joke can be

shortened to a basic enthymeme If Mayor Daley won, its because hes corrupt, which draws

on the unstated notion that politicians are corrupt and that Milk knows that.

Hes not only using humor to bond with his audience, but also to reckon with them.

Karen A. Foss suggests as much in her examination of Milks rhetoric in the Queer Words,

Queer Images. (Foss, 1994) According to Foss, Milk is at both an advantage and disadvantage

because of his otherness. Here, he recognizes that otherness, choosing to cut through the tension

with humor because he is speaking to two groups that have reason not to trust him: Gay pride

advocates and community members have been shunned or abandoned by politicians in the past,

as Milk later notes; and politicians are skeptical of Milk, who could seem an outsider or a threat

to the status quo. With his joke, and an additional one where he pokes at his detractors, he

endears his audience so he can later inform them of his policy positions and finally move them to

action.

Next, Milk begins setting up his argument. He uses the rhetorical questions, Why are we

here? Why are gay people here? What is happening? so he can answer them for his audience,

invoking a sense of credibility. Before he begins talking about the events of 1977 and the

oppression of marginalized communities in America, he discounts the medias narrative. Milk

you hear about on the radio. Milk is using his personal experience to become the authority here.

It is an ethical appeal, because hes placing his personal experience above the national narrative.

It is effective, as he describes the national medias fixation a move to the right and

provides counterpoints. He mentions his own election, the decriminalization of marijuana and the

Womens National Conference in Houston so that, to his audience, Milk seems to be on the

correct side of history (which, for him, is the left).

With the sentence What that is is a record of what happened last year, he begins

transitioning to a more medium style. Hes moved on from the jokes in order to educate his

audience on the issues he ostensibly sought to tackle while in office. While teaching his

audience he elevates his language to convey more urgency. When stumping against the

Jarvis-Gann proposition, which proposed a lower property tax among other things (UPI, 1988),

he uses repetition of we must. When speaking out against the South African consulate, he calls

on his audience to stop traveling there, lest they be complicit in something offensive. Hes not

just telling the audience what he thinks, but involving them in his fights and making them feel

welcome or even important.

This is imperative, as next, Milk begins to make his key point: Gay legislators and

leaders are necessary for any progress to be made. At that time, there was a nationwide push

toward heteronormativity. The Save Our Children campaign, headed by singer Anita Bryant,

accused members of the gay community of child molestation and, as Milk termed it, brushed

them with the picture of pornography. (savethechildren.org, 2016) It was Milks intention to
correct these injustices by empowering both the gay community and its allies to take political

action.

Milk begins transitioning from medium style to grand style by comparing the gay

community to other marginalized communities. He is less focused on detailing actual events and

more on the abstract idea of hope and its importance of a change agent. To do this, he draws on

the idea that every community has myths and falsehoods perpetuated about it. He repeats the

same sentence structure, the [blank] community must not be judged by its myths, as a pathetic

appeal to his audiences sense of humanity. He is trying to stir emotion as he continues to speak

about marching in Dade County after Save The Children overturned anti-discrimination

legislation. Milk again uses a first-hand narrative to extend his credibility, though its main

function is to inspire the crowd. His rhetoric becomes deeply emotional, drawing on the concepts

of hope and pride. Again, he evokes other injustices those perpetrated against the old, the

black community, the Latin American community. Milk makes a pathetic appeal again, to

humanity, but also to pride in otherness. He said, I personally will never forget that people are

more important than buildings. I use the word I because I'm proud. Milk wants to evoke in his

audience a similar sense of pride, enough to galvanize them. His words align with the spirit of

the Pride Parade, as he addresses the gay audience members directly, telling them how proud he

is of their courage. Then, he returns to anecdotal evidence of the need for gay elected officials.

He talks of walking among the angry, the frustrated and the hopeless at a vigil for a murdered

gay man. Here, Milk is juxtaposing two contrasting images, the proud elected official and the

despondent mourer, to drive his final point.

repeats the word hope over and over, evoking a sense of urgency and desperation. Hes no

longer talking to just the gay audience members, but to all those present and perhaps beyond. He

calls on you and you and you to give people hope, playing not only to their sense of civic duty,

but to what he calls the uses.

Milks grand style effectively fosters a broad sense of inclusivity that casts personal

responsibility on virtually every American citizen. Less than one year after he gave his speech,

Milk was assassinated by another San Francisco official, Supervisor Dan White, who saw Milk

as a threat to his reelection. (Harvey Milk Foundation, 2016) Still, Milk is known to have had a

huge impact on San Franciscos political fabric, making its leadership look more like the people

who lived there. Milks vocal support for openly gay officials and their ability to change things

for all minorities empowered people in his city and beyond. While its hard to draw a direct

correlation from Milks speech and the increased representation of the LGBT community in

elected leadership, he is often regarded as a pioneer in LGBT rights and representation. At least

17 elected officials were openly gay in the 1970s. That number increased to at least 32 in the

1980s.1 As of 2016, gay officials have served every state. (Reese, 2012) Milks speech was to a

small portion of the American population, but its charming yet bold and urgent style effectively

conveyed them a part of something bigger. It undoubtedly inspired them to regard themselves in

the same way.

1
I counted the elected officials based on the citations in a Wikipedia list. The citations are numerous, so
the Wikipedia list is referenced in the bibliography.
 Works Cited

Biles, Roger. "Machine Politics." Machine Politics. N.p., 2005. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.

Foss, Karen A. "Queer Words, Queer Images: Communication and the Construction of

Homosexuality." Choice Reviews Online 31.09 (1994): 7-26. Web. 9 Oct. 2016.

"History of the Anti-Gay Movement Since 1977." Southern Poverty Law Center. N.p.,

28 Apr. 2005. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.

"Jarvis-Gann: Odd Couple Gained Strength Together." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles

Times, 14 Feb. 1988. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.

Klumpp, James. "The Hope Speech Commentary." University Of Maryland

Communications Department, n.d. Web. 9 Oct. 2016.

"Milk Foundation.org." Milk Foundation. N.p., 2016. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.

"Official USA Site - Save the Children." Save the Children. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Oct.

2016.
Reese, Phil. "2012 Proving Busy Year for Victory Fund." Washington Blade Gay News

Politics LGBT Rights. N.p., 2012. Web. 09 Oct. 2016.