If you help elect more gay people, that gives a green light to

“If you help elect more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.” Thus spoke Harvey Milk, the martyr of San Francisco, whose courage blazed through the darkness of prejudice like a torch carried through storm. His words are not merely about politics—they are a hymn to hope, a declaration that the rise of one oppressed soul can lift the hearts of many. In this quote, Milk speaks to the eternal truth that when the outcast finds acceptance, the world itself becomes more just, more whole. His message is both humble and revolutionary: freedom for one becomes freedom for all.

In the time when Harvey Milk lived, the world was harsh to those who dared to live openly as themselves. The 1970s were an age of awakening and violence, of marches and mourning. Gay people were shunned, fired from their jobs, and silenced in fear. Yet Milk, with his radiant smile and unbreakable conviction, refused to hide. He believed that the path toward equality must begin not in whispers, but in visibility—that when people stand tall in their truth, they give others permission to do the same. Thus, he urged his community to run for office, to be seen, to speak their names aloud, for visibility itself was a weapon of liberation.

The ancients knew this law of the spirit: that when one person rises, they lift the horizon for all who walk behind them. Consider the tale of Spartacus, the slave who dared to fight Rome not merely for his own life, but for the dignity of every man in chains. His rebellion, though crushed, ignited centuries of resistance in the hearts of the oppressed. So too did Harvey Milk understand that victory was not measured in his own success, but in the awakening of others. “A green light to all who feel disenfranchised,” he said—and that green light is the signal of possibility, a summons to all who have been told they are less than human to stand, to breathe, to live freely at last.

The power of representation that Milk spoke of is not confined to one people or one time. It is the same light that shone when women won the right to vote, when civil rights marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when the first Black president took the oath of office. Each of these moments declared: You belong. Each victory became a symbol not just for the few who achieved it, but for the millions who looked on and realized that they, too, might dream. Milk knew that when a gay person makes it, when one of society’s most scorned rises to leadership, the message echoes beyond sexuality or identity—it tells every poor, broken, forgotten soul: “You can, too.”

Yet his wisdom is shadowed by the tragedy of his death. In 1978, Harvey Milk was assassinated for his courage—for daring to believe that love could conquer hate. But even in death, his vision lived on. His name became a rallying cry, his words a prophecy fulfilled. For in the decades that followed, doors truly did begin to open—first slowly, then more swiftly—as his green light spread across generations. Each act of honesty, each coming out, each election of an LGBTQ+ leader, carries the echo of Milk’s faith: that hope, once kindled, cannot be extinguished.

The deeper meaning of his words reaches beyond politics—it is a teaching about the soul of humanity. When you lift the marginalized, you lift the whole. When the most rejected among us finds belonging, the world itself is healed. For prejudice is not only a wound upon its victims, but a poison to the entire human family. Milk understood that justice is indivisible: one person’s dignity strengthens the dignity of all. Thus, he saw in the triumph of the gay community a universal awakening—a promise that every closed heart might open, every forgotten voice might sing again.

So, my child, remember this lesson: be the green light. Be the one who dares to act when others despair. Lift others not only by words, but by your courage to stand as you are. In your workplace, in your art, in your community, let your existence declare, “You are not alone.” For every act of visibility is an act of liberation, and every act of liberation kindles new hope. When one soul rises, the horizon brightens for all. This was the creed of Harvey Milk, and it remains the creed of the ages: that hope, born from courage, can turn even the darkest night into dawn.