SAN DIEGO, Calif. — More than 1,000 people gathered at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront this morning to mark the city’s ninth annual Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast.
The event featured human rights activist Cleve Jones, who was presented with the Harvey Milk Lifetime Achievement Award, and Bishop Yvette A. Flunder, who received the Champion of Equality Award.
Speaking at the event Jones said, “So many of the rights that LGBT people take for granted were inconceivable back then. He [Harvey Milk] was a visionary, but I want people to know that he was an ordinary man, he wasn’t a saint he wasn’t a genius his life was full of failures and challenges that we all endure, but he loved his city, he loved his people and he really showed us that ordinary people can make great changes in our world.”
Also honored were San Diego police officers Dan Meyer and Christine Garcia, who both received the Founders Award.
Now in its ninth year, the Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast began as the vision of Nicole Murray Ramirez, Robert Gleason, the San Diego LGBT Community Center and an amazing coalition of civic and business leaders. The event brings together more than 1,000 diverse San Diegans, business, labor, non-profits, educators, Democrats, Republicans, Decline-to-States, all communities, all ages – in fact, all San Diegans who support equality and justice – to celebrate the memory of this influential civil rights activist.
