White House to hold ceremony dedicating postage stamp to Harvey Milk

WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- On May 22 the White House, the United States Postal Service, and the Harvey Milk Foundation will hold a first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony to celebrate the release of a commemorative postage stamp featuring Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the state of California.

Milk was instrumental in passing some of the earliest gay rights legislation, and after his assassination he became a martyr to the LGBT community.

Thursday the White House announced that the icon's nephew, founder and president of the Harvey Milk Foundation, Stuart Milk, will attend the ceremony in his honor, along with civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, the first openly lesbian U.S. Senator.

The stamp honoring Milk was unveiled last month and is based on a black and white photograph of the politician at the Castro Camera store he owned and operated in San Francisco, California.

May 22 would have been Milk's 84th birthday.