George Moscone

George Richard Moscone (November 24th 1929 - November 27th 1978) was the mayor of San Francisco of January 1976 until its Assassinat in November 1978.

Moscone is born in 1929 in San Francisco from a father penitentiary guard with the Prison from State de San Quentin and from a mother with the hearth. It makes its studies in University off the Pacific then with the school of right Hastings, in San Francisco. It is at the time of its university course that it meets John Burton, who will become later a member of the Congrès, like his wife, Gina.

Beginning of political career

The brother of John Burton, Phillip, is then member of the Parliament of the State when it recruits George Moscone in 1960 to present itself to the elections of the Lower House of the Californian legislature. Moscone is not elected, but in 1963 it obtains a seat with the council of the supervisors ( Board off Supervisors ) of San Francisco. It forges an image progressist there, taking the defense of the poor populations, the racial minorities and the small employers. In 1966, it leads a victorious campaign for a seat to the Senate of the State of California. Its rise within the Californian Democratic party is reinforced by its close relationship with an abstract alliance of politicians progressists san-franciscains carried out by the Burton brothers, called by some the Burton Machine . In addition to the Burton brothers, the group included in particular the spokesperson of the Californian Parliament Willie Brown. Little time after its arrival with the Senate of the State, Moscone is elected Chef majority by his party. In 1974, it hesitates to present to the seat Gouverneur, but prefers to support the Secretary of State Jerry Brown. Moscone was a partisan before the hour of the Civic right of the homosexual , and it succeeds in making vote on a private bill making null and void the laws against the Sodomie, with the assistance of his friend and ally with the Californian Parliament Willie Brown. The text is signed by the Californian governor Jerry Brown and takes value of law.

Mayor of San Francisco

Moscone decides in 1975 to be presented to the post of mayor of San Francisco. The results of the first turn are tight: it arrives first at the elections of November, followed by the preserving supervisor John Barbagelata and its counterpart moderate Diane Feinstein. With the second turn in December, Moscone gains the seat of little vis-a-vis Barbagelata. Other candidates progressists are elected at the stations - keys of the local executive branch this year: Joseph Freitas is elected Procureur district and Richard Hongisto is re-elected with his seat of Shérif.

Moscone spends its first year as a mayor to prevent the professional team of Baseball of the San Francisco Giants from emigrating towards another city, and to try to organize a municipal Référendum. Moscone is the first mayor to name a big number of women, homosexual and representatives of ethnic minorities at municipal committees. One of the most discussed nominations is that of the reverend Jim Jones at the station of the committee of housing of the city. A scandal bursts when it appears that the church of Jim Jones, the Temple of the People, is in fact a Secte carried out by a Gourou to the Mental health debatable.

The nomination of Charles Gain, former chief of the police force of Oakland, to direct the police force of San Francisco causes movements among the police officers of the city, in particular when Gain prohibits the alcohol consumption during the hours of service, and when he proposes an out-of-court settlement to put an end to a legal proceeding brought by citizens belonging to ethnic minorities, asserting which they were victims of Discrimination when they postulated for a station near the municipal police.

Assassination

Context

In 1977, Moscone, Freitas and Hongisto resist without much difficulty an election for their recall imposed by their adversary John Barbagelata. This year is also remembered by the passage to a system of election per district. Among the new elected officials with the council of the supervisors, one counts in particular Harvey Milk, the first supervisor openly gay, the lawyer and unmarried mother Carol Ruth Silver, sino-American Gordon Lau and very preserving daN White, police fireman and old. Milk, Silver and Lau, like John Molinari and Robert Gonzales form an alliance with the Moscone mayor, while daN White, Diane Feinstein, Quentin Kopp, Ella Hill Hutch, Lee Dolson, and Ron Pelosi form a coalition of abstract opposition. Feinstein is elected president of the council of the supervisors by a vote of 6 against 5 Lau front, supported by the supporters of Moscone. At the time, many observers estimate that Feinstein, having already sudden two defeats with the elections for the post of mayor, would support the candidature of Kopp before withdrawing political life.

At the beginning of her mandate, White is forced to leave her station of Pompier of San Francisco to conform to a rule in the charter municipal preventing whoever from having two municipal employment. The debates within the council are sometimes acrimoniously, and White often exchanges words with Milk and Silver. Number of the objectives of the mayor to revitalize certain districts and to increase the financial support for certain programs are demolished in favor of the commercial and entrepreneurial interests supported by the preserving majority (“preserving” a very particular direction, the conservatives san-franciscains has here being traditionally more moderate than many their counterparts at the national level). The competition between Milk and White worsens, so much so that White will be the only one to vote against the historical stop establishing of the rights for the Homosexuels, signed by the Moscone mayor in 1978.

Facing the entrepreneurial difficulties of her restaurant and with criticisms relating to her role of supervisor, White resigns suddenly with the autumn 1978. Immediately, of many groups of economic interests which counted on the presence of White to the town hall make pressure on him so that he asks for the return of his resignation letter, but when he makes his request, he learns that its resignation is of now-and-already effective. Only the mayor has the capacity to be able to restore White at his station, a decision that Moscone is initially tempted to take, before being convinced by Milk, Silver and others which it is about a bad idea which would block the objectives progressists of the mayor and his allies. This debate is however quickly eclipsed the November 18th 1978 by the advertisement of the collective suicide of more than 900 members of the sect of the Temple of the People of the reverend Jim Jones, in a commune of Jonestown, with the Guyana. It also appears that members of the Temple assassinated Leo Ryan, a member san-franciscain Congrès, dispatched on the spot to inquire into charges of inhuman practices within the commune. Three journalists and a member of the Temple which wanted to leave Jonestown were also killed. The majority of the victims are originating in San Francisco and its surroundings, plunging the area in a climate of mourning. After having attended the funeral of his/her friend Leo Ryan, Moscone decides to name Don Horanzy, a senior official of housing at the federal level and to which the ideas are close as of his, in order to replace the station whose White resigned. White learns how the nomination by one to defer CBS.

The assassination

The November 27th 1978, whereas Moscone is on the point of appointing a substitute for the seat of the 8^e district, White gets dressed with a maroon costume, takes its old revolver of service and some additional balls which it slips into the pocket of his coat, and requires of a friend to lead it to the town hall of the city. Once on the spot, White bids her farewell with her driver, and penetrates inside the town hall through a window of basement in order to avoid the metal detector at the entry of the building. It climbs driving to the office of the mayor, and it is authorized to see Moscone after short waiting. An argument bursts immediately between the two men about the imminent nomination. Moscone suggests that it continue their conversation in a private part so that the shouts do not arrive at the waiting room. Once in the part, White leaves her revolver and draws two balls in the chest from the mayor. Moscone falls prostrate and the ex-supervisor draws two balls in the head to him. White leaves the cabinet of the mayor in strong gale, crossing Diane Feinstein in way towards the wing lodging the cabinets of the supervisors. On the spot, White finds a pretext to ask for an interview into private with the supervisor Harvey Milk. Once introduced into a meeting room by Milk, it starts to shout and cuts down it of two balls in the chest, one in the back and two others in the head. White leaves then the town hall without being worried whereas the bodies of the victims are discovered.

It is the president of the council of the supervisors Diane Feinstein which finds the lifeless body of Harvey Milk, and in vain tries to reanimate it. It calls with the assistance, and the chief of the Gain police force as several members of the personnel of Moscone inform it of dead of the mayor. A few minutes later, the Gain chief accompanies Feinstein towards the rotunda by the town hall, where she announces with the reporters gathered on the spot that the mayor George Moscone and the Harvey Milk supervisor were killed and that the suspect is former supervisor daN White. This evening, of the thousands of San-Franciscains gathered with the gleam of candles to cry the two personalities, going through the district of Castro in the district of Milk to ravel in front of the town hall.

Diane Feinstein, president of the council of the supervisors in exercise, lends oath and becomes the new mayor of the city. She will prove to be one of the most eminent political personalities of California.

Heritage

George Moscone and Harvey Milk are commemorated today like Martyr S of the movement of the homosexual rights.

The Moscone Center, the greatest center of conferences and exposures of San Francisco (increased in 2005 by the opening of the building Moscone West), was inaugurated in 1981 and was named in the honor of the former mayor.

Moscone Re-creation Center, a public garden formerly called Funston Park, was famous in the honor of George Moscone, and is a favorite destination of many San-Franciscains.

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