The Navy plans to name a future ship after gay-rights pioneer — and Navy veteran — Harvey Milk.

The news, first reported by the U.S. Naval Institute, was confirmed Thursday by a Navy official who said Milk was on a list given to Congress announcing future ship names.

The ship will be built at San Diego’s General Dynamics-NASSCO shipyard, as one of six John Lewis-class oilers to be constructed starting in summer 2018.

San Diegans have been advocating for a ship named after Milk since 2012, when then-Rep. Bob Filner and the GLBT Historic Task Force of San Diego County wrote letters to the Pentagon asking for the “next appropriate ship” to be named for the slain San Francisco supervisor.


Milk is best known for becoming one of the first openly gay men elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. A year later, he and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by a political rival.

In 2012, San Diego’s planning commission voted to name a street in Hillcrest for Milk.

× THERE WAS A LOT TO CELEBRATE THURSDAY MORNING AT SAN DIEGO’S ANNUAL HARVEY MILK DIVERSITY BREAKFAST. THE HUNDREDS IN ATTENDANCE CHEERED ABOUT THE UNVEILING OF A STAMP IN WASHINGTON, COMMEMORATING THE SLAIN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER AND GROUND-BREAKING GAY

The gay-rights leader also has Navy ties in San Diego. He was stationed at San Diego Naval Station as a diving instructor and served aboard the submarine rescue ship Kittiwake as a diving officer.


Milk is the at least fourth civil-rights leader whose name has been chosen by Ray Mabus, the long-running Navy secretary.

Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ships have been named for Medgar Evers and Cesar Chavez. The first ship in the new oiler class was named for Rep. John Lewis, the Georgia congressman who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. into Selma, Alabama, in 1965.

Critics have accused Mabus of being political with his ship-naming.

Mabus has said cargo and ammunition ships are typically named for pioneers, visionaries and explorers. In January 2015, he announced that the John Lewis class of oilers would be named for “people who fought for civil rights and human rights.”


jen.steele@sduniontribune.com