Military Sealift Command To Honor Gay Rights Activist Harvey Milk

Gay Rights Activist and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk

Military Sealift Command, the transportation provider for the US Navy, will name it’s newest ship after Harvey Milk, the San Francisco gay rights activist featured in Sean Penn’s award winning movie, Milk.

U.S. Naval Institute News reported that a July 14, 2016 congressional notification, signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, indicated he intended to name a planned Military Sealift Command fleet oiler USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO-206). The ship would be the second of the John Lewis-class oilers being built by General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, California

The Secretary of the Navy’s office is deferring releasing additional information until the naming announcement, a Navy official told USNI News on Thursday.

Mabus has said the John Lewis-class – named after civil rights activist and congressman Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) – would all be named after civil rights leaders.

Other names in the class include former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren whose court ruled to desegregate U.S. schools, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, women’s right activist Lucy Stone and abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth.

Updated: July 29, 2022 (Originally published July 29, 2016)

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