And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

by Randy Shilts

That comment made Harvey Milk hate Jim Foster, more for the personal rebuff than for the loftier philosophical differences. The Toklas Club never endorsed Harvey Milk for anything. By 1976, Milk had organized his own club, the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, based on his own style of pragmatic power politics. The club’s clout grew with Milk’s election in 1977 and renamed itself the Harvey Milk Gay Democratic Club days after its mentor’s assassination in November 1978. Five years later, both Harvey Milk and Jim Foster were absent from the political scene, the latter nursing a lover stricken with AIDS. Nevertheless, their feud lingered and defined San Francisco gay politics. The Toklas and Milk clubs still hated each other passionately, with the Toklas faction probably fostering the bigger resentment because it had been eclipsed by the Milk Club in recent years.