Milk and Moscone November 1978: San Franciscan Dave Ford recalls the assassination of the city's mayor and first openly gay supervisor. (Gods & Monsters).

It mattered little to Daniel James White that Monday, November 27, 1978, dawned foggy and cool in San Francisco.

White, who had quit the city's board of supervisors two weeks earlier, was in his own fog. He knew that later that day, Mayor George Moscone would announce he wouldn't grant White's request to be reinstated to the board. He also suspected that supervisor Harvey Milk--the nation's first openly gay male public official--was behind the decision.

So White grabbed his .38 caliber service revolver and headed for City Hall, where he fired four times in Moscone's office, killing the mayor, and another five times in Milk's office, killing him as well.

The 32-year-old White plunged the city into darkness. And when night's dark descended, 40,000 people holding brightly flickering candles marched to City Hall.

"That gave people a great sense of reassurance, in the mad world that had just happened, that there were enough people who cared about what had happened," says Tom Ammiano, the board's current president, who is openly gay.

The murders fomented a firestorm of gay activism that altered the face of local and national politics, as evidenced by Harry Britt--the openly gay man who replaced Milk on the board--and by the gay supervisors who followed him, including Ammiano, Mark Leno, and Carole Migden.

More than two decades later, Milk's progressive ideals continue to serve as templates for queer rights activism across the country, and his legacy of fighting for inclusion and equality remains undimmed.

Ford is a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle.