USPS honors Harvey Milk with new stamp collection

Harvey Milk, California's first openly gay politician, is in the spotlight once again. In honor of what would have been the slain politician's 84th birthday, the USPS released a series of forever stamps featuring Milk.

Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was an active gay rights leader and is credited with providing hope and confidence to gay Americans in the 1970s. In 2009, President Obama posthumously awarded him a Medal of Freedom.

"The United States has come a long way," Erik Milk, Harvey Milk's grand nephew, told Reuters. "Probably he never would have thought that anything like this, of this magnitude would have ever happened, but you know, all of his efforts paid off in the long run."

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The stamp's debut was celebrated in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and it's available now at post offices nationwide. Watch the stamp's heartfelt dedication ceremony over at the White House's blog. --Meghan DeMaria

(Facebook.com/USPSStamps)