SAN FRANCISCO -- The late gay-rights leader Harvey Milk already has schools, streets and parks named in his honor. Soon, a U.S. Navy ship will join the list.
A Navy official said Friday that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus notified Congress earlier this month that ships in a new fleet of replenishment oilers being built in San Diego will be named for Milk and five other civil-rights and human-rights figures.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because a public announcement is expected in the near future.
More than two decades before he became one of the first openly gay candidates elected to public office, Milk spent four years in the Navy, first as an enlisted man and then as an officer in San Diego.
He was serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors when a former political colleague assassinated him and Mayor George Moscone at City Hall in 1978.
The other ship name honorees include abolitionist Sojourner Truth, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, Robert F. Kennedy, suffragist Lucy Stone and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
A Section on 07/31/2016