Fellow Travelers
WARNING : SPOILERS ahead for Fellow Travelers episode 7 .
Summary
The blackwash of Harvey Milk and former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone take spot in the background of the penultimate episode ofFellow Travelers . The dreaded genuine - sprightliness tragedy fix the conniption for instalment 7 of the Showtime serial " White Nights " , remove place in 1979 in two iconic locations of the LGBTQ+ community , San Francisco and Fire Island Pines , New York . After chronicle the Lavender Scare of the early 1950s in its first five episodes , Fellow Travelersdepicted one sequence in 1968 during the height of the Vietnam War before jumping ahead to 1979 .
Fellow Travelersepisode 7sees Hawk ( Matt Bomer ) at an all - time first , mourning the loss of his son on Fire Island while also abandoning his role as a husband and begetter to his other child , Kimberly . Tim ( Jonathan Bailey ) , who has long since moved on from Hawk and their doomed hidden family relationship that began back in Washington D.C. rough 25 year prior , feels compelled to check in on Hawk and prevent him from his distinctive self - destructive path . Tim move to Fire Island asMarcus , Frankie , and a passionate gay college scholar name Jerome take to the street to protest the murder of Harvey Milk and the charges against Dan White .
Fellow Travelers instalment 6 reveals the extent of Lucy ’s cognition about Hawk , explaining why she completely breaks her distinctive conservative part .
Harvey Milk & Mayor George Moscone Were Shot & Killed By Dan White
Dan White was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
As depicted inFellow Travelersepisode 7 , both Harvey Milk and the Mayor of San Francisco Geroge Moscone were inject and pop by Dan White , a fellow member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors . While none of these real - life figures were portrayed by any actors in the Showtime series , actual news footage of the announcement was shown at the beginning of the sequence to provide historical context to the events of the plot . Dan White was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977and was bonk to play a largely white territorial dominion that was hostile to the LGBTQ+ community .
White and Harvey Milk , who became the first openly gay political incumbent in the history of California , initially turn tight together and had several ideological similarities outside of the LGBTQ+ biotic community . Strangely , Milk River was one of the few colleagues that White had invited to his child ’s baptismduring the other part of his tenure make for at City Hall . Eventually , the political differences between White and Milk became apparent over a proposed drug rehabilitation centre in Mission District , moderate to White ’s surrender as a Supervisor in November 1978 .
Tim ’s shocking decision at the oddment of Fellow Travelers episode 6 stuns Hawk , who offered him a way out , but was actually on brand for his character .
White Was Convicted On Involuntary Manslaughter Charges In 1979
White only served five years of a seven-year prison sentence
White had a known history of wildness , having been oust from a high-pitched school for violence as an stripling . White was honourably discharge from the U.S. Army in 1971 , having served as a sergeant in the Vietnam War begin in 1965 . Only four days after put forward his resignation as Supervisor on November 10 , 1978 , White attempt to cancel it and resume his political position , which Governor Moscone had initially agreed with . Reportedly , Moscone change his mind after Milk and several other member of the Board of Supervisors insisted that he not appropriate White back into his former authority .
Only about two weeks later , on November 27 , 1978 , White climbed through a windowpane to get into San Francisco City Hall in social club to fend off the newly installed alloy detector . He went into Moscone ’s agency and asked for his line back , which Moscone was unable to bid him . With that , White shot and kill Moscone before walk to Harvey Milk ’s office staff and polish off him in a alike fashion . White grow himself in at Northern Police Station where he used to be a police officer and confess to killing both Moscone and Milk but traverse premeditation .
Fellow Travelers offer a pictorial delineation of the historically televised Army - McCarthy hearings , which make for a key part in the fall of McCarthyism .
White’s “Twinkie Defense” & Subsequent White Night Riots Explained
White’s defense team argued that he suffered from depression
Dan White had been initially charged with two count of first - degree murder and could have faced the death penalty under newly pass legislation in California . Due to the especial consideration of the seemingly premeditate cleanup of two political officeholders , combined with the fact that the murders were evidently human activity of retaliation , White could have front the death penalty for killing Moscone and Milk . Somehow , White ’s attorney were able-bodied to use the " Twinkie Defense " to categorize White ’s acts as symptom of a mental wellness military issue such as depression , claiming that White ’s strange consumption of Twinkies indicated his poor behavioral position .
The " Twinkie Defense " as it became know since White ’s court listening in 1979 was based on the deceptive design that White ’s abnormal consumption of Twinkies and other types of debris intellectual nourishment conduct him to kill Moscone and Milk River . In reality , his defense team was capable to frame the Twinkie consumption as grounds of his neutered mental province , and in doing so efficaciously saved his life , dropping the first - degree slaying billing to the lesser criminal offence of voluntary manslaughter . In response to the shocking conviction , members of the LGBTQ+ community took to the street of the Castro region in San Francisco to dissent in opposition to White ’s wanton direction .
Fellow Travelers episode 6 present Hawk ’s Word Jackson , a ill-affected yet sensible teenager who confront his feelings about his dad when he come across Tim .
What Happened To Dan White After His Prison Sentence
Dan White Died By Suicide In 1985
Dan White avoided life in prison and the death penalization by getting a seven - class prison prison term for voluntary manslaughter . It ’s often considered one of the greatest travesties to the LGBTQ+ community prior to the AIDS crisis because DoJ was not served when it very clearly should have been . In 1984 , a homicide inspector with the San Francisco Police Department alleged that he had met personally with White toward the ending of his prison house sentence and thatWhite had revealed he not only intended to vote out Milk River and Moscone but two other Supervisors as well , Carol Ruth Silver and Willie Brown , the latter of whom served as the Mayor of San Francisco from 1996 to 2004 .
White was unfreeze on password two years before completing his prison sentence in January 1984 . White revere for his sprightliness in San Francisco and was able to be transferred while on countersign to Los Angeles . Once his parole was finished , White was urged not to add up back to San Francisco but did so anyway with his wife and child . White died by self-destruction on October 21 , 1985 , from ego - imposed carbon monoxide toxic condition . Although the events of White ’s life-time are not draw inFellow Travelersafter his voluntary manslaughter charge , his activeness changed the class of LGBTQ+ history in permanent and terrible ways .
origin : City Journal , Britannica , Harvey Milk Foundation , History Channel
