Dustin Lance Black's emotional Oscar Acceptance Speech for Original Screenplay for his work on MILK can be read below.
"Oh my God. This was, um, this was not an easy film to make. First off, I have to thank Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg and all the real-life people who shared their stories with me. And, um, Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco and our entire cast, my producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, everyone at Groundswell and Focus for taking on the challenge of telling this life-saving story.
When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California, and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life. It gave me the hope one day I could live my life openly as who I am and then maybe even I could even fall in love and one day get married.
I wanna thank my mom, who has always loved me for who I am even when there was pressure not to. But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he'd want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally, across this great nation of ours.
Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, God, for giving us Harvey Milk".
Harvey Milk was an activist and politician, and the first openly gay man to be elected to major public office in America; in 1977, he was voted to the city supervisors' board of San Francisco, representing the Castro District.
From an original screenplay by Dustin Lance Black, Milk is produced by Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, the Academy Award-winning producers of American Beauty, through The Jinks/Cohen Company. Groundswell Productions and Focus Features co-financed Milk, which is a Focus Features presentation in association with Axon Films of a Groundswell production and a Jinks/Cohen Company production. Executive producers of Milk are Groundswell CEO Michael London (an Academy Award nominee for Sideways), Mr. Black, Groundswell's Bruna Papandrea, Barbara Hall, and William Horberg.
