Leadership Quote by Harvey Milk

Milk's line reads like a throwaway bit of streetwise advice, but it lands as a whole theory of power in seven words. "Never take an elevator in city hall" isn't about vertigo; it's about how institutions move people. Elevators are designed for frictionless access: you step in, the doors close, and you reappear somewhere higher without encountering anyone. That's exactly how political decisions get made when they're insulated from the public: sealed off, expedited, deniable.

Milk, a politician who understood spectacle and organizing as well as policy, is signaling the opposite ethic. Take the stairs. Be seen. Get cornered. Hear the muttered complaints and the unplanned gossip. In city hall, the hallway is a newsroom, a rumor mill, a bargaining table. The elevator skips the messy human ecosystem where accountability is enforced not by lofty ideals but by proximity. It's a jab at bureaucratic convenience masquerading as efficiency - and at the polite cowardice of officials who prefer controlled entrances to unscripted contact.

The context matters: 1970s San Francisco, where Milk fought for gay rights in a city where formal channels were often stacked against outsiders. When the system isn't built for you, informal networks become survival. "Never" carries the hard-earned certainty of someone who knows access is a battlefield. It's also a warning to allies: if you're trying to change city hall, don't adopt its habits. Power loves shortcuts; movements need face time.