In 1985, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson worked as a staffer for the Sundance Film Festival while she attended college.
One of the perks of working the event was a pass that provided access to a film. She chose “The Times of Harvey Milk,” a documentary chronicling the LGBTQ activist who became California’s first openly gay elected official a year before his murder in 1978.
Wilson recalls being “mesmerized” by the storytelling and power of the film, and said she “never really forgot it.” Four decades later, she commemorated Pride Month by showing the movie alongside director Rob Epstein at the June 25 convening of her Mayor’s Book and Media Club.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson at a screening of "The Times of Harvey Milk" in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, June 25, 2025.
While the screening was booked about a year in advance, it came as Milk’s name has circulated through state and national headlines.
Last month, Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, said he planned to propose legislation to rename Salt Lake City’s Harvey Milk Boulevard after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decided to change the name of a ship named in Milk’s honor. Utah’s capital named 900 South after Milk in 2016.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Traffic along Harvey Milk Boulevard in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.
Lee’s proposal came months after he sponsored a bill during this year’s legislative session that banned pride flags from government property.
Despite his calls for the Salt Lake City road to be renamed, Wilson said the boulevard is an “appropriate tribute” and should remain.
“This can be a challenging state, and I believe that it’s important to remember that we should love and support all members of our community,” Wilson said. “... I don’t know why we’re debating flags, why we’re debating love and acceptance, and why we’re debating what our Constitution explicitly calls for.”
Epstein, who lived in San Francisco in the 1970s and knew Milk personally, said the screening was a full-circle moment for him — not only because the film won the Sundance Special Jury Prize 40 years ago, but also because LGBTQ+ rights are again being challenged.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rob Epstein, director of "The Times of Harvey Milk," in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, June 25, 2025.
“A lot of the same issues that we were fighting and that are depicted in the film are now very much at the forefront of what we’re facing now,” Epstein said, “which is rights that are being attempted to be pulled back, and history attempted to be obliterated.”
Nationwide, the LGBTQ+ movement has had many wins, Wilson added, such as marriage equality and more people feeling comfortable coming out. But fear associated with coming out still remains, and that fear is sometimes “louder” than the growing acceptance, she said.
“And stupidity is louder, and we’ve seen some of that in the state of Utah, things like preventing cities and counties from flying pride flags,” Wilson said. “Sooner or later, somebody’s going to challenge that, by the way, I don’t know where or how. So that’s what was going through my head — I want to believe our world is getting better.”