The United States Navy is about to name a ship after gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk.The July 14, 2016 notification, signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, indicated he intended to name a planned Military Sealift Command fleet oiler USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO-206). The ship would be the second of the John Lewis-class oilers being built by General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, Calif.The Secretary of the Navy s office is deferring releasing additional information until the naming announcement, a Navy official told USNI News on Thursday.The designation is part of a new class designation for the service, called the John Lewis-class after civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA). Other ships in the class will be named after Chief Justice Earl Warren (school desegration), Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Lucy Stone (women s rights activist) and Sojurner Truth (abolitionist, women s rights).Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California where he served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. During his 11 months in office he passed a major gay rights ordinance for the city.He was assassinated on November 27, 1978 by Dan White, a former city supervisor.Milk has been described as  the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States.  In 2009, President Obama awarded Milk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Obama said:His name was Harvey Milk, and he was here to recruit us   all of us   to join a movement and change a nation. For much of his early life, he had silenced himself. In the prime of his life, he was silenced by the act of another. But in the brief time in which he spoke   and ran and led   his voice stirred the aspirations of millions of people. He would become, after several attempts, one of the first openly gay Americans elected to public office. And his message of hope   hope unashamed, hope unafraid   could not ever be silenced. It was Harvey who said it best:  You gotta give  em hope. Featured image via US Navy