Education
He attended Dartmouth College for a semester and then Ohio State University from which he graduated with bachelor"s and master"s degrees in history.
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Bill Kraus
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Born in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, Kraus was a 1965 graduate of Saint Xavier High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. He went on to become an aide to United States. Representatives Phillip and Sala Burton. After Milk"s assassination in 1978, he helped Harry Britt to be elected as Milk"s successor on the City Council.
Kraus later became president of the Harvey Milk Democratic Club.
Together, they worked on legislation to authorize funding to fight the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome epidemic. Through the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, Kraus conducted a "safe-sex" campaign, attempting to bring awareness to the gay community of the dangers of unsafe sexual practices.
After a relentless fight for gay rights and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome prevention, Bill Kraus was himself diagnosed with the disease in October, 1984. He traveled to Paris to be treated with the drug HPA-23, believed at the time to boost the immune systems of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome patients.
In Kraus" case, it proved useless.
He was in Paris when actor Rock Hudson arrived to pursue the same treatment. When it became clear the drug had failed, Kraus returned home to San Francisco where he died on January 11, 1986, aged 38. Kraus appears in the 1984 documentary film The Times of Harvey Milk.
He was also a central person in Randy Shilts" book And the Band Played On.
In 1993, the book was adapted as an Home Box Office movie, with Sir Ian McKellen playing Kraus. The movie dramatized, with some artistic license, both the book and real events in the life of Bill Kraus.
Politics
Kraus moved to San Francisco in 1976 where he learned to practice politics from Castro Street camera store owner and later City Supervisor Harvey Milk, who was among the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. Participant of his campaign was to urge the closing of San Francisco"s gay bathhouses, a recommendation that was severely criticized by some in the city"s gay community who called Kraus a "sexual Nazi" for viewing the bathhouses as a problem.
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Born
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Died
January 25, 1986 (aged 38) -
Nationality
American