Every December 1, since 1988, countries around the globe have dedicated this day as World AIDS Day. We are all familiar with the red ribbon which has become the global symbol for solidarity with HIV-positive people and those among us living with AIDS. This year, the theme of World AIDS Day is "Communities make the difference."
I lived through the early epidemic in New York City, on the Lower East Side, a neighborhood with a large gay community, and one that also had a population of drug injectors. We were all races, ages, and genders. We went to funerals almost daily. We fought stigma and misinformation. We battled hopelessness and depression. We cried and laughed together, and many of us died. We fought fear. We demanded research and treatment, dignity and respect. We formed support groups. We did guerrilla needle exchange. We protested, acted up, lobbied, and organized.
Hard to believe that so much time has passed. There are readers here today for whom this period in time is simply history. If you are in your late 30s or under, HIV/AIDS has always been there, whether or not you pay much attention to it. For those of us who are older and veterans of multiple struggles to combat what we saw as a plague, it is important to pass on our passion and struggle to keep the battle going, in hopes of eventually eliminating a disease that has killed at least 32 million people and affects approximately 37.9 million people currently living with HIV/AIDS.
For me, one of the most powerful symbols of love, remembrance, and awareness is the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
History of the Quilt
In June of 1987, a small group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. This meeting of devoted friends and lovers served as the foundation of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Today the Quilt is a powerful visual reminder of the AIDS pandemic. More than 48,000 individual 3-by-6-foot memorial panels — most commemorating the life of someone who has died of AIDS — have been sewn together by friends, lovers and family members. This is the story of how the Quilt began…
Activist Beginnings
The Quilt was conceived in November of 1985 by long-time San Francisco gay rights activist Cleve Jones. Since the 1978 assassinations of gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, Jones had helped organize the annual candlelight march honoring these men. While planning the 1985 march, he learned that over 1,000 San Franciscans had been lost to AIDS. He asked each of his fellow marchers to write on placards the names of friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS. At the end of the march, Jones and others stood on ladders taping these placards to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The wall of names looked like a patchwork quilt.
Inspired by this sight, Jones and friends made plans for a larger memorial. A little over a year later, he created the first panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt in memory of his friend Marvin Feldman. In June of 1987, Jones teamed up with Mike Smith and several others to formally organize the NAMES Project Foundation.
Public response to the Quilt was immediate. People in the U.S. cities most affected by AIDS — Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco — sent panels to the San Francisco workshop. Generous donors rapidly supplied sewing machines, equipment and other materials, and many volunteered tirelessly.
In 1989, filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman produced the Academy Award-winning documentary Common Threads.
Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, this Academy Award-winning documentary brings to life the amazing story of The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and the LGBT community response to the AIDS crisis. An Olympic athlete; a gay activist; a boy with hemophilia; a recovering heroin addict; a closeted Navy commander: five very diverse lives that shared a common fate. Their lives—along with thousands of others—are woven together in a giant memorial patchwork quilt, that is solemnly unfolded in the US capitol to protest the government’s refusal to respond to a growing epidemic. Common Threads tells the powerful story of the first decade of the AIDS epidemic in the US.
Variety published an article about the documentary in July titled “Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman Revisit the Making of Their 1989 Landmark AIDS Doc ‘Common Threads’”:
It’s been 30 years since the release of the Oscar-winning documentary “Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt,” but directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman remember when they decided to make the film like it was yesterday.
The two were at the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights when they saw the massive quilt displayed on the National Mall.
“We were just stunned and awed by the scale of the quilt and the intimacy of it,” Epstein tells Variety. “I’d never seen anything like that. We were with our friend [fellow filmmaker] Peter Adair and he said, ‘Somebody has to make a film about this. Jeffrey and I ran with that and ran back to San Francisco and met with the Names Project folks and started delving into all the material.”
They began reading more than 2,000 letters that were written by panel makers to find stories to highlight in the film of five people memorialized in the quilt.
Let us go back in time for a brief look at the first unveiling of the quilt in Washington, D.C.:
In the midst of our news focus on impeachment, Trump malfeasance, the Democratic presidential candidate primary race, mass shootings, and climate crises, this story popped up in my news feed from the Library of Congress:
The AIDS Memorial Quilt Moving to San Francisco Under the Stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial; Library of Congress to Preserve Quilt's Vast Archival Collections
The NAMES Project Foundation (NPF) today announced that the National AIDS Memorial will become the new caretaker of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and NAMES Project programs. As part of the transition, the NAMES Project and the National AIDS Memorial have agreed to jointly gift care and stewardship of The Quilt’s archival collections to the prestigious American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, making this collection available through the world’s largest public library.
This historic decision will return The Quilt to the San Francisco Bay Area, where 32 years ago during the height of the AIDS epidemic, a group of strangers gathered at a San Francisco storefront to remember the names and lives of their loved ones they feared history would forget – and with that seemingly simple act of love and defiance, the first panels of The Quilt were created.
“This is the culmination of decades of work that achieves a vision long held by The NAMES Project leadership who, armed with an unwavering commitment to The Quilt, were determined to see that the AIDS Memorial Quilt would stand the test of time,” said Julie Rhoad, President & CEO, The NAMES Project Foundation. “With this set of new caretakers, we are confident that the legacy of The Quilt and The NAMES Project is secure.
Since 1987, The NAMES Project Foundation has cared for The Quilt and its associated archives. Headquartered in Atlanta since 2001, as the caretakers of this memorial and vast cultural archives, it has been dedicated to the mission of remembrance, education and conscience. Today’s announcement is the culmination of long-term planning and vision to seek new institutional partners to care for The Quilt, and in doing so, secure not only ensure the legacy of The Quilt, but its ability to teach for generations to come.
The Quilt and its programs, which include display activities, panel making, conservation, and public education efforts, will transition to the National AIDS Memorial in early 2020, becoming an integral part of its mission to provide, in perpetuity, a place of remembrance so that the lives of people who died from AIDS are not forgotten and that their stories are known and understood by future generations.
The Quilt will be an essential component of a “Center for Social Conscience” that the National AIDS Memorial plans to build in the coming years, which will be grounded in the story of the AIDS epidemic, social justice, action and change.
The Library of Congress event was livestreamed:
For those of you who have never visited the Grove, the quilt’s destination, here’s its history:
I ask that you join me today in making a quilt of comments, calling names, telling stories, or simply adding your thoughts.
My complete list of those to be remembered is too long to write here.
I’ll simply dedicate this to my brother-in-law Barry, my partner Greg, my girlfriend Awilda, my roommate Karen-Apache. RIP.
I will not forget.
Join me today to call names and tell stories.
Share love.