After SF Visit, AIDS Quilt Heads to South to Raise Awareness

07.05.2022

| By Mel Baker |

This article is adapted from an episode of our podcast “Civic.” Click the audio player below to hear the full story.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt was unfurled recently in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for its largest display in a decade, marking the start of a campaign to educate the public about a disease that, since 1981, has infected 1.2 million people nationwide.

While new HIV infections in the United States have been in decline, the disease continues to take a disproportionate toll on racial and ethnic minorities, men who identify as gay or bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. The highest rates of new infections and numbers of untreated people are found in the South.

Organizers estimated that 20,000 people visited the San Francisco quilt display June 11 and 12. This fall, sections of the quilt will be taken on a tour of the South for “large displays in city centers, as well as smaller displays in rural, non-metro areas,” said Dafina Ward, executive director of the Southern AIDS Coalition. New names will be added to the 35-year-old quilt during the tour, she said.

Yesica Prado / San Francisco Public Press
Dafina Ward is the executive director of the Southern AIDS Coalition, an organization that for more than 20 years has used policy and advocacy work in its mission to end the HIV and sexually transmitted infection epidemics in the South by addressing the disproportionate impact they have on southern communities.

“There will be panel-making workshops all over the south,” she said. “It’ll be an opportunity to display quilts that feature members of the communities where we’re touring, particularly Black and brown folks who we know are not as strongly represented in the quilt as we would like for them to be.”

She believes the southern tour could provide healing for those dealing with all kinds of trauma.

“I think the quilt can even hold a different type of significance for people as we’re dealing with COVID and all the other things that we are really fighting through together,” she said. “So, I think it’ll be a space for grieving and I’m hoping it’ll also be a space for healing.”

Dozens of volunteers unfold panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the grass for visitors to view. This massive art piece, which continues to expand, has inspired families to send handmade quilts memorializing the lives of their loved ones.

Volunteers spread open panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on Saturday, June 11, 2022, at the Robin Williams Meadow in Golden Gate Park. During his life, Williams had been a volunteer for the AIDS Memorial Quilt. “We are here in your meadow, Robin,” said Cleve Jones, a prominent HIV/AIDS activist and co-founder of the quilt.

Volunteers secure quilt panel corners with stakes. Hundreds of visitors stand under the morning sun and watch along the sidelines of the AIDS Memorial Quilt display during the opening ceremony.

Mike Smith, Cleve Jones and Gert McMullin, co-founders of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, take the stage to celebrate the 35th anniversary of its creation. “This woman here kind of missed her own birthday because she was getting ready to do this display,” said Jones, putting a hand on McMullin’s shoulder. “This is the woman who sewed the quilt together. Her name is Gert McMullin, and we love you, Gert.”

A visitor gazes at the memorial quilt for W. Fitzgerald, who died in 2005. The AIDS Memorial Quilt captures the stories and lives of people lost in the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s as well as those who have died since then. Organizers say raising awareness for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment is an ongoing concern.

A picture of Ed Novak and Vince Lacoco is sewn into a heart on a blue quilt panel on block #1664. The AIDS Memorial Quilt has nearly 110,000 names sewn into its 55,000 panels.

Colorful quilts are sewn together into canvas panels displaying names and artwork. On this panel section on block #0121, Mark Feldman’s quilt is decorated with a crown and gold glitter above the word “L’Chayim!” — a common toast or salutation in Hebrew meaning “to life.”

Hearts, balloons, flowers, colorful patches and a glove are sewn onto a white quilt, memorializing Bobby Bacoy. A purple balloon reads, “Love You Uncle Bobby. God Bless.” Other notes highlight his many roles in life, including those of friend, son and brother.

Visitors write the names of and messages to their loved ones who died from AIDS on a 12-foot by 12-foot canvas. The handwritten notes document new names of relatives, lovers and friends that are added to the quilt.

Sister Merry Peter, a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence for 38 years, reads the names of founders and sisters who have died from HIV and AIDS. “What's really powerful today is just there’s deep grieving, but there’s also deep connecting,” said Sister Merry Peter. “Many people are just meeting each other in a safe space where they can feel love and gratitude, and inspiration from these panels.” The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is a charitable nonprofit organization that uses humor and performance in elaborate costumes to raise money for various community service initiatives. Their mission, penned in 1979, is “to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt.” — Sister Merry Peter, a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence for 38 years, reads the names of founders and sisters who have died from HIV and AIDS. “What’s really powerful today is just there’s deep grieving, but there’s also deep connecting,” said Sister Merry Peter. “Many people are just meeting each other in a safe space where they can feel love and gratitude, and inspiration from these panels.” The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is a charitable nonprofit organization that uses humor and performance in elaborate costumes to raise money for various community service initiatives. Their mission, penned in 1979, is “to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt.”

Dozens of pallets are staged throughout the park containing panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on Sunday, June 12, 2022. Volunteers waited for the morning drizzle to end to display the quilt on the meadow.

Four volunteers carry a quilt panel together to a grassy patch on the field to be displayed. A large black grid separates all the panels on the grass, serving as a walkway for close-up viewing.

After unfolding the quilt panel, a volunteer gazes at the imagery on it and presses a hand to his chest in a gesture of respect.

Hundreds of visitors walk on a misty weekend through a giant mosaic of 3,000 colorful panels that make up the AIDS Memorial Quilt display in San Francisco. “And then as people unfolded each quilt, little pops of color started to fill the empty squares until the whole valley was filled with life,” said Sister Merry Peter.

Visitors read names and messages on the AIDS Memorial Quilt, gazing at the memories preserved in the fabric. The quilt remains a powerful symbol of hope, remembrance and action today, across generations.

On this panel, David J. Larson’s name and pictures are sewn into a green background to highlight moments of his life. He died 11 days before his 34th birthday.

A close up of David J. Larson’s panel highlights his young life surrounded by friends and family. Colorful butterflies are stitched into his quilt.

Molly’s note on a quilt panel for her dad expresses the greatest gift he shared with her: “Learning how to live.” A teddy bear and pictures of her father are sewn into a striped quilt, highlighting the years he spent with her during her young life.

After a misty day, Cleve Jones makes a call out to visitors to help fold back and store the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Hundreds of visitors who have never met each other work together to preserve this piece of historic artwork.

A visitor removes the stakes from a quilt panel and neatly folds it to store it. Other visitors take this last opportunity to snap pictures with their phones and preserve this one-of-a-kind moment.

Hundreds of visitors gather at the closing ceremony of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and help each other carry the quilt as directed by organizers. The whole art piece weighs approximately 54 tons and, when displayed, spans more than 1.2 million square feet.

A major objective for displaying the quilt is to share stories that can bring attention to the health inequities and the stigma of living with HIV. The quilt will next travel to the South in an initiative to touch and reach communities of color, which for more than 40 years have been suffering higher infection rates due to lack of health access.

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Explore images by clicking through the viewer above. All photos by Yesica Prado/San Francisco Public Press.

Need for resources in wake of pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced health care providers across the country to focus on battling that disease, shifting resources away from other public health priorities such as HIV care.

A recent “Civic” episode — “While SF Fought COVID, HIV Prevention Stalled” — explored how the need for directing public health attention to COVID over the last two years has led to a rise in new and untreated HIV infections in San Francisco.

The decline in HIV care and prevention was especially pronounced in the South, where Ward said HIV testing fell by half during the pandemic.

“We surveyed over 100 community-based organizations in the South that are serving sexual and gender minorities, or folks living with HIV, and 96% of them reported that their service delivery was impacted by COVID,” she said.

The organizations also saw huge increases in need for mental health care and food services, Ward said.

“Wherever a person comes and knocks on the door for help, they should be able to get access to everything that they need,” she said. “And that approach is called the ‘no wrong door’ approach. I think that has to be the standard and best practice for us in HIV.”

During opening remarks at the unfurling in San Francisco, Ward spoke about how the quilt brought the unacknowledged HIV crisis to Washington D.C. in 1987, and how it can play a role in bringing attention to HIV and AIDS again today.

“So, what we hope to do in the South, to bring our dead to the statehouse lawns — where they continue to violate the rights of communities, to ignore the injustice by refusing to expand Medicaid, criminalizing people for living with HIV, punishing educators for saying the word gay,” Ward said.

She invited people from across the country to join the effort. “The Southern AIDS Coalition is regionally based, but we are nationally needed,” she said. “We will not end the HIV epidemic in this country if we don’t end the southern HIV epidemic.”

Yesica Prado / San Francisco Public Press
Harold Phillips, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, says the Biden administration is boosting HIV prevention and treatment initiatives after two years of concentrating public health resources on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harold Phillips, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, applauded plans to take the quilt to the places it’s most needed. He told “Civic” that the Biden administration is committed to funding HIV programs, including PrEP — the commonly used term for pre-exposure prophylaxis — to reduce new infections.

“President Biden, in the fiscal year ’23 budget request, has called for a national PrEP program, especially for those uninsured and underinsured,” he said. (Learn more about the administration’s AIDS policy plans in our Q-and-A with Phillips.)

Adding the last panel

Cleve Jones, one of the AIDS quilt project founders, spoke about the anger and rage he felt in the 1980s, and why it was so important to bring the quilt to Washington in 1987 during the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

“My heart was full of anger, hate, fear and despair,” he said. “All my friends were dying. The government did nothing. Our churches kicked us out. Our families abandoned us. It seemed that the world was totally unwilling to look at what was going to happen.”

Jones said the quilt helped change attitudes, and the idealism that inspired it saved his life.

“When I was dying of AIDS, ACT UP stormed the NIH, confronted the FDA and got the medications released that saved my life,” he said. “So, when I tell you that the movement saved my life, that’s not rhetoric. It’s not hyperbole, it’s the truth. It saved my life. It can save your life. It can save this country. It can save this planet.”

Yesica Prado / San Francisco Public Press
Visitors walk through Robin Williams Meadow, gazing down at the AIDS Memorial Quilt panels where colorful fabric blocks have been sewn together honoring the lives of people who have died from AIDS. Visitors share stories, hugs and tears as they walk through the art piece.

The quilt was born in a storefront in San Francisco’s Castro District in 1986 and was moved to a warehouse in Atlanta in 2000, before returning to the Bay Area in 2020. Learn more about the quilt’s history and its new home in San Leandro in the “Civic” episode “Pandemic and Protest,” from June 2020.

Kevin Herglotz, CEO of the AIDS Memorial Grove, which manages the quilt, said the plan is to build a home for the quilt as part of a center for health and social justice in San Francisco, possibly near the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park.

“This quilt has to be protected,” he said. “It has to be conserved and preserved and made available to the public.”

The quilt is made up of more than 50,000 panels — each a personal tribute to someone who died of AIDS — with hundreds more added every year.

“We want to see a day when there’s no more quilt being made,” Herglotz said. “When we have the last one, there’s a panel that’s been made that hangs in the warehouse that says ‘the last one.’ We want to put that one in the quilt. When it’s the last one.”