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© 2006 American Public Health Association
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2006.088575
IMAGES OF HEALTH |
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Elizabeth Fee, PhD, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894 (e-mail: feee{at}mail.nih.gov).
THE AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT was conceived in November 1985 by San Francisco, Calif, gay activist Cleve Jones. Jones had helped organize the annual march honoring Mayor George Moscone and gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were assassinated in 1978. When planning the march, Jones learned that more than 1000 San Franciscans had died of AIDS, and he asked the marchers to write on their placards the names of friends, partners, and family members who had died of the disease. After the march, the marchers taped their placards onto the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The wall of names looked like a patchwork quilt.1
Jones and his fellow activists gathered in a San Francisco storefront to plan a more permanent memorial to those who had died of AIDS and to publicize the devastating impact of the disease. They created the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Generous donors supplied sewing machines and materials, and volunteers over the years have created more than 46000 individual 3- by 6-foot memorial panels, most of them honoring one particular person who died of AIDS. Some 35 countries, from Argentina to Japan to Uganda, have contributed panels.
The quilt was displayed for the first time on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on October 11, 1987, during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. In 1988, the quilt went on a national tour during which it was displayed in 20 cities. This tour raised $500 000 for AIDS service organizations. The quilt would return to Washington in 1988, 1989, 1992, and 1996. Each time it returned, the quilt had grown larger. Every panel is different, and the panels feature a multitude of materials: feather boas, lace, leather, love letters, cowboy boots, buttons and bows, paintings, photographs, fishnet, and fur are but a few of the materials used and objects attached. Each display of the quilt features celebrities, politicians, and family members, friends, and lovers reading aloud the names of the people for whom the quilt panels were made. The largest community art project in the world, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. In the last 20 years, the quilt has been viewed by more than 15 million people and has raised more than $3 million for AIDS service organizations.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt is an overwhelming sight, both a joyful remembrance and a reminder of the tragedy of lives lost. It is a beautiful broad expanse of color and feeling, each panel made with love for the person being honored and celebrated. The quilt is a powerful statement; its image serves as a memorial to all the people and their loved ones whose lives have been transformed by this epidemic over the past 25 years.
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1. The AIDS Memorial Quilt: The Names Project Foundation. Available at: http://www.aidsquilt.org. Accessed February 14, 2006.
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