AIDS Memorial Quilt
The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a powerful tribute to individuals who lost their lives to AIDS, conceived during a candlelight vigil in November 1985. Organizer Cleve Jones initiated the project to combat the fear and stigma surrounding the AIDS epidemic, ensuring that the names of the deceased would not be forgotten. The quilt consists of individual panels made by friends and family, each representing the memory of a person who died from the disease. Its first comprehensive display occurred on October 11, 1987, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where it drew an unprecedented crowd and highlighted the significant social and political indifference towards the AIDS crisis at the time.
Each quilt block, measuring 144 square feet, is made up of eight panels, and the quilt has become the world's largest community art project. Beyond serving as a memorial, it aims to raise awareness about AIDS, promoting tolerance, human rights, and access to medical services. The quilt has been recognized with numerous honors, including a Nobel Prize nomination in 1989, and was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary *Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt*. Today, it remains a poignant symbol of loss, resilience, and advocacy within the ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS.
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AIDS Memorial Quilt
Identification A community art project honoring those killed by AIDS in the United States
Date Begun in 1987 by the NAMES Project Foundation
The AIDS Memorial Quilt was conceived by a group of San Franciscans to honor and remember the citizens of San Francisco who had died of AIDS since 1981. The project became much larger, as people all over the country contributed to, viewed, and were memorialized by the quilt.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt was conceived during the November, 1985, candlelight vigil marking the anniversary of the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay San Francisco supervisorHarvey Milk. That year, vigil organizer Cleve Jones asked participants to write on large placards the names of friends and partners that had been previously claimed by the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic. More than one thousand San Franciscans had perished from the disease since it was first identified in 1981 by American medical scientists. Like many others, Jones was concerned that these people would be forgotten because of their homosexuality and the public fear of AIDS. Additionally, many of those who had died of AIDS had been abandoned by their biological families, and the remains of some had even been refused by mortuaries for proper burial and memorial services.
Resembling a patchwork quilt when posted together on a wall, the memorial placards inspired a larger project of connected, sewn, quilted panels that was subsequently administered by the nonprofit NAMES Project Foundation. Composed of individual blocks encompassing 144 square feet, each block comprised eight quilted panels measuring 3 feet by 6 feet. Made by friends, families, partners, or acquaintances, virtually all the panels honored the memory of an individual claimed by AIDS. They were generally displayed separately, with discrete groups of panels traveling simultaneously to different locations across the country.
On October 11, 1987, the quilt was first displayed to the public in its entirety, on the National Mall in the District of Columbia. At the time, it comprised 1,920 panels and covered an area the size of a football field. This spectacular display, to be followed by larger Washington, D.C., displays in 1988, 1989, 1992, and 1996, effectively demonstrated on both an emotional and an intellectual level the magnitude of the global AIDS pandemic. The 1987 display was viewed by more than 500,000 people during a single weekend. Its popularity dramatically highlighted the official indifference of the Ronald Reagan administration to AIDS awareness, research, and treatment. Other large displays at various locations in the United States and Canada followed, supported by numerous affiliated chapters of the NAMES Project, including the Blue Light Candle Project in San Antonio, Texas, and many others, although Washington, D.C., remains the only place the quilt has been displayed in its entirety.
Impact
Administered by the NAMES Project Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia, the AIDS Memorial Quilt was recognized as the world’s largest community art project. Through its public displays, the quilt has been effectively used to memorialize the deceased victims of AIDS while globally focusing attention and awareness for the living regarding AIDS, HIV, intolerance, human rights, and medical services. Nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1989, the quilt was the subject of a major film, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989) that was awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1990.
Bibliography
Brown, Joe, ed. A Promise to Remember: The NAMES Project Book of Letters. New York: Avon Books, 1992.
Jones, Cleve, and Jeff Dawson. Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist. San Francisco, Calif.: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000.
Remember Their Names: The NAMES Project Quilt, Washington, D.C., October 7-10, 1988. San Francisco, Calif.: NAMES Project, 1988.