Display Helps CAN Community Health Acknowledge the AIDS Memorial Quilt
By The CCM Team
In 1985 AIDS activist Cleve Jones and his colleagues attended a candlelight vigil marking the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. The montage of placards they’d taped to the front of the San Francisco Federal Building commemorating loved ones lost to AIDS resembled an enormous patchwork quilt. That’s how the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was conceived.
For CAN Community Health’s February 2020 Red Ribbon Gala fundraiser, CCM collaborated with CAN to develop a 14-panel display tracing the evolution of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
All told, the NAMES AIDS Memorial Quilt comprises more than 48,000 panels representing more than 92,000 individuals and weighs well over 54 tons. The Quilt is housed at the NAMES Project Foundation headquarters in Atlanta. As many as 3,000 panels are publicly displayed every year to ensure the ongoing preservation of what the United States Congress in 2005 declared a national cultural treasure.
Use this link to visit the Quilt Panels on our YouTube Channel.
