A piece of history at The Center

“We are honored to work together with the National AIDS Memorial to bring the Quilt to our community and share its stories of hope, activism, healing, and remembrance,” said Cat Cook, Executive Director of Centre LGBT+.  “The Quilt sections on display connect the story of AIDS directly to the work we do to provide services, educate, and share the deep meaningful history that exists in our community. Bringing a piece of the AIDS Memorial Quilt to Centre LGBT+ is more than remembrance—it’s a powerful thread connecting our community to lives, stories, and a history that must never be forgotten, and a vital opportunity for people here to witness that history firsthand, to learn, reflect, and carry it forward.” 

 

“The issues our nation faces today- social injustice, health inequity, stigma, bigotry, and fear - are the same issues faced throughout four decades of the AIDS pandemic,” says John Cunningham, CEO of the National AIDS Memorial. “The Quilt is a powerful teaching tool that shares the story of HIV/AIDS, the lives lost, and the hope, healing, activism and remembrance that it inspires.”

 

Centre LGBT+ worked together with Reverend Doctor Tracy Sprowls (UUFCC, State College) and the National AIDS Memorial to curate the selection of Quilt panels for display, which feature panels from the region, made to honor and remember the names of friends and loved ones lost to AIDS. 

 

The Quilt was created in the ‘80s during the darkest days of the AIDS pandemic by gay rights activist Cleve Jones. While planning a march in 1985, he was devastated by the thousands of lives that had been lost to AIDS in San Francisco and asked each of his fellow marchers to write on placards the names of friends and loved ones who had died. 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, and inspired by this sight, Jones and friends made plans for a larger memorial.  In 1987, a group of strangers began gathering 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 served as the foundation of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and later that year, nearly 2,000 of its panels were displayed on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

 

Today, the Quilt has grown to more than 50,000 panels, with more than 110,000 names stitched within its fabric.  It weighs 54 tons, stretches more than 50 miles in length, and is the largest community-arts project in the world.  The Quilt is now part of the National AIDS Memorial, which oversees its preservation, care, storytelling programs, and community displays.  The Quilt can be viewed in its entirety and people can search for names on the Quilt at www.aidsmemorial.org/quilt.