“Quilt Weekend,” The Washington Blade insert, October 11, 1996

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Title

“Quilt Weekend,” The Washington Blade insert, October 11, 1996

Description

The AIDS Memorial Quilt is an ever-growing symbol of the toll of AIDS.  The Quilt consists of thousands of handmade fabric panels made by family or friends of the deceased which memorialize persons who have died of AIDS.

Displayed in Washington, DC in October 1987 for the first time, the quilt had been conceived by Cleve Jones in San Francisco, “. . . what led to the Quilt is that I felt we were failing to reach the vast, overwhelming majority of Americans who do not live on the Coasts and do not know gay people.”  By 1996, the AIDS Memorial Quilt had grown to the size of twenty-nine football fields, 45,000 panels.  

A panel from the Quilt is on display in the museum’s first floor artifact gallery.

 

“The underlying question that the epidemic has raised has never been answered, and that is: is a gay life worth saving?”

Interview with Eugene M. Harrington, Texas Southern University's Thurgood Marshall School of Law, 1995
John-Manuel Andriote Victory Deferred Collection, 1901-2008

 

“It doesn’t make any difference to me if it was age-specific, straight or gay, or elderly people—all you have to do is to see a couple of cases of this disease to realize the suffering is absolutely unbelievable; the guillotine is a much nicer way to die than to go through HIV.”

Interview with Dr. Don Francis, retired, United States Public Health Service, 1995
John-Manuel Andriote Victory Deferred Collection, 1901-2008

  

“We had a little munchkin from LA, Joey, a street hustler.  . . . He had lymphoma of the brain. . . . I called the father and told him that if he wanted to see Joey again, he’d have to come to Houston fairly quickly.  He said he had no intention of coming to Houston.  I said if it was a matter of money, we could raise the money to fly him out here.  He said it isn’t the money; I just don’t want to see him.  I said, well, okay, what would you like to do with the body?  He informed me that we could put the little son-of-a-bitch in a Hefty trash bag and leave him out by the curb.”

Interview with John Paul Barnich, lawyer, 1995
John-Manuel Andriote Victory Deferred Collection, 1901-2008

Source

John-Manuel Andriote Victory Deferred Collection, 1995-1999