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Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist ChurchOctober 13, 1996Grief: The Story of the AIDS QuiltThe Rev. Roger Fritts
I went to see the AIDS Quilt on Friday, acting as a chaperone for my son's fifth grade class. I
asked him if it was OK for me to be a chaperone and he said, "Sure, Dad, as long as you don't do
anything to embarrass me."
I must confess that a few years ago, given the opportunity to see the Quilt, I would not have
gone. The main purpose of this sermon today is to encourage any of you, who might have the
same reservations that I had, to take the time this afternoon to see the Quilt. This may be the last
time the Quilt will be displayed in its entirety. It is an historic event in American cultural life, and
because of where we live, we have an opportunity to be part of it.
I first heard about the AIDS Quilt sometime in 1987 from reports in the news. However, because
of my own fears about death, I avoided going to see the Quilt. For the same reason I do not walk
through cemeteries, I did not want to dwell on death by going to see the Quilt.
However, in August of 1989, I flew to San Francisco to perform the wedding of a cousin and his
bride. As I stepped off the airplane and entered the airport, I was immediately struck by the
colorful banners that were hanging along the walls. An emotional wave swept over me as I
realized that I was looking at panels of the Quilt. I walked through the halls of the airport, I read
and looked at hundreds of the Quilt panels.
I realized that I had made a mistake in avoiding the Quilt. Seeing the panels that day in the airport
helped me in my acceptance of death, my appreciation of life and my concern for my fellow
beings. When I think about death, I am more prone to think about my values and I am more open
to separating the important from the trivial. Seeing the panels helped remind me about what I
want to make central to my life and what in my life is unnecessary.
The Quilt was started in the spring of 1987 by a man named Cleve Jones. I read about the life of
Cleve in a book called While the Band Played On. He graduated from high school in 1972 and
traveled from Arizona to San Francisco. There in the 1970s he worked for a wider and more
open acceptance of gay people in American society. His first experience with political campaign
work was helping a gay man named Harvey Milk in his successful run to be elected as a
supervisor in San Francisco. The position of Supervisor in San Francisco is the equivalent to a
city council person in other cities. In 1978 Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were shot
to death by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White. On the day of their deaths, Cleve Jones helped
organize a candlelight march in San Francisco.
After these murders Cleve worked on the staff of the Speaker of the California State Assembly.
On July 4, 1981, the first official public report was issued of a strange new illness found in 26
young homosexual men. It was a story ignored by most people. However, Cleve saw it in the
newspaper the next day and he clipped out the story and pinned it to his office bulletin board.
Above it he wrote, "Just when things were looking up."
In January of 1982 a dermatologist needed political help from someone in the gay community in
San Francisco. This dermatologist contacted Cleve Jones and took him to visit one of his patients
at the University of California Medical Center. The man's body was barely more than a skeleton.
"This is going to be a world class disaster," the doctor said to Cleve, "and nobody's paying
attention." Cleve agreed to help establish a new foundation to focus in on this new, unnamed
illness.
He began to request funds and support from his contacts in the gay community. By June of 1982
Cleve had an office for his foundation in San Francisco. It was the first office of any agency
established specifically for the epidemic. The office started with one beat-up typewriter donated
by a local gay bartender, and one telephone that started ringing within an hour of its installation.
And it never stopped ringing.
"I don't know what to say," said friends that Cleve had recruited to answer the new hotline.
Cleve replied, "Nobody does."
In July of 1982 the new illness was given a name. On August 2, 1982, one of the first television
news stories on AIDS was broadcast on the CBS Evening News. That week the number of
AIDS cases in the United States passed 500.
Eight months later in March of 1983, over one thousand persons had AIDS. Cleve Jones met
with other gay political activists who had been closest to Harvey Milk. By March of 1983 they
were sure it was a sexually transmitted illness. Bill Kraus wrote a manifesto: "We believe it is
time to speak the simple truth, and to care enough about one another to act on it. Unsafe sex is
killing us." Cleve signed the public letter with Bill. Over the next year Cleve and Bill were
insulted and harangued by other gay men because of their letter. Old friends denied the danger
and called Cleve a sexual fascist and homophobe. By August of 1983, 805 people had died in the
United States.
In April of 1984, a gay newspaper The Bay Area Reporter prepared a traitor's list of sixteen gay
leaders who they accused of trying to kill the Gay Liberation Movement by calling for safe sex
and spreading fears about AIDS. Cleve Jones went to the paper and begged that his name not be
included. So instead, he was listed as someone who waffled when others were killing the gay
movement. That same week in April of 1984, the number of AIDS cases passed 4,000. Two
months later Cleve Jones was told by his doctor that he had the early symptoms of AIDS.
By April of 1985 the number of cases passed 10,000. Ill and tired, Cleve left San Francisco with a
one-way ticket to Maui. Deeply depressed, every night he went to Maui's gay bar to drink.
Finally, one night in May, instead of visiting the bar, Cleve edged nervously into a room in a local
community center and sat in a folding chair in the back. He listened to people talk. A week later
he came back. When somebody asked if there were any newcomers at the meeting he stood. He
said "My name is Cleve, and I am an alcoholic." He was coming to grips with a drinking problem
that had become more and more serious as he grew more depressed by the epidemic.
In July of 1985, the nation discovered that Rock Hudson had AIDS. In Hawaii, Cleve Jones
wanted to put his fist through the television set as he watched the spectacle of the news choppers
vying for photos of Hudson. The news stations could afford helicopters to record fifteen seconds
of Rock Hudson on a stretcher, but they had never afforded the time to note the passing of the
thousands who had gone before him. A few days later Cleve returned to California sober, rested
and ready to return to the fight. In November of 1985, Cleve helped with the annual candlelight
march commemorating the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk. As he was
planning the march he heard that 1,000 San Franciscans had died of AIDS. Cleve asked each
person joining the march to write down the names of their friends and loved ones who have died
of AIDS. At the end of the march he and others stood on ladders taping these names to the walls
of the Federal Building in San Francisco. In the midst of the process, Cleve stepped down from
his ladder to view the growing tribute. The individual squares, each with a name, looked to him
like a patchwork quilt. It gave him an idea.
In May of 1986, Cleve was stabbed in the back by two men who called him faggot. During his
three months of recuperation, Cleve had time to think about organizing the memorial quilt. On
February 20, 1987, he went into his backyard with cans of spray paint and a white sheet and
created the first quilt. It was for Marvin Feldman who had died of AIDS four months before. He
said, "I spent the whole afternoon thinking about Marvin. I thought about why we were best
friends and why I loved him so much. By the time I finished the piece, my grief had been replaced
by a sense of resolution and completion."
In the spring of 1987, Cleve Jones and others organized local sewing bees. Although some
thought the idea was morbid, others liked it and offered to help. On June 28, 1987, the project
displayed its first 40 panels in San Francisco. In October of 1987, the AIDS Quilt, consisting of
1,920 panels, was displayed on the Mall in Washington. Half a million people visited the Quilt
that weekend. The Quilt returned for a second showing in Washington D.C. in October of 1988.
There were 8,288 panels displayed. In October of 1989, the Quilt was displayed in its entirety
for a third time in Washington D.C. And in October of 1992 the Quilt was display on the Mall
for a third time. Last Friday the Quilt was unfolded on the mall again. This time it covers the mall
from the United States Capitol to the Washington Monument: 40,000 panels with an expected
4,000 more to be added this weekend, with 70,000 names. As of this weekend, 350,000 people in
the United States have died of AIDS.
Back in 1989, two months after I first saw the Quilt, I visited California again, this time to
observe the Board meetings of the Starr King School for the Ministry and attend the graduation
of a new class of ministers. Starr King is the Unitarian Universalist School for the ministry in
Berkeley that I had attended back in the early 1970s.
During that 1989 graduation an honorary degree was given to Cleve Jones honoring his work in
starting the Quilt three years before. When Cleve stood up to speak he said that his religious
background was Quaker. He explained that his only connection with Unitarian Universalism was
back when he had been in high school in Arizona. There had not been enough Quakers in the
Phoenix area to form a high school youth group. As a result some friends had invited him to
attend the Unitarian Universalist youth group at the Phoenix church from 1968 to 1972. It
happens that I was active in that same youth group from 1965 to 1969. Cleve and I overlapped
by one year. During the reception after the graduation, I sought Cleve out and we talked.
Although we don't remember meeting back then, we shared stories about mutual friends.
I was proud that twenty years ago our youth group welcomed a gay teenager. And I was proud
that a Unitarian Universalist School for the ministry would give an honorary degree that no other
seminary would have dared to confer back in 1989, an honorary degree recognizing the
contribution that the AIDS Quilt has made to the religious life of our culture.
Cleve Jones is still active in the Quilt project. He spoke Friday on the Mall about his experiences
over the past few years. However, the project he first conceived of more than ten years ago has
now a life of its own. Today to manage and care for the Quilt there is a paid staff, and tens of
thousands of volunteers.
The AIDS Quilt is an expression of the love people feel for persons who have died of AIDS.
However, the Quilt project is not a perfect manifestation of human love. The project is not with
out the interpersonal conflicts that arise in all human interactions. The people who are attracted
to the Quilt are people who have suffered a major loss in their lives, and one of the reactions to
loss is anger. I arranged to bring 100 panels of the Quilt to be displayed inside the Unitarian
Church in Evanston, Illinois in 1990. In bringing a small part of the Quilt to that church, I
discovered that there was an on-going feud between two groups in the Chicago chapter of the
AIDS Quilt project. It appeared to me that both sides were sincere, and both sides were trying to
do good work. However, because they were filled with so much anger, they were taking their
rage out on each other.
There has also been external criticism of the Quilt. As the Washington Post reported yesterday,
AIDS is the eighth leading cause of death among Americans of all ages. However, it is 17 times
less common then the top killer, heart disease. Yet the federal government is devoting $1.4 billion
to AIDS research this year while research on heart disease will receive $900 million.
A woman with breast cancer once complained to me that she has a problem with the Quilt. It was
so effective in drawing attention to AIDS, she felt it was making it even more difficult to get
funding to research into treatment for her illness. I think she was raising a legitimate issue. My
hope is that in this situation a rising tide will raise all boats; I hope that people personally affected
by other serious illnesses will use the amount of money spent on AIDS research as a reason why
more funds should be allocated to cure other serious illnesses. And I hope that the basic research
that is being done on AIDS will also provide answers for helping to cure other illnesses.
Certainly I think we can learn about ways to deal with grief seeing the AIDS Quilt. The Quilt
suggests one way to deal with our feelings of loss is by joining in artistic activity with others who
have experienced a similar loss, to produce a work of art. One Quilt-maker said, "The first time
I laughed after my son's death was the day I attended a Quilt workshop and started to make his
Quilt." It is a common experience among persons who have made panels for the Quilt.
On Friday morning I joined with other parents to chaperone my son's class of fifth graders on a
field trip to see the Quilt. The goal was to have 50,000 school children visit the mall last Friday. I
walked among the panels of the Quilt, watching my own reactions and the reaction of the ten year
olds. I am not sure how much the children understood. They treated the Quilt with respect;
reading the words and talking among themselves about the beautiful designs they saw. In one
place we saw a Quilt made in memory of the man who had written the music for the Disney movie
about the mermaid, a person to whom the children could relate.
A woman who worked for Bell Atlantic took us around and answered our questions. She said that
200 employees of Bell Atlantic had died of AIDS, including her brother who died two years
before. The employees had worked together on one large Quilt with the names of all who had
died. She showed us a blank Quilt where people were invited to write the names of people who
had died of AIDS who were not represented by a panel. I got down on my knees in the damp
earth. I leaned over and wrote the name of my friend who had died of AIDS in August.
In the background we could hear the voices of volunteers taking turns reading the 70,000 names
of the people who are represented on the Quilt. One man read his list and when he came to the
end, he said, "And my lover who died thee years ago, and my brother who died yesterday." I felt a
chill run through my body and tears in my eyes.
A woman volunteer came up to me and offered me some tissue and ask me how I was doing. "I
feel sad," I confessed.
"I know what you mean," she said. "But it is also such a wonderful celebration of the lives of so
many people."
"Where are you from," I asked.
"I'm from Fort Worth, Texas," she replied. "My son died of AIDS two years ago. The panel I
made for him is down there somewhere," she said gesturing toward the Capitol. She told me that
she will be forever grateful to Ryan White and his mother, Jeanne White, for making possible the
funding that she was able to use in caring for her son. "While I am here, I intend to find Jean
White and tell her thank you." She is right, I thought. The Quilt is not simply a reminder of death,
but a celebration of life.
In the end I do not have the words to describe the experience of seeing the Quilt. It is something
like walking along the Vietnam Memorial. In the same way that I have never met anyone who
was sorry they had visited the Vietnam Memorial, I have never met any one who was sorry that
they had visited the Quilt.
There is sadness, yes. But there are other feelings also. In the designs of the Quilt I see our
common humanity. There is a Quilt with a teddy bear like the one I had as a child. There is a
Quilt made for a man who was born the same day I was born. There is a Quilt for a woman who
died at the age of 73 made by her grandchildren. There are Quilts for Unitarian Universalist
ministers.
The strongest impression I was left with on Friday, after spending the day seeing the Quilt, was a
feeling of love. Not as I said earlier, perfect love, but human love with all its human
imperfections.
We cannot escape grief. We cannot avoid the pain, the suffering and the anger that we feel
because of the deaths of those we know and for whom we care.
But we can give thanks for their lives and live our lives as fully and as richly as possible with patience, gentleness and love. That is what the AIDS Quilt expresses. These people were loved. It is an important message as our world continues to struggle with this terrible epidemic. For more information on the Quilt click here The Names Project Foundation |
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist
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