The 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival will host the AIDS Memorial Quilt as it is presented on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. June 27—July 1, and July 4—8, 2012.
Additionally, The Quilt will blanket Washington D.C. from July 21—24, 2012 during the International AIDS Conference ( AIDS 2012 ) . The Quilt will fill the available sections of the National Mall ( from 8th to 14th streets ) and be on display in more than 40 locations throughout the metropolitan D.C. area.
One thousand 12x12 blocks of The Quilt will be on presentation at the Folk Life Festival. Another 1,500 blocks will be displayed on the National Mall over the course of four days. The Quilt will also rotate to 55 locations throughout the city.
"There's a lot to talk about when it comes to D.C. in July 2012. We have a longstanding history in placing The Quilt in all sorts of sites. When the circumstances and the stars align, it makes more than great sense for us to take The Quilt back to D.C.," said Julie Rhoad, president and CEO of The NAMES Project Foundation.
"Science has begun to articulate a new AIDS narrative that says if we test and treat enough people globally, the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic will change and we will see the beginning of the end of AIDS," said Rhoad in a press release. "It's time to re-double our efforts—join us as volunteers and sponsors and, together, let us call on The Quilt to do what it does best: affirm our humanity, make clear our connections to and responsibility for one another, and garner a new era of support and advocacy for the AIDS cause."
An impressive undertaking, the Quilt requires an effort of time and dedication to be brought back to life in every city it travels to. " [ The Quilt ] is mostly driven by volunteer support. The Quilt has always relied upon the strength and commitment of volunteers," said Rhoad.
Gay-rights activist, author, public speaker, and Quilt founder, Cleve Jones, told me in a May 2011 interview for Windy City Times ( see www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/AIDS-Interview-with-Cleve-Jones/31711.html ) :
"Harvey Milk and George Moscone were assassinated on Nov. 27, 1978 and every year since on Nov. 27, folks have gathered and walked with candles to remember Harvey and George. In 1985, I was one of the organizers of the commemoration and in the days leading up to Nov. 27, a headline appeared in the San Francisco daily newspaper—The Chronicle—that 1,000 people had already died of AIDS in our neighborhood. That number would soon grow to about 1,500 per year in our little tiny neighborhood, which was only six or eight blocks. So, I was really devastated by that figure…
"I remember standing at the corner of Castro and Market and looking at that headline and understanding that of those thousands who had gone, almost every one of them lived and died within just a few blocks of where I was standing and there was no evidence. The neighborhood looks much the same today—beautiful restored Victorians, cafes, restaurants, etc. There is just really no hint of the incredible loss that we've experienced here. So, that added to what was already an ongoing theme of discussion for me and my friends. Our inability to communicate to the rest of the world what was really happening was very present.
So we marched as we always do, but in the hours before the March Nov. 27, 1985, my friends and I had stacks of poster board and magic markers and I had Harvey's old bullhorn and I talked to the crowd. I asked them to write down the names of their friends and lovers who had died of this disease—AIDS. At first people were ashamed to do it!
"The stigma associated with the disease was so overwhelming that people were just putting down initials or first names only. Gradually people began to write down the first and last names of their friends, lovers and roommates who had died of AIDS. It was painful, being so young [ and experiencing such loss ] .
"We marched as we always do down to City Hall and then made everybody walk a couple more blocks to the old federal building at the United Nations Plaza. We had extension ladders and climbed the front of the building and taped the names of our dead friends to the wall. When I got off my ladder and looked around at this weird patchwork, I thought, "This looks like some kind of peculiar quilt." When I said the word 'quilt," I thought of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers and it seemed to me to be one of those middle-America, traditional-values symbols. I believe in traditional family values as I understand them [ laughs ] . Love, loyalty, respect … I got it right then. A quilt."
Jones is no longer involved with running The Quilt and we asked Rhoad to touch on the controversial subject. She replied, "Cleve is a remarkable man who had a remarkable idea that the world embraced and it helped change the world—and he is our founder," declining to elaborate.
Rhoad did, however, have a popular view of President Obama's cabinet.
"The [ Obama ] administration lifted the ban on HIV-positive people being allowed to enter the country. Here we are beginning to frame an idea around the beginning the end of AIDS—it's about mobilizing all of us and that we all have a role to play in ending this epidemic," she said.
Interested parties seeking to host panels of The Quilt may inquire, but Rhoad said the process for selection is pretty simple. "A lot of people ask to use the Quilt to help fundraise so we ship a panel of the Quilt out to them to use for their fundraising and they pay for shipping."
According to Rhoad, the most important thing to remember this summer is not the controversy and pain surrounding the impetus of The Quilt, but living life to its full potential. She said, "It's impossible to be in front of the Quilt and not want to do something. This Quilt is about life and love."
See www.aidsquilt.org for more information.
