The history of the AIDS Memorial Quilt

In 1985 a group of gay rights activists, led by Cleve Jones, decided to document all of their friends who had perished due to complications from AIDS. They wrote their friends’ names on placards and taped them across the San Francisco Federal Building. The idea was to ensure that the names of those lost would not be forgotten.

Two years later Jones, along with several activists, formally organized the NAMES Project Foundation. The goal of the foundation was to offer a means for families, friends and lovers of people lost to AIDS to create a quilt panel to honor and memorialize their loved ones, officially creating the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Since it began, the AIDS Memorial Quilt has become the largest ongoing community arts project in the world. There are currently more than 44,000 three-foot by six-foot panels on the quilt, each memorializing someone lost to AIDS. The panels are assembled into 12-foot by 12-foot blocks and displayed at various events across the country. The quilt will be on display at this year’s AIDS Walk at Cheesman Park.