AIDS Memorial Quilt
- Also called:
- The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
What is the AIDS Memorial Quilt?
Who first imagined the AIDS Memorial Quilt?
When was the AIDS Memorial Quilt first displayed?
Where is the AIDS Memorial Quilt permanently located as of 2019?
The AIDS Memorial Quilt is an artistic endeavor meant to honor, remember, and celebrate those who died of HIV and AIDS-related diseases in the United States, and it is considered to be the largest community arts project in history. The quilt is made up of nearly 50,000 hand-sewn panels, each measuring 3 feet by 6 feet (0.9 meters by 1.8 meters), roughly the size of a grave. As of 2023, the quilt measured more than 1.2 million square feet (111,500 square meters) and weighed about 54 tons.
Project history
The quilt was first imagined by human rights activist Cleve Jones. In the wake of the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Board of Supervisors member Harvey Milk, Jones helped organize annual candlelit vigils to honor those lives lost in the fight for LGBTQ equality. Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S.
In the early 1980s, the scourge of AIDS was becoming known mostly in large U.S. cities, including San Francisco. During a march in 1985, Jones learned that the HIV/AIDS death toll in San Francisco had reached more than 1,000 victims, and he requested that his fellow activists make signs bearing the names of friends, family, and loved ones, they had lost to the disease. These signs were then taped together and stuck to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. This makeshift display was the first early version of the AIDS Quilt Project.
- 1987: The first quilt panel is created by Cleve Jones.
- October 1987: The quilt is first displayed in Washington, D.C. It features 1,920 panels.
- 1988: The quilt has grown to 8,288 panels.
- 1989: The number of panels is now more than 12,000.
- 1996: The quilt is displayed in Washington, D.C., and is visited by Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al and Tipper Gore. It now numbers 39,000 panels.
- 2012: To mark its 25th anniversary, the quilt makes its last trip to Washington. It is now too big to fit on the National Mall, numbering about 48,000 panels. Instead, it is displayed in sections at locations around the city.
- 2019: An announcement is made that the quilt will be permanently moved to the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco.
Then, in 1987, Jones created the first official panel of what would become the quilt to remember his friend Marvin Feldman, who had died of AIDS. (Homophobia peaked in the 1980s with the spread of AIDS, further stigmatizing homosexual men.) Later that same year, Jones helped found The NAMES Project Foundation, created to enable the creation of the quilt. The response to the project was overwhelming and by the time the quilt was displayed for the first time in Washington, D.C., on October 11, 1987, it included 1,920 panels. The quilt was unfolded by large groups of volunteers on the National Mall while notable guests read aloud the names of the those represented on be each panel. The quilt then went on a 20-city tour, raising nearly $500,000 for AIDS research and service organizations. In 1989 The NAMES Project Foundation, Cleve Jones, and Mike Smith were nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for their work and in recognition of the global impact of the AIDS quilt.
In 1996 the AIDS quilt, which by now had grown in size to more than 39,000 panels, came back to Washington, D.C., to be displayed on the National Mall and drew more than one million visitors, including U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton and Vice Pres. Al Gore. In 2000 the quilt was moved to Atlanta, Georgia, following the new headquarters of the NAMES Project. Over this time, the quilt continued to grow, adding thousands of individual dedications from across the country. The powerful imagery of the quilt has stood as a stark reminder of hundreds of thousands of lives lost to HIV and AIDS in the United States alone.
Related initiatives
For its 25th anniversary, The NAMES Project brought the quilt back to Washington, D.C., in 2012. Now too large to fit on the National Mall, the entirety of the quilt was put on public display at more than 50 locations in the D.C. area. This included a two-week exhibition of quilt sections on the National Mall where 1,500 panel blocks were displayed—and changed—daily.
The size and scope of the quilt project led to an initiative by the National AIDS Memorial to digitize the AIDS quilt and create a virtual experience that would be available worldwide. The massive digitization project was completed by 2020. It included nearly 50,000 high quality scans of smaller sections of the quilt, along with the names and personal stories of many of those remembered on the quilt.
View and search the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
In 2019 it was announced that the more than 200,000 documents and artifacts relating to the quilt would be housed in the Library of Congress archives, while the quilt would be moved to San Francisco as part of the National AIDS Memorial. In essence, bringing the quilt back home. In announcing the move, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi noted:
For over 30 years, the AIDS Quilt has stood as a beautiful tribute to those lost to the devastation of HIV/AIDS and has reminded us all of our responsibility to tell the personal stories lovingly stitched into every panel.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Library of Congress project was made available online, releasing a massive searchable archive of lives lost to HIV and AIDS. In reference to the renewed cultural relevance of the project, the memorial’s chief executive John Cunningham said, “Bringing the quilt virtually, we hope its power and beauty can serve that same purpose for those who are experiencing loss and grief due to Covid-19.”