|
|
 |
|
 AIDS Memorial
AIDS-related Stories and Links
|
Ricky Gilbert
Paul Mortensen got the idea of creating the Affirmation AIDS Quilt after displaying in Washington DC a panel created by Ricky Gilbert in memory of Paul's friend Ed Towne
(Block Number
00024). AIDS Quilt display on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, October, 1987.
The Affirmation AIDS Quilt as first unveiled at the West Hollywood (Los Angeles) Conference on October 9, 1988.
Over the years, Ricky Gilbert has helped maintain and expand the Affirmation AIDS Quilt. Picture by Jay Bell, Long Beach, California, 16 September 2001.
|
A Brief History of the Affirmation AIDS Quilt
By Ricky Gilbert
Remarks delivered at the 1996 Affirmation Conference in Palm Springs,
California, on October 13, 1996. Source: Affinity, November
1996, pp. 1, 7.
Affirmation AIDS Quilt: We Dedicate New Names
These words by the character Marius in the musical Les Misérables
began the original dedication of the Affirmation AIDS Quilt.
The service began early one hot October morning in 1988.
When the Names Project first began, Paul Mortensen asked me to make a panel for a member of Affirmation who was also his dear friend. Paul and Robert [Jacob] attended that first unveiling in Washington D.C. That next year, Conference was to be hosted by LA. Paul came to me and asked for my thoughts on an idea he had had while in DC.
During the following discussions, the concept of an Affirmation AIDS Quilt came into being. Not only that, but he also asked me to put together a special event to unveil the quilt that October.
The original document contained some 21 names. Among those names were Leonard Matlovich, Mark Bluto, Tom Morgan, Jim Berg, Gerald Pearson, Gordon Miller, Randy Long, Don Barbor, Roger Hope, Gary Fife, John McEldowney, John Orr, Lon Macintosh, David Bailey, Michael Buttar, Gordon Gunn, Greg Parkinson, Clair Harward, Karl Keller, Joe Hatfield, and Dean Sandmire.
The next time the Quilt was displayed in Phoenix, it was unchanged.
Several years later (1992), in Santa Cruz, the Quilt was shown again with the addition of 6 panels. Those names were Tom Morgan, Ron Kershaw, Ken Robinson, David Sharpton, Lynn Alma Valentine, and David C. Martin.
Today [13 October 1996] we are here to add 19 more memorials to this sadly expanding work. I would like to say Thank You to those who helped me make these new panels you will see today. Thank you, as always to Paul Mortensen for his constant support and help. Thank you to Tere and Jackie for their willingness to step in and help get things done. And a final and tremendous THANK YOU to the members of the Wasatch Chapter who spent a lot of time and effort to create two of the most wonderful new panels.
The new names added are: Tom Peterson, Don Bjorseth, Ben Morrison, Alan Rodway, Mitch Thomas, Samuel Tacuban, Quinn McKinnon, Andrew Scott Bates, Ronald M. Moss, Evagene Killian (First woman in Utah to die of AIDS), Charles Copeland, Rev. James Sandmire, Richard Hale, Dale Hardy (Son of Bill and Joan Atkinson), Mark Tracy, Doug Kolling, Paul Farner, Eugene Gardner, and Jeff Williams.
Empty Chairs and Empty Tables
Marius:
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my friends are dead and gone.
Here they talked of revolution
Here it was they lit the flame
Here they sang about 'tomorrow'
And tomorrow never came.
From the table in the corner
They could see a world reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
I can hear them now
The very words that they had sung
because their last communion
On the lonely barricade at dawn.
Oh, my friends, my friends, forgive me
That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on.
Phantom faces at the window
Phantom shadows on the floor
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.
What your sacrifice was for.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more.
|
|
|
