Moving

Transferring occasion in SF marks AIDS at 40

People gathered at the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park on June 5 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first reported AIDS cases and to solemnly view pieces of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and commemorate the lives lost.

It was June 5, 1981 when the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report found five cases of Pneumocystis pneumonia in previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. In the years that followed, thousands of people died from the disease, including gay men, women, transsexuals, hemophiliacs, and drug users.

During a morning ceremony, officials in the Circle of Friends laid a wreath and inspected the 6,000th block of the quilt. In the afternoon the public was invited to visit the grove, where they saw 40 more quilt blocks and read the names of those who had died from the disease. (AIDS Grove took responsibility for the quilt in 2019.) There were musical performances by the Messengers of Hope Gospel Choir with Ja Ronn and Flow and members of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus.

Among the quilt blocks on display was one for Susan Piracci Roggio, who had been a flower girl at the wedding of house spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), and one for Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the band Queen. There was also a panel discussion for Dr. Tom Waddell, the founder of the Gay Games. A larger block was also exhibited by the Glide Memorial Church, which had more than 100 names on it.

Some of the attendees couldn’t believe the disease had ravaged the world for four decades.

“I’m here with my kids and that gives it a whole different meaning,” said Joshua Gamson, a 58-year-old gay man who sits on the grove’s plank. “I’m a little impressed with what has become of the National AIDS Memorial, and still in disbelief that it was 40 years ago. I’m sad and inspired.” Gamson is a professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco.

John Cunningham, a gay man and managing director of the AIDS grove, opened the speaker program by asking for a minute’s silence for those who died of AIDS.

“I definitely feel your spirit here today,” he said. “With the beauty of the sun, nature, and birds, and each of you. My name is John Cunningham and I am an AIDS patient and honored to direct the National AIDS Memorial.”

Cunningham asked everyone living with AIDS to stand or raise their hand. Those who did received applause. Cunningham has also declared June 5th Awareness Day for HIV Long-Term Survivors.

“We need to support the long-term survivor community,” he said.

There were also young people among the afternoon visitors.

Tatum Jenkins, a 20-year-old bisexual woman, and her friend Zoe Schneider, an 18-year-old straight ally, waited to be let into the grove to see the quilting blocks.

“We tripped over it,” said Jenkins. “I realized there wasn’t much Pride to do this year. This felt like a good opportunity to connect with the history of Pride.”

“From the perspective of a young person, 40 years can feel like a long time because it is twice the life expectancy,” adds Schneider. “If you put it in the perspective of everyone here, this is a very young story and has a legacy and a cultural impact that still touches so many people.”

Mayor London Breed spoke during the morning ceremony.

“San Francisco was left to our own devices,” Breed said, recalling the early days of the AIDS epidemic when the federal government largely ignored the crisis. “But we have done what the San Franciscans do best, we have come together and have provided things like no other to deal with this crisis. The system of care for those struggling with HIV / AIDS was developed here in San Francisco. The renowned research that has been carried out to this day has established itself here in our great city. “

Breed also thanked Cleve Jones for co-founding the AIDS quilt. Breed then spoke of the Getting to Zero campaign, which was launched in 2014 when she was on the board of directors.

“Zero new infections,” she said. “Zero new deaths, no stigmatization of people with HIV or AIDS. And for the first time in a very long time, we only saw 166 new infections with HIV in 2019, and that’s really historic for the work we are doing in investing in PrEP and in the things that really lead us to zero new infections. “

As the Bay Area Reporter noted last week, the city hopes the Getting to Zero campaign will reduce virus transmission and HIV-related deaths by 90% by 2025.


AIDS Memorial Quilt co-founder Gert McMullin, left, and volunteers unveil the 6,000. Block the AIDS quilt in the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park June 5th during the 40th anniversary of the first reported AIDS cases. Photo: Christopher Robl

The Senator of the Gay State Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) reminded that in 1987 as a 17-year-old gay man there was no treatment for HIV and no PrEP, a drug that is very effective in preventing HIV.

“It was a scary time growing up as a gay man,” said Wiener. “It was a time when our federal government let us down because this virus affected gay and bisexual men, trans women, black people, drug users, sex workers. But this community got together and survived. Not all of them survived, we know tens of millions of people died from this virus, but we got through this and we now have effective treatments, we now have PrEP, we now have support systems. “

Wiener admitted that people were still being lost to HIV. He said he wanted the quilt to stop growing and thanked Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) for her work in ending the criminalization of HIV. Lee has long been pushing for federal legislation to end HIV criminalization. In 2017, then Governor Jerry Brown signed state law, SB 239, which Wiener co-authored with former gay MP Todd Gloria (D), who is now Mayor of San Diego, and which was passed during the height of the AIDS crisis The state’s HIV criminalization laws modernized epidemic in the 1980s. Lee supported state legislation.

“We have to do it nationally,” said Wiener.

Lee said she and the others attended to “remember all of those we have lost over the past 40 years”.

“Many of you have been in this struggle since then,” she added. “We are also here to reflect on the progress that we have made and to commit ourselves again to this work. Let us think of those who fought on the front lines for dignity, for health, for social justice and for an end to discrimination. “

Lee noted that she is the co-founder and co-chair of the bipartisan HIV / AIDS caucus of Congress and that she serves on the powerful grants committee.

“I just want to tell you that ending HIV and AIDS by 2030 remains a priority for me,” she said. “We will get there.”

She pointed out that 45% of HIV diagnoses nationwide are African Americans, even though they make up only 13% of the population.

Ima Diawara, who received the AIDS Grove’s first Mary Bowman Arts in Activism Award, and Antwan Matthews, a Grove board member, offered a spoken word performance of her poem “If I Say”. At some point during the reading, Matthews became overwhelmed by emotion and had to stop and breathe. Their performance received a lot of applause.

Longtime HIV survivor Lonnie Payne, a black gay man who now serves on the AIDS Grove Board, recalled losing his partner, brother, and brother’s partner. He talked about his work with the HIV / AIDS hotline to help others in the community.

There were representatives from Gilead Sciences, Quest Diagnostics and Vivent Health discussing their work to end the epidemic.

Jones, also a long-term survivor, recalled reading the CDC announcement of the first five AIDS cases 40 years ago.

“Five years later, almost everyone I knew was dead,” he said. “Or die or take care of someone who is dying. From those beginnings a great movement has grown that has not only changed the fight against AIDS, but also the way the world views gays. The way we test drugs advocacy and policy change. “

Jones thanked the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which he shared with Drs. Paul Volberding and Marcus Conant and the late BAR editor Bob Ross when it was still known as Kaposi’s Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation, as well as Vivent and Gilead. Jones then introduced Pelosi and said that she was not an ally but a family.

Pelosi spent a lot of time on the podium to thank the many people who have been involved in the fight against AIDS. She also remembered how the quilt was made and the first time it was displayed on the National Mall in Washington DC

“And at the end of the week, ABC News has the news maker of the week and it’s Cleve Jones,” Pelosi said. “And they showed the whole quilt in the mall. It was so amazing. It was historic. And today is another historic day, after traveling in Atlanta and finding a home, the quilt has come to San Francisco, where we will honor it, where we will protect it. “

Pelosi was referring to the fact that the blanket was stored in Atlanta for a number of years but was recently brought back to the Bay Area where it is being tended by the AIDS Grove.

Pelosi also noted that without the AIDS activism that preceded these movements, the LGBTQ community would not have achieved marriage equality or the repeal of the military’s anti-gay policy of “don’t ask, don’t say”.

“It’s not over yet,” said Pelosi. “So far we’re going to put this in the trash can of history in a museum. We just haven’t got there yet, but we will.”

Read names
Following the lecture program, the names of those who had died of AIDS were read out. Readings continued throughout the afternoon while the public in the grove could see the quilt pads and read the names for themselves.

“It’s bittersweet after 40 years,” Cunningham told the BAR as the names began to be read. “But we have hope for the future and we find our hope in one another, and may the words and strength shared by Speaker Pelosi inspire us all to move forward with the vision of a world free from AIDS.”

Others repeated this feeling.

“As a long-term survivor of 34 years of HIV infection, knowing that I am here when so many people I know have not survived is a delicate balance between beauty and pain,” said Vince Crisostomo, a 60-year-old gay man Asian-American man who is Program Director of SFAF’s Elizabeth Taylor 50-Plus Network. “I am reminded that my story is not over, it is not over and I hope for a happy ending.”

The morning program has been archived online and includes an explanation from Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was absent from Saturday’s ceremony but had been at the forefront of the AIDS epidemic for decades before becoming the public face of the federal government’s response to the COVID pandemic.

View the program online.

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