Ep 11: Cleve Jones: The Quilt and the Flag
The full conversation with Cleve Jones, creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and collaborator on the original rainbow flag with Gilbert Baker. We'd been trying to make this interview happen for months. He wasn't well. Then one day he said yes, sat down, and talked for close to an hour about grief, organizing, symbols, and what it means when a community decides to remember its own dead.
This is the extended interview that runs through Episode 12 of the documentary, released here in full because it deserves to be heard without interruption. Cleve talks about Harvey Milk, about the first time he saw the names on the Federal Building wall and thought of his great-grandmother's quilt in Bee Ridge, Indiana. He talks about Gilbert Baker dyeing fabric in the attic on Gay Street and how the two of them built the symbols that a movement still carries.
"You know, I've met a lot of famous people. I've met a lot of powerful people. With very few exceptions, none of them will be remembered. But sometimes the things we do live on. I don't think anyone 100 years from now will remember the name Cleve Jones. I have a feeling that the quilt will be remembered. And that's pretty cool."
Cleve Jones
The AIDS Memorial Quilt
In November 1985, Cleve Jones organized a candlelight march in San Francisco. The death toll from AIDS had just hit one thousand in the city. He asked marchers to write the names of people they'd lost on placards, then taped them to the wall of the Federal Building. When he stepped back, the patchwork of names looked like a quilt.
On October 11, 1987, the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was displayed for the first time on the National Mall. There were 1,920 panels, each three feet by six feet, the approximate size of a human grave. By 1996, the quilt covered the entire Mall. Today it holds around 50,000 panels representing over 110,000 people. It weighs 54 tons. It is the largest piece of community folk art in the world.
At one point in the conversation, Cleve told me the quilt isn't a "real" quilt, not in the traditional sense. I had to let him know that quilters very much disagree, and will defend the AIDS Memorial Quilt as a real quilt with some passion. He liked that.
The Rainbow Flag
Cleve talks at length about Gilbert Baker, the drag queen and army veteran who designed the original rainbow flag in 1978. Baker dyed the fabric himself in the attic of the Gay Community Center at 330 Grove Street in San Francisco. The first flags flew at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade on June 25, 1978. Cleve was there.
Make a Panel
The AIDS Memorial Quilt still accepts new panels. A panel should be 3 feet by 6 feet and include the name of someone who died of AIDS. There are no rules about materials or technique. People use fabric, paint, photographs, clothing, letters, personal objects. You don't need to be a quilter.
Mail your finished panel to: National AIDS Memorial, ATTN: New Panels, AIDS Memorial Quilt, 130 Doolittle Drive, Suite 2, San Leandro, CA 94577.
Full guidelines: aidsmemorial.org/make-a-panel
In Canada: quilt.ca