Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Cleve Jones at The 519

The 519 and Cleve Jones, rights activist and founder of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, invite you to the launch of our LGBTQ Workplace Inclusion Campaign: https://www.facebook.com/hearitstopit Join us as we reflect on how far we have come and commit to taking up the work that is left to be done. The 519 is accessible to people who use mobility devices. ASL interpretation will be provided. Follow eventbrite link to register: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants-tickets-11739991631 Cleve Jones, founder of The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, was born in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1954. Cleve’s career as an activist began in San Francisco during the turbulent 1970s when he was befriended by pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Following Milk’s election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Cleve worked as a student intern in Milk’s office while studying political science at San Francisco State University. Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated on November 27, 1978, and Cleve dropped out of school to work in Sacramento as a legislative consultant to California State Assembly Speakers Leo T. McCarthy and Willie L. Brown, Jr. In 1982, Cleve returned to San Francisco to work in the district office of State Assemblyman Art Agnos. He was elected to three terms on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee and served on local and state commissions for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and the Mission Mental Health Community Advisory Board. One of the first to recognize the threat of AIDS, Cleve co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983. Cleve Jones conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at a candlelight memorial for Harvey Milk in 1985 and created the first quilt panel in honor of his close friend Marvin Feldman in 1987. Since then, the AIDS Memorial Quilt has grown to become the world’s largest community arts project, memorializing the lives of over 80,000 Americans killed by AIDS. Independent affiliates of the NAMES Project are currently operating in 50 countries around the world, including Canada, South Africa, France, Holland, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Australia, Taiwan and Russia. A dynamic and inspiring public speaker, Cleve travels extensively throughout the United States and around the world, lecturing at high schools, colleges and universities. He has met with heads of state, including Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton and former South African President Nelson Mandela. In 1989, Cleve was awarded Honorary Doctorates from Haverford College and the Star Kind School for the Ministry. He has also received numerous awards from AIDS and gay rights organizations, religious health associations and the legislatures of California, Indiana and Massachusetts. On December 1, 1999, Cleve Jones was a keynote speaker at the opening of the Parliament of World Religions in Cape Town, South Africa, where AIDS Memorial Quilt panels from South Africa and the United States were displayed. In 2000, Cleve helped organize an 8-city US tour of the South African AIDS Memorial Quilt with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus and Mr. Coretta Scott King. Cleve Jones has served as a member of the International Advisory Board of the Harvard AIDS Institute, the National Board of Governors of Project Inform and the Board of Directors of the Foundation for AIDS and Immune Research. His best-selling memoir, Stitching a Revolution, was published by HarperCollins in April 2000. Cleve’s work has been featured on 60 Minutes, Nightline, Charlie Rose, Good Morning America, Oprah, National Public Radio and many other television and radio programs. Cleve Jones currently lives in Palm Springs, California.