Advertisement

Cleve Jones to be honored by Equality Michigan

Jason A. Michael

Cleve Jones got to experience something that every generation of gay men that came after him envies: He lived in San Francisco in the '70s, in a world without AIDS.
"What I remember most fondly about that time was just how new it was," said Jones, this year's recipient of the 2011 Catalyst Award for Lifetime Achievement to be presented Saturday, Oct. 22 at the annual state dinner benefitting Equality Michigan.

"It was sexual freedom, but it was also the beginnings of a political movement and community building that hadn't ever happened before. I think all of us were aware that we were participating in something that was brand new."
At the helm of a lot of that, until his tragic assassination in late 1978, was San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first open gay elected official in the country. Jones worked as a political intern in Milk's office while attending San Francisco State University.
"Working with Harvey was wonderful," Jones recalled. "He was very kind and very funny. I think the most important lesson I learned from him was the importance of coalition building and reaching out to people who are different from us and not being frightened of those differences. When I got to San Francisco, I was very heterophobic and wanted to live in the ghetto. And watching Harvey, a gay Jewish guy from New York, and he came to San Francisco and conquered its heart. So it was a really important lesson to see how he could be open about who he was and find ways to connect with people in our common struggle."
Not long after Milk was murdered, Jones began losing loads of other friends to something just as insidious: AIDS. Jones was losing friends and loved ones at an alarming rate before it even had a name. Most unsettling about this epidemic was how slow President Ronald Reagan and the federal government was to respond to it.
"We were abandoned," said Jones. "We lost most of our friends. I'll never forget that and I'll never forgive it."
Reagan never publicly uttered the words "AIDS" until 1987 – by which time, Jones said, more men had died from it than in the Vietnam War. Jones said that the tragic inaction of Reagan was stunning proof of the harm homophobia causes.
"Look at tens of millions of dead and dying heterosexuals and their children, who are dying because this country, who had the knowledge and the resources early on in this epidemic, failed to use them. And we failed for one reason, which is homophobia, which was very quickly compounded by racism … there was an attitude of 'let them die.' It's a hard lesson to learn. I don't know if the world's learned it or not, but that's what happened."
Jones' reaction to the epidemic, in addition to co-founding the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, was to create the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. To date, the quilt, which features 40,000 panels, has been viewed by over 18 million people, includes more than 90,000 names and has raised over 4 million dollars for people with AIDS. But when Jones first introduced the idea in the mid-80s, he was told over and over again how stupid it was.
"Whenever I'm speaking in high schools or colleges I always tell them that part of the story," said Jones. "That if they ever have an idea or something burning in their heart that they know they have to do, don't listen to what people say, just do it. One of the sad things about working in the LGBT community is that we're often very unkind to each other. I think most people that put themselves out there and fight for the gay community actually take more abuse from other gay people than we do from our heterosexual opponents."
Today, Jones works largely within the labor movement.
"I'm taking all of the lessons that my friends and I learned from the struggle for gay rights and the fight against AIDS to try to take those skills to the broader struggle for peace and social justice, not just in this country but around the world," he explained. "The whole country, and the whole world, is facing some overwhelming challenges right now.
I've spent most of my life fighting for LGBT rights, but I've come to believe in recent years that the most destructive divisions between people aren't the kinds of sexual orientation or gender identity or even race. It's really about economic status and class and I think LGBT people can play a role because we're a part of all of these classes and maybe we can be the bridge builders and the people who build the coalitions necessary to save this planet. We've got some big issues in front of us and I want LGBT people to think about not just how to work with themselves, but how we can work with other people who address these issues."

Advertisement
Topics: News
Advertisement

From the Pride Source Marketplace

Go to the Marketplace
Directory default
A fund of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, The HOPE Fund is dedicated to funding…
Learn More
Directory default
Wedding photography for nerds! Based in Southeast Michigan, I photograph weddings all over Michigan…
Learn More
Advertisement