Historic Display: AIDS Memorial Quilt June 11th – 12th

The National AIDS MemorialExit Disclaimer will mark the 35th anniversary of the AIDS Memorial Quilt with a historic outdoor display on June 11th and 12th in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park that will feature nearly 3,000 hand-stitched panels of the quilt.

The White House’s Harold Phillips, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Health ADM Rachel L. Levine will join the National AIDS Memorial on June 11th to honor those we have lost.

The display will be the largest in more than a decade and the largest-ever display of the quilt in San Francisco. The free public event will take place in Robin Williams Meadow and in the National AIDS Memorial Grove. An opening ceremony and traditional quilt unfolding will begin at 9:30 am on the 11th, followed by the continuous reading of names of lives lost to AIDS aloud by volunteers, dignitaries, and the public on both days.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt is considered the largest community arts project in the world. Under the stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial, it has surpassed 50,000 individually sewn panels with more than 110,000 names stitched into its 54 tons of fabric.

Featured quilt blocks will include many of the original panels as well as ones made in recent years. More than 100 new panels will be seen for the first time at the San Francisco display. Many were made through the Memorial's Call My Name panel-making program, which helps raise awareness about the impact of HIV/AIDS in communities of color, particularly in the South.

Visitors will be able to walk through the display to experience each panel, remember the names of those honored, and see the stories sewn into each panel.

To learn more, visit aidsmemorial.org/quilt35Exit Disclaimer.