The University News

Issue date: 12/5/05 Section: News

Media Credit: Shayne Sprenkle

CAMPUS REMEMBERS AIDS VICTIMS WITH QUILT DISPLAY: UMKC commemorated World AIDS Day last week with a campus-wide display of huge 12 x 12 foot quilt panels. The eight quilts on the UMKC campus each consisted of sections dedicated to the memory of someone whose life was lost to the HIV/AIDS battle.

The panels were displayed all last week in six different buildings, including the largest display of two huge quilts hung in the atrium of Flarsheim Hall.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt Project has raised over $3,000,000 for direct services for people with AIDS. "The Quilt" has 46,000 panels displayed worldwide. If one were to lay all the quilt panels side by side, its dimensions would equivalent to 273 NCAA basketball courts. If each individual panel were laid end to end, it would measure 92 miles long.

"The Quilt" was conceived by long-time San Francisco gay rights activist Cleve Jones in November 1985.

Jones helped organize the annual candlelight march honoring the assassinations of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. After the march Jones asked each of his fellow marchers to write on placards the name of friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS. The placards were placed on the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building in a large patchwork pattern.

Over the years thousands of people affected by AIDS sent panels to Jones' San Francisco workshop, where donors and volunteers provided the support to produce the thousands of large quilts such as those on display here at UMKC. -Shayne Sprenkle

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