Highsmith, Carol. n.d. “AIDS quilt on display in Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Capitol in the background.” The Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/item/2011631696/
The AIDS quilt is one of the most powerful, iconic, and uniting displays of memorializing those who have died amid the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s–1990s. The quilt’s dimensions are a testament to the immense impact and far-reaching consequences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the United States. The individual panels on the quilt provide viewers with names, artistic images, and messages of hope, love, and possibility, which all humanize the HIV/AIDS crisis and those impacted by it. This item also represents the power of peaceful demonstration to get government officials, citizens, and those who may have not been aware of the depths of the HIV/AIDS crisis to educate themselves and each other about the crisis. This image helped individuals and even governments find ways to take action and become part of legislative and social change surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Twenty-first-century students are currently living in an era where the historical context of the LGBTQIA+ movement is at risk of being lost or obscured through the recent wave of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation. The image of the AIDS quilt, coupled with its humble beginnings as a small memorial to remember the names of those lost to the disease in fear of their names being forgotten by history, demonstrates the power of community, memory, and representation of marginalized groups in America’s history. This photo represents the ways in which tragic events, such as the AIDS epidemic and its impact on the LGBTQIA+ community in the 1980s–1990s, transcends socioeconomic, racial, gender, and geographic demographics.
This is a “digital image produced by Carol M. Highsmith to represent her original film transparency.” According to the Library of Congress website, “In June of 1987, a small group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS and to thereby help people understand the devastation. By 1996, the quilt had grown to 40,000 panels, and the display filled the National
- How does this image of the AIDS quilt on display in Washington, DC, our nation’s capital, shape our understanding of the impact the AIDS epidemic had within and beyond the LGBTQIA+ community?
- How can viewing the AIDS quilt help us build empathy and compassion?
- What does the size and placement of the AIDS quilt in this photo reveal to readers about the impact the AIDS epidemic had on the LGBTQIA+ community?
New York State Next Generation Learning Standards for ELA
11-12R3: In informational texts, analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop. (RI)
- Students can analyze the sequence of events as they view the image from the background, foreground, and margins, and offer ideas regarding how these interact and develop their understanding of the AIDS quilt’s impact on the viewers while on display.
11-12R9: Make connections to other texts, ideas, cultural perspectives, eras, and personal experiences. (RI&RL)
- Students can view this image and compare it to other primary source images of the AIDS quilt from the same or different eras. Students can make social and political connections among these photographs and connect them to their own personal or historical/cultural experiences.
- This image would pair well with demonstration artifacts and stories from other key elements of AIDS memorials that exist across the United States. Students can view images of different iterations of the AIDS quilt throughout the course of its existence (all available online and listed below) to see the quilt’s social, political, and cultural impact within and beyond the LGBTQIA+ community.
- This image can also serve as a paired text with teaching Abdi Nazemian’s young adult (YA) novel Like a Love Story, which is set in and discusses the early years of the AIDS epidemic and the US government’s negligence and failure to act quickly to address the health crisis’ impact on the LGBTQIA+ community.
- The image could be challenged for its connections to and specific origins of honoring and commemorating those impacted by AIDS within a historically marginalized group (LGBTQIA+ individuals). People who have personal objections to homosexuality or harbor homophobic and transphobic sentiments may object to having students view the image of the AIDS quilt and its historical connections to the preservation of the LGBTQIA+ community’s history. The AIDS epidemic as well as the War on Drugs appears not only in many states’ US history standards but in much of YA literature published today.
Links to resources for approaching those topics:
- The National AIDS Memorial’s website has a page dedicated to an interactive experience with the AIDS quilt itself, which can help contextualize and humanize the AIDS quilt’s historical, social, and cultural impact within and beyond the LGBTQIA+ community worldwide. According to The National AIDS Memorial website, “The National AIDS Memorial, through a partnership with the AIDS Quilt Touch team, presents all 50,000 panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in an interactive experience so people around the world can experience the beauty of the Quilt and witness the love and stories stitched into each panel. We invite you to explore the Quilt online and search for the name of a friend or loved one who may have their name sewn into the Quilt. More than 700,000 lives have been lost to AIDS since the first cases were reported 40 years ago. The Quilt has nearly 110,000 names sewn into its panels. If you need a guide, please see this pdf which provides a step-by-step guide on how to search for a loved one’s name.” Interactive AIDS Quilt
- AIDS Quilt Block 0240 Panel Maker Records is an image from the AIDS Quilt Panel Maker Record. It features the AIDS quilt on display in Washington, DC, in 1987. It features a young man viewing the quilt in the center of the photo and a small group of quilt viewers in the background. https://www.loc.gov/resource/afc2019048.afc2019048_0240/?sp=17
- AIDS Quilt Block 5265 Panel Maker Records is one of 134 images documenting who made each block and for whom the block was made. This will allow students to make a more human connection to the significance of the AIDS quilt and to see the names and sentiments behind each block constructed. https://www.loc.gov/resource/afc2019048.afc2019048_5265/?st=gallery
- The nycpride.org website provides a thorough history of the LGBTQIA+ community in New York City. It includes a timeline of key moments for the LGBTQIA+ community, photographs, and other artifacts from the LGBTQIA+ community. https://www.nycpride.org/about-pride/our-history
- History.com offers historical context for the origins and evolution of the AIDS quilt and its significance to the members of the LGBTQIA+ community, namely the quilt’s ability to publicly honor and memorialize members of this community who have perished from AIDS and complications of the disease. https://www.history.com/news/aids-memorial-quilt
- Guide, Step. n.d. “Interactive AIDS Quilt - San Francisco.” The National AIDS Memorial. https://www.aidsmemorial.org/interactive-aids-quilt
- “Proclamation 7316—Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, 2000.” n.d. Presidency.ucsb.edu.https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-7316-gay-and-lesbian-pride-month-2000