NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
quilt commemorating individuals who have died of AIDS or AIDS-related conditions
The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, often abbreviated to AIDS Memorial Quilt or AIDS Quilt, is a memorial to celebrate the lives of people who have died of
AIDS-related causes. Weighing an estimated 54 tons, it is the largest piece of community folk art in the world, as of 2020. Conceived in 1985, during the early years of the AIDS pandemic, when social stigma prevented many AIDS victims from receiving funerals, it has been displayed several times on the Mall in Washington, D.C.. In 2020, it returned to San Francisco, where it is cared for by the National AIDS Memorial. The quilt has an approximate area of 1,300,000 ft2 (120,000 m2) and can be seen virtually.
History and structure
The idea for the NAMES Project Memorial Quilt was conceived on November 27, 1985, by AIDS activist Cleve Jones during the annual candlelight march, in remembrance of the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. For the march, Jones had people write the names of loved ones that were lost to AIDS-related causes on signs, and then they taped the signs to the old San Francisco Federal Building. All the signs taped to the building looked like an enormous patchwork quilt to Jones, and he was inspired.
The NAMES Project officially started in 1987 in San Francisco by Jones, Mike Smith, and volunteers Joseph Durant, Jack Caster, Gert McMullin, Ron Cordova, Larkin Mayo, Steve Kirchner, and Gary Yuschalk. At that time many people who died of AIDS-related causes did not receive funerals, due to both the social stigma of AIDS felt by surviving family members and the outright refusal by many funeral homes and cemeteries to handle the deceased's remains.
“NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt” enters the record as quilt commemorating individuals who have died of AIDS or AIDS-related conditions. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what NAMES, Project and AIDS can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, NAMES, Project and AIDS provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1418433. VIAF identifies the subject as 1625145857118322922477. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1985, 1978 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.