Cleve Jones

Cleve Jones
Cleve Jones at the 81st Academy Awards
Born	(1954-10-11) October 11, 1954 (age 62) West Lafayette, Indiana, United States
Occupation	LGBT rights activist
Known for	NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
Website	clevejones.com

Cleve Jones (born October 11, 1954) is an American AIDS and LGBT rights activist. He conceived the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt which has become, at 54 tons, the world's largest piece of community folk art as of 2009. In 1983, at the onset of the AIDS pandemic Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation which has grown into one of the largest and most influential People with AIDS advocacy organizations in the United States.

Jones was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, and raised in Scottsdale, Arizona. His father was a psychologist. His mother was a Quaker, a faith she held at least in part to benefit her son in the era of the draft for the Viet Nam war. He did not reveal his sexual orientation to his parents until he was 18. His career as an activist began in San Francisco during the turbulent 1970s when, as a newcomer to the city, he was befriended by pioneer gay-rights leader Harvey Milk. Jones worked as a student intern in Milk’s office while studying political science at San Francisco State University.

In 1978, Dan White assassinated Harvey Milk, recently elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, along with San Francisco’s Mayor George Moscone, and Jones was one of the first people to see Milk's body after the assassination. Jones went to work in the district office of State Assemblyman Art Agnos.

In 1983, when AIDS was still a new and largely underestimated threat, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Jones conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at a candlelight memorial for Harvey Milk in 1985 and in 1987 created the first quilt panel in honor of his friend Marvin Feldman. The AIDS Memorial Quilt has grown to become the world’s largest community arts project, memorializing the lives of over 85,000 Americans killed by AIDS.