PURCHASE TICKETS

2020 World AIDS Day Houston Host Committee

Russell L. Cotton
Chris Lewis
John Curcio & Stephen Lilly
Leslie & Steve Nagy
Judy & Scott Nyquist
Cwanza A. Pinckney, M.D.
Jennifer & Craig Simons
Caroline Starry

MORE TO COME!

Interested in becoming a Host Committee member? Click here!

Shelby Hodge Vision Award Honoree
Cleve Jones

Cleve Jones, founder of The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, was born in West Lafayette, Indiana on October 11, 1954.

Cleve's career as an activist began in San Francisco during the turbulent 1970s, when he met pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Following Milk's election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Cleve worked as a student intern in Milk's office while studying political science at San Francisco State University. Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated on November 27, 1978, and Cleve dropped out of school to work in Sacramento as a legislative consultant to California State Assembly Speakers Leo T. McCarthy and Willie L. Brown, Jr.

In 1982, Cleve returned to San Francisco to work in the district office of State Assemblyman Art Agnos. He was elected to three terms on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee and served on local and state commissions for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and the Mission Mental Health Community Advisory Board. One of the first to recognize the threat of AIDS, Cleve co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983.

Cleve Jones conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at a candlelight memorial for Harvey Milk in 1985 and created the first quilt panel in honor of his close friend Marvin Feldman in 1987. Since then, 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, and thousands more worldwide.

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Did you miss the #WorldAIDSDayHouston updates from any of our other amazing friends?
Click on the thumbnails below to see messages from Shangela, Todrick Hall, Anthony Rapp, Lance Bass, Catherine Cohen, and Christina Wells!