October 11, 1987 – San Francisco Bay Times

By Gert McMullin–

My name is Gert McMullin. My official title at Quilt would be Quilt Production Coordinator and Conservation, but I consider myself a panel maker. This is how it all began for me over 36 years ago.

My friends were the first to get sick and die from what we called GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) in the early 1980s. I find it really difficult, if not impossible, to explain the horror of these days. Part of the reason is that bringing myself back to that moment is, frankly, terrifying. All the pain rushes in. All the faces of my wonderful friends who died such terrible, terrible, painful deaths.

How do you tell someone how that feels?

How do you describe what it's like to sit at your friends' bedsides day after day, month after month, year after year, watching them die, knowing that you (or no one else) can help them? And how do you tell them that no one cares?

It was 1987 and for the last few years that has been my life. I really lost my mind. I honestly don't know how I managed to survive those years. By the time I discovered the NAMES project, I had lost almost 50 of my friends and there was no end in sight.

When I'm asked how I found the NAMES project, I always answer… It found me. I just remember someone telling me to call Cleve Jones. That he started a quilting project in memory of those who died of AIDS. This person knew I could sew and gave me Cleve's number. Cleve hadn't started the project yet and was surprised that I had heard about it.

He told me that the first meeting would be in about six weeks and that I should come to it. I went to this meeting and brought my first two panels. They were for my friends David Calgaro and AIDS activist and friend Roger Lyon. Within a few weeks, Cleve had somehow persuaded someone to let us have a large retail space in the heart of the Castro on Market Street.

So one evening in late May 1987, I went to 2362 Market Street to meet with six other volunteers to discuss how we would proceed and to share our idea with the community. That evening I met Cleve Jones, Mike Smith, Jack Caster, Ron Cordova, Larkin Mayo and Gary Yuschalk.

We had a workshop now, but more than that, I had a place to go to get out what was basically eating me alive. The pain, the fear, the horror, the emptiness, the loss and the anger – the overwhelming anger of watching all my friends die… over and over again… our government is doing nothing. They turn their backs on them and just let them all die.

Cleve Jones gave me that space. He gave me a place to focus my anger and in turn saved me. I couldn't love him more for that. He gave me a place where I didn't feel alone in my anger. There were others who were hurting just like me and had to fight. As strange as it may sound, these people would soon become more like family than my family. I was at home.

We opened a shop and started sewing. I had a full-time job at Macy's during the day, but I came in every evening and stayed late. It didn't take long for me to realize that the time I spent there was only going to get longer. Within a few weeks to a month, I had quit my job of ten years so I could volunteer to sew a quilt for 16 hours a day.

Things weren't easy in the first few months leading up to our exhibition in Washington, DC in October 1987. It took some convincing to get the community to see Cleve's vision and begin creating panels for the quilt. We sewed day and night for months and in October 1920 had individual panels going to Washington, DC and laid out on the National Mall.

It was October 11, 1987 (Cleve's birthday) and we all met at a terrible time in the morning to be ready for the opening of the quilt at sunrise. Just before sunrise, we stood in a circle and held hands. Cleve's only words to us were, “We did it.” As we stood there, we sang “Happy Birthday” to Cleve and then got ready for the upcoming ceremony.

Four teams of eight unfolded the quilt blocks while a reader (located on a small stage across from the White House) slowly read aloud the names of those in the sections that were being opened. There were no speeches; Only the names were spoken (and sometimes shouted) to the White House. Cleve would read first. Then volunteers, politicians, celebrities, lovers, mothers, fathers and friends would read the list given to them. It took over two hours to unfold this quilt. I was one of the unfolders that day and it will remain one of the most emotional moments of my life. And also one of, if not the, most beautiful and proudest moment I will ever experience.

As Cleve said, “We did it.” We brought our dead friends to Washington, DC to show the world and force our government to take action and stop this epidemic now. We believed we were going to go to DC and save the world. We were wrong.

But it spurred us and others to keep fighting. Soon we had people from all over the country and world who needed to be part of our work and wanted us to bring the quilt to their communities. Over the next 35+ years we would take the quilt to cities and around the world and back. We still hold hundreds of exhibitions of the quilt each year across the country. The panels are still coming in daily and the quilt continues to grow.

I'm still sewing the quilt. It was an honor to do this and I really can't imagine life without it. I owe him my life. The first day with the quilt only made me want to get closer to it. Every day I walk through the doors of the warehouse, I do so to give thanks. Daily.

And Cleve Jones, your rage got me through the most unimaginable horror of my time. Your anger gave strength to my anger and for that I will love you forever.

The Quilt was born out of anger at a government that turned its back on us during one of the worst epidemics of our time. The quilt's message has always been love and compassion. Initially it was primarily made by the gay community, but Cleve's intention was and always has been to reach beyond our community and bring the power of the quilt to where it is needed.

Tens of thousands of mothers, fathers, friends and lovers have experienced and benefited from the love, compassion and gift of healing and remembrance that the quilt brings every time it is displayed, every time a panel for a loved one is made.

Gert McMullin is quilt production coordinator and panel maker for the NAMES Project's AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Cleve Jones honored at 70
Published on October 3, 2024