Mayor Franklin hosts The AIDS Memorial Quilt

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Mayor Shirley Franklin Hosts World AIDS Day Memorial Quilt Display in City Hall


WHO:

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin will host the 2005 World AIDS Day display of The AIDS Memorial Quilt in City Hall.  The display will include more than 50 3-foot by 6-foot handmade panels including the panel Rosa Parks created in memory Deborah Haynes for The Quilt. The opening ceremony for the display will feature remarks by Mayor Franklin; Julie Rhoad, executive director of The NAMES Project Foundation; and H. Lamar Willis, Atlanta City Council member and board member of The NAMES Project. The program will also include the traditional reading of the names on The Quilt and a Quilt dedication ceremony at which time new panels will be presented to The NAMES Project including those created by Pearl Ann Walker and Mamie Hughley, both in their 90s and members of Reynoldstown Quilters.

 

WHAT:

This display is presented by The NAMES Project Foundation, the international caretaker of The AIDS Memorial Quilt, now headquartered in Atlanta.

 

 

WHEN:

1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005, at City Hall Atrium, 55 Trinity Ave.

 

WHY:

World AIDS Day is the ideal time to remind the community that HIV/AIDS still poses a serious, lethal threat and a display of The AIDS Memorial Quilt is a vivid and poignant way to illustrate what has been lost and what is at risk.  With teddy bears and Boy Scout badges, The Quilt is our most powerful educative tool in the fight to curb the tide of new HIV infections. With more than 45,000 handmade panels, The Quilt stands as the largest piece of community folk art in the world and the most democratic memorial ever created.

 

Known as a leader in the fight for civil rights, Rosa Parks was one of the more than 100,000 individuals who have created a panel for The AIDS Memorial Quilt.  Her panel for Deborah Haynes will be among those on display at City Hall on World AIDS Day.  This World AIDS Day (December 1) also marks the 50th anniversary of the day Mrs. Parks refused to relinquish her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama

 

2009 ·Dee Stewart by TNB