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Rights and resilience

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Sonoma Valley Sun

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LGBT rights activist Cleve Jones joins the Sonoma Speaker Series to discuss the rise of Harvey Milk and a bygone era when San Francisco was a gay sanctuary and the center for gay liberation.

The event is Monday, October 2, 7 p.m. at the Hanna Boys Center.

His memoir. “When We Rise,” shares his time as a troubled teenager, his move to San Francisco, and the triumphs and tragedy of working for gay rights with Harvey Milk.

“I have these memories of great struggle and great pain and great loss, but I also in my lifetime have seen extraordinary progress and amazing change.”

cleve-jonesJones developed the AIDS Memorial Quilt and, as a board member of American Foundation for Equal Rights, challenged California’s Proposition 8.

Of the quilt, Jones was inspired by a sea of people at a quiet protest in San Francisco. The crowd looked like some kind of quilt, he recalls, “and when I said the word ‘quilt’ I thought of my great-grandma. … And it was such a warm and comforting and middle-American traditional-family-values sort of symbol, and I thought, ‘This is the symbol we should take.’”

Monday, October 2. 7 p.m. $35. Sonomaspeakerseries.com.

 

 




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