I walked into City Hall shortly after San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated on November 27, 1978. When I saw Milk's body on the floor, my mind froze as I struggled to comprehend what my eyes were seeing. The first thought that went through my mind was, "It's over." We were stuck in City Hall for several hours as the police bundled up the bodies. Throughout the long day, all I could think was, "It's over, it's over."
Then the sun went down and the people began to gather. Hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands filled the intersection of Castro and Market streets. Gay and straight, young and old, black and brown and white, all ages, from every neighborhood and community in San Francisco �" we marched to City Hall, carrying pictures of Milk and Moscone, flowers and candles. We filled Civic Center Plaza.
It was cold but the light of the candles warmed the night. Around me people wept and whispered words of comfort. Then, from the steps of City Hall we heard the sound of voices raised in song; the music of Mendelssohn, sung by a new chorus, whose first rehearsal had been just a month earlier. It was the first public performance of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. As I stood there in the crowd I realized it wasn't over, it was just beginning.
We didn't know it then, but even as we marched down Market Street that night, many of us carried within us an invader. The enemy would not be known for another few years, but by November 1985, marchers in the annual candlelight memorial for Milk and Moscone had already lost over 1,000 of their friends and neighbors. By 1987 almost everyone I knew was dead, dying, or caring for someone who was dying. Once again, I feared that it was over, that our movement would stall and our community would fail in the face of such unrelenting misery and death.
Of course it wasn't just about San Francisco or just about gay people. HIV was already spreading far and wide, affecting diverse populations throughout the world. Here in the U.S. we fought hard in 1987, with activists from ACT-UP shutting down Wall Street in March and volunteers from the Names Project unfolding the first display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall in October. As the year ended, we in San Francisco �" and millions more across the planet �" understood that this would be the fight of our lives.
The international community was slow to mobilize a response to the AIDS crisis. But in 1987 the World Health Organization hired Dr. Jonathan Mann to run the newly created Global Program on AIDS. Desperate for strategies to build global solidarity and encourage action, Mann hired two public information specialists. One of them was a broadcast journalist from San Francisco's CBS TV affiliate, KPIX Channel 5, named James W. Bunn. Bunn and his colleague Thomas Netter conceived of World AIDS Day, Mann endorsed the plan and the first World AIDS Day was observed 25 years ago, on December 1, 1988.
In Milk's district, thousands of us died every year for over a decade. Ultimately, over 20,000 San Franciscans would lose their lives to HIV/AIDS. We marched, rallied, got arrested, cared for the sick, confronted the pharmaceutical industry, buried our dead, raised millions of dollars for research and care, sewed quilts, created education campaigns, wept, broke down, raised each other up and kept fighting. We survived and we moved forward.
It's impossible to know what Milk and Moscone would think of San Francisco today. But it is not at all difficult to imagine the battles they would be fighting. These were men who loved this city. They loved our neighborhoods, our hills, and the bay. They loved immigrants and the food, music and traditions that came with them. They loved senior citizens and kids. They wanted safe streets, good schools, playgrounds, and parks. They wanted equal rights for women, gay people, and minorities. They fought for renters, honored labor and built coalitions to connect, not divide, us from each other.
They would, I'm sure, be pleased by the progress that has been achieved on some of the issues they cared about. But they would be alarmed by the growing chasm between rich and poor, they would be angered by the evictions of the elderly, disabled and people with AIDS. They would be fighting to keep City College open and they would be outraged by the violence and despair experienced by so many in our city's neighborhoods. They would cheer the advances in gay rights but would cry at the news from Russia and reports of suicide and HIV infection rates among LGBT youth. They would urge us to stand together for public education, sane environmental policies, health care and affordable housing. They would try to give us hope.
Thirty-five years later we're marching again for Milk and Moscone, and the progressive political movement they represented.
A quarter century later, we're still wearing red ribbons and lighting candles on World AIDS Day.
And the men of the chorus are still singing �" bigger, louder, and better than ever.
This is part of who we are. This is our legacy of hope.
Longtime activist and San Francisco resident Cleve Jones was a student intern to the late Supervisor Harvey Milk and conceived of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.