Letter From Cleve Jones
Note from Kile
June 6, 2026:
Read, Heed and Lead...it's down to us.
Everything Cleve cites in this piece was surreally real.
All were as terrified as we were helpless as we leapt into the breach and took care of one another as no one else would. There is no exaggeration in this article; the relentless presence and effect of Death in our young lives grew us up, quickly and we armed one another with our self-generated fire.
We Do Not Forget; We Must Not Forget. You who were not there must educate yourselves, embrace responsibility for our survival and that of other tribes and communities not "mainstream"...as the insidious engine behind it, the power that drove everything we have had to rail and fight against, was and is Hate, augmented by ignorance.
Please. Know your facts, know our history, turn and face the onslaught. It's coming.
Be You. Be Proud.
Dear friends,
Forty-five years ago, on June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control published the first account of clusters of gay male patients in Los Angeles and California with unusual infections apparently related to a break down of their immune systems. As a young legislative assistant assigned to the Health Committee in the California State Assembly, I read the report at my desk and felt a deep sense of apprehension.
Four years later almost everyone I knew was dead, dying, or caring for someone who was dying.
I tested positive for HIV when the antibody test was approved in 1985, and lived with the knowledge of that diagnosis for a full ten years before any effective treatments were developed. During those years most of my friends died. I made new friends, then they died. I found more friends and comrades, then watched as they also died. This went on and on and on. After a while I grew reticent to accept new attachments to friends or to lovers.
Most of my community fought back, but not all. Some retreated into willful denial, subscribed to foolish conspiracy theories or embraced the quackery and pseudo-science of legions of grifters. Others lost their way to alcohol and drugs, defeated by the endless spectacle of misery and death that filled our days and haunted our nights. Some, with no one left in their lives, took their own.
Many celebrated our deaths. Bumper stickers like "AIDS: Killing All The Right People" were popular at conservative gatherings. Republican politicians called for us to be quarantined. In the White House and the halls of Congress they whispered loudly, "let them die."
And die we did.
They called it the gay plague even though the overwhelming majority of the 45 million people who have now lost their lives across the planet were heterosexual men and women and their children. They did their best to deny funds for research, education, treatment and care. The one nation on earth with the resources, institutions and wealth sufficient to slow the spread of the virus failed.
We kept fighting. We marched, lit candles, lobbied, prayed, were arrested, raised millions of dollars, sewed quilts, wore red ribbons, funded research, cared for the dying and did our best to comfort the survivors. We shouted in the streets against the bigotry, racism, greed and stupidity but it felt like we were screaming into the winds of a hurricane that would surely sweep us all away.
Those of us who recognized early the threat of the new disease were often mocked or abused, but mostly we were just ignored. It was painful and exhausting to witness the calamity we had predicted as it descended.
Some of us survived.
We lived long enough to witness yet another pandemic, and to watch with sorrow and rage as the same mistakes played out, hospitals filled to overflowing and the body count rose. We endured again a President of the United States who failed utterly to perceive the gravity of the challenge and derided those who did.
Forty-five years later, when advances and innovations in medical science brought the world to the brink of victory over HIV and AIDS, we find ourselves, instead, on the precipice of a new catastrophe - an entirely preventable and unnecessary disaster which will be inflicted upon our nation and the world deliberately, by the actions of a few powerful, corrupt and epically ambitious wealthy politicians and their hidden benefactors and masters.
It will take many years, perhaps decades, to rebuild what they have already decimated. And this is just the beginning. Over the coming months hospitals will close, research will stop, care will be denied, treatment will be abandoned and medical costs will soar. Across the United States and around the world, millions of innocents will die to satisfy the greed of the wealthiest few.
It's Friday night as I post this in California. Families are gathering for their dinner. Theaters and restaurants and clubs will be full. Sports fans will cheer for their teams. Picnics are planned for the beach tomorrow. News of war and corruption and deceit have lost urgency to a people numbed by the daily barrage of insanity.
It is deliberate, of course. The pain is the point. The chaos is orchestrated. Political division and apathy serve their purpose.
They did not come to govern; they came to destroy. And within that destruction, they came to profit.
The only question that remains is: will we let them do it?
If we can find common ground, respect and support each other, speak truth in plain language and commit to the long struggle ahead, we can win.
I tell you we can do this.
We can build a healthy nation and share this world in peace with justice.
Much love to you all. Be strong.
Cleve
Above: Each of those squares are 12’ x 12’
Each handmade, home made panel is 3’ x 6’ and is a tribute and memorial to a loved one who has died of AIDS.
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