In San Francisco, participation has waned since the late 1980s. In 1997, an estimated 2.3 million people worldwide died of AIDS, according to the World Health Organization, Hensler said an estimated 30 million more are HIV-positive, 612,000 of them in the United States. The memorials are a reminder that for most people in the world, and many in this country, the epidemic is still a death sentence, Hensler said. There is also the perception now that AIDS is now a manageable, chronic disease, because new drugs have restored the health of many Americans who can tolerate, and afford, them. "Some of those places are not the big cities where everyone is maybe somewhat jaded, or exhausted." "I think some of what we see is that as the epidemic touches more and more people, there are more places where someone feels the emotional need to take some sort of action," she said. city that has dropped out, Hensler said, a handful of smaller cities have joined. Last year, 45 countries were involved with the memorials.įor every major U.S. "That year he was the only person who did it he sat there with his one candle," Hensler said. So stigmatized is AIDS still in Nicosia, Cyprus, that it took one man's bravery to hold the first memorial a few years ago. In others, where such exposure is dangerous, names are read from the AIDS quilt. In some cities the names of the dead are read aloud, she said. The men and boys gather with candles in the village square, while the women light clay oil lamps in the doors and windows of their homes. In southeast India, instead of a mass event in one city, villages hold their own, Hensler said. In parts of Africa that are home to an estimated two-thirds of the world's HIV infections, memorials are multiplying each year, she said. This year's observance is the broadest ever, though some large cities - such as New York, Los Angeles and London - have dropped out, according to Rebecca Hensler of Mobilization Against AIDS. from Castro and Market streets, a yearly event skipped only in 1984.īy 1985, the idea had surged across national borders, with memorials in 36 cities in six countries. Sunday, San Franciscans will make the trek for the 15th time, starting at 8 p.m. "We knew people were dying, and we wanted to do something very serious that would touch people emotionally." "It was incredibly quiet," Wilson recalled. Ten thousand people - those with AIDS and their supporters - showed up in San Francisco to carry candles from the Castro down Market Street to the Civic Center. It was a threshold test for our community." "We also didn't know - and I always get emotional when I remember this - how our own community was going to respond in terms of rallying to the support of people who were sick. "It wasn't clear how society was going to respond," Wilson said. The organizers were asking a demonized group to join them in openly acknowledging that they had AIDS. San Francisco's first march was an act of courage, Wilson said. There was no HIV test or effective treatment the virus had yet to be isolated authorities had not proved it was sexually transmitted. That very year, San Francisco TV technicians refused to be in the same studio with two guests with AIDS.Īt the time, AIDS had killed 520 of its 1,300 known patients nationwide some 200 cases were diagnosed in San Francisco that year. On May 2, 1983, San Francisco's first mass AIDS memorial filled Market Street with solemn, silent throngs at a time when the scourge generated nothing but fear and loathing in most Americans. When AIDS has a face, the community response is more human." "We are hurt when AIDS becomes budgets and percentages - a numbers game. "And I also think we need to keep a face on AIDS," added Wilson, who lives in San Francisco. I look at it as a time of respect for the people I miss now," said Wilson, who will speak at a benefit Thursday for the memorial's international organizer, San Francisco's Mobilization Against AIDS.
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