Not a single member of the Drew community is a stranger to living through a pandemic. COVID-19 swept through all of our lives and gave us all food for thought. The Drew students of the 1980s and 1990s faced similar challenges and anxieties as they were met with the budding global health crisis of AIDS/HIV. As of today, the World Health Organization reports over 42.3 million people have died due to AIDS/HIV-related causes. The World Health Organization also reports that currently, there are nearly 39.9 million people living with HIV.
Each year, since 1988, World AIDS Day has been observed on Dec. 1. The day is used to remember the lives lost and serves as a global reminder to keep up the fight against HIV. This year to commemorate World AIDS Day, Drew Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow will explore the story of how Drew University remembered the lives lost and affected by way of AIDS by partaking in the NAMES Project and bringing the AIDS Memorial Quilt to the Forest in 1995. This is the story of how hundreds of people both within and beyond the Drew community came together to mourn, remember, learn, love and advocate for a better tomorrow in the face of global-sized challenges.
The NAMES Project took shape in 1985 during the annual candlelight march intended to honor the legacy of Harvey Milk, San Francisco’s first openly gay politician who was assassinated after just 11 months in office. However, in 1985, the march served as a second purpose — a space to mount the over 1,000 San Franciscans who had already lost their lives to AIDS/HIV. In planning the 1985 march, organizer Cleve Jones asked each participant to write the name of a friend or loved one on a paper card. Jones then taped the cards to the wall of the San Francisco Federal Building. Once taped in place, the name cards resembled a patchwork quilt, and the inspiration for the AIDS quilt was born.
Jones, alongside other activists, officially organized the NAMES Project Foundation in 1987. The project grew into a memorial to the ever-growing number of lives lost to AIDS/HIV. People from across the country began creating panels for the Quilt and shipping them to San Francisco to be added to the Quilt. Each panel is a unique and personalized memorial to lives prematurely taken by AIDS/HIV. Each panel is six by three feet, the size of an average grave plot. By the close of the decade, the Quilt consisted of over 12,000 panels.
Public displays of the Quilt brought the living memorial to communities around the country. The conversation about bringing panels of the quilt to The Forest began in 1993. The Office of Student Life submitted the proposal to the San Francisco Quilt Agency to request the Quilt be displayed at Drew. The application specifically requested panels relating to Drew and the state of New Jersey for display. The University Chaplain, the Director of Health Services and health-focused organizations in Madison supported the effort.
According to a Sep. 4, 1994 Acorn article, the project was “an opportunity to provide further education about the risks and facts of HIV infection.” According to the same article, it was also “an opportunity to strengthen the University’s ties with the regional community.” Drew’s newly constructed Simon Forum provided a large indoor space for the Quilt to be displayed and visited by people from New Jersey and the surrounding area.
Following the application process, the largest obstacle to tackle was funding. In order to transport a large quantity of panels to campus, $15,000 needed to be raised. Every corner of campus worked around the clock to orchestrate the fundraising effort. The theatre department organized benefit productions of one-act plays. The Drew Alliance, an early rendition of Drew’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance, organized a “Dance for Life” Danceathon. The Acorn kept close track of donors and published weekly reports.
Even Drew alumni got involved. According to the Summer 1995 Drew Magazine, Robert Woolley (C’65), a successful fine arts auctioneer and alumni living with AIDS at the time of publication, pledged to match the first $10,000 raised in order to transport the Quilt. By Dec. 2, The Acorn reported that the community effort and matched donations had successfully raised the necessary funds. The Quilt was scheduled to go on display from April 6–9.
With the money raised and the Quilt scheduled to arrive, it was all hands on deck once again to produce panels to memorialize members of the Drew community who had lost their lives to AIDS. According to the Drew Magazine, theater arts professor Joe Patenaude and economics professor Don Cole “undertook the sensitive task of identifying alumni, faculty and staff who died of AIDS,” in order to “ensure that no Drew community member lost to AIDS would go unnamed unless families asked otherwise.” Patenaude and Cole compiled a list of 12 Drew community members lost to AIDS. Newly made panels displayed their names. Other panels were made to commemorate Drew community members’ lost loved ones, such as Woolley’s long-term partner Jeffery S. Childs. Drew students also created a panel to “remember those who cannot be named.” People beyond the Drew community even created panels to memorialize people from the local area.
From April 6 to April 9, 8,000 people passed through the Simon Forum to see the Quilt. Volunteers continuously read from a list of names represented by the Quilt’s panels. Meanwhile, visitors from across New Jersey visited the panels of loved ones and strangers. Visitors also contributed to a fundraising effort to support local organizations that provided AIDS/HIV-related services. In total, the donors raised $25,000. The event also raised $16,000 specifically for the NAMES Project Foundation.
On April 5, 1995, the Quilt arrived. The 1,368 panels constituted the largest display of the Quilt in New Jersey. Onlookers crowded the viewing platform above the Simon Forum’s main floor and watched as old panels were unfolded, personal objects such as wedding rings and love letters were placed atop respective panels and 51 new panels were carefully added.
The Quilt served its purpose — it brought people together. The community created a space to join together and mourn in solidarity. The Quilt served as a memorial to lives taken prematurely, a call to action in the face of apathy and an educational opportunity that allowed for candid conversations about AIDS/HIV. The Drew Magazine put it succinctly, saying, “by staging the display, Drew offered communal acknowledgment of the AIDS crisis and demonstrated the university’s commitment to AIDS awareness.”
In the years following the Quilt’s display, Drew created panels commemorating World AIDS Day. The panels are filled with signatures of students and faculty underneath a message that reads, “our names testify that Drew University remembers.” In late 1995, a panel was created to honor the Drew community members lost to AIDS. However, this time one more name was added to the list — Robert Woolley. These names, and their ties to Drew, will forever be a part of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. The memory of these past Drewids will live on indefinitely among the 110,000 others honored by the Quilt.
Today, World AIDS Day is largely overlooked by the Drew Community. Many students are unaware that this day of remembrance even exists. To many of us here on campus, the AIDS crisis is simply cradled in the pages of our history books. However, HIV is still a pervasive issue. Here at Drew, World AIDS Day should serve as an annual call to action to join the fight against HIV. School-sponsored educational events and HIV testing serve the Drew community well throughout the year and should also be planned to correspond with World AIDS Day. The Drew community should also take the day to remember the Drewids lost to AIDS/HIV. While their legacies live on a part of the NAMES project, Drew should also take action to preserve these legacies on campus. Whether through a candlelit vigil, an exhibit in the library or engraved on a plaque, their names deserve to hold a special place here on campus.
Jocelyn Freeman is a senior majoring in history and English, minoring in Chinese.
Featured image courtesy of the Drew Magazine 1995.
Thank you so much for sharing this piece of history. I never knew this about my alma mater, and I am glad to know this story. As a person with a disability I just want to highlight a connection between the ongoing HIV/AIDs crisis and the current COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is not over, and people with HIV are twice as likely to get Long Covid. “Even as the COVID and HIV pandemics continue to claim lives, we are pressured to return to a “business as normal” that has never centered the needs of disabled people and people with complex chronic conditions.” (source: https://longcovidjustice.org/hiv-long-covid/) Let us all move in the spirit of the activists at Drew who took action in the 90s, and meet the needs of our HIV/AIDs community, those living with Long Covid, and everyone in between.