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From: [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 3:19 PM
To: Mathers, Kathryn Nicole
Subject: Student Organization Presidents:  Cleve Jones, Civil Rights Activist

                                                                                            Cleve Jones, civil rights activist and founder of The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, will present "Harvey Milk, the AIDS Quilt and Human Rights" at 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 8, at Hall Auditorium, part of the Miami University Lecture Series for 2009-2010.

Jones began his career as an activist in San Francisco during the 1970s, when he was befriended by pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Jones worked as an intern in Milk’s office until Milk was assassinated in 1978.

Jones subsequently worked as a legislative consultant and was elected to three terms on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee. One of the first to recognize the threat of AIDS, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983.

He conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in 1985 at a candlelight memorial for Milk. Since then the Quilt Project has become the world’s largest community arts project, memorializing the lives of more than 85,000 Americans killed by AIDS.

After developing AIDS himself in 1994, Jones became one of the first people in the world to start HIV combination therapy and is one of the longest surviving people living with AIDS.

Author of the best-selling memoir, Stitching a Revolution, Jones continues his political activism as an organizer for UNITE HERE, the international union representing textile, hotel, casino and restaurant workers, fighting for access to health care, safe working conditions and human rights.

The lecture is free, but tickets are required. Tickets will be available to the Miami community starting Wednesday, Feb. 3, at the box office in the Shriver Center. Any remaining tickets will be made available to the general public starting Friday, Feb. 5.

The final speaker in the 2009-2010 series is actor Edward James Olmos, “Social Activism and Education: How We Became One Gang,” March 2. For more information, go towww.muohio.edu/lecture.

JS Bragg
Assistant Director, Student Activities & Leadership
Miami University
http://www.users.muohio.edu/braggjs/