Tag Archives: HIV Community Link

RISE Redux

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

{The Calgary Gay History Project is returning to our AIDS history series this week. In that vein, please spare a thought for AIDS activist Larry Kramer, who died of pneumonia yesterday at age 84.}

A highlight of Calgary’s 2019 Pride Festival was the gay history event “RISE.” The audience at the Plaza Theatre was honoured and moved by the passionate recollections of two heroes from the AIDS pandemic, Ruth Coker Burks and Cleve Jones. Afterward, one Calgarian exclaimed: “It was one of the most inspirational evenings I have ever attended.” I was very grateful to have emceed the event, which was manifested by Twisted Element’s Keon Brawn in collaboration with HIV Community Link.

Local videographer Patrick Monaghan was there with his camera and recently edited a video of the evening, which he has now uploaded to YouTube. I encourage you to watch or rewatch RISE; it’s a history lesson that reminds us of our shared humanity in the pressure cooker of this earlier pandemic.

Ruth Coker Burks with the Calgary Gay History Project’s Kevin Allen

Ruth Coker Burks is perhaps better known as the Cemetery Angel. Ruth, a former caregiver of AIDS crisis victims, is an AIDS awareness advocate based in Arkansas. During the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, she used her salary as a real estate agent to care for AIDS patients whose families and communities had forsaken them. Due to prejudice, fear, and stigma surrounding the disease, she was often the patients’ only caregiver until their passing. She is also recognized for burying abandoned bodies in her own family cemetery in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Cleve Jones (centre) sharing his recollections.

Cleve Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which grew into one of the largest and most influential People with AIDS advocacy organizations in the United States.

In 1985, Jones then started The Names Project, which resulted in tens of thousands of people making quilt panels to commemorate those they had lost to the disease. Also known as the AIDS Memorial Quilt, thousands of panels at a time toured North America. The Canadian National Tour of the quilt stopped in Calgary in July 1989. The 1000 visiting panels were hung in layered sections in the Calgary municipal building atrium. Fourteen panels created in Calgary were added to the quilt during its pause in the city.

Thank you, Patrick, for documenting RISE and sharing this video!

{KA}

HIV Community Link at 35

Posted on May 7, 2020 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

{The Calgary Gay History Project is presenting a series on AIDS history reflecting on how Calgarians and Canadians reacted to this earlier pandemic. This installment was written by Project researcher, Tereasa Maillie.}

Globe and Mail excerpt from April 20, 1984

HIV Community Link has been active in the Calgary community providing support and education for over 35 years as a registered society. Its roots were in the early 1980s epidemic reaching Calgary, and little information was available to help people combat this deadly virus. Homophobia, prejudice, and discomfort around the ways HIV was transmitted blocked discussion and treatment.

In response, gay and lesbian activists first met in late 1983 to decide on a plan of action, and join together to advocate for infected people. AIDS Calgary Awareness Association was born, and according to activist Doug Young’s personal notes, the first meetings were about the legal fight for people who were HIV positive. They were not alone: Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver had also started their own chapters based on the many groups that had begun in the USA.

Known as AIDS Calgary, the group registered as a society on October 9, 1985. Their first office was at #300, 1021 – 10th Avenue S.W. and staffed by a core group of volunteers under Doug Morin, the first Executive Director. Money was tight, but LGTBQ2 organizations such as the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Chinook Arch donated funds and held community events. In the 1990s, AIDS Calgary began hosting their own signature fundraiser called Calgary Cares. The special event included silent auctions of local fashion designers’ clothes, a stage show, and dinner. The AIDS Walk and Run started 25 years ago; it has raised approximately $1.8 million to fund the agency and its services in Calgary.

Doug Morin – Executive Director of AIDS Calgary, Dec. 1986. Photo source: University of Calgary Digital Archives

With this help, AIDS Calgary was able to expand their outreach and advocacy, including their hotline and newsletters: Ellipse, 360 degrees, and AIDS Calgary News. Part of their advocacy work was to lobby the government to fund research, promote health programs, and help end the stigma surrounding HIV positive people in Canadian society. In two National AIDS conferences (1985 in Montreal and 1986 in Toronto), AIDS Calgary joined with other organizations to create the Canadian AIDS Society. The goal was to tap into a larger umbrella group’s powers of shared information, advocacy, and support for all members.

In 2013, AIDS Calgary Awareness Association changed their name to HIV Community Link, as they also offered programs and services in Medicine Hat and Brooks. Their focus remains “on health promotion, increasing access to testing, delivering effective harm reduction programs, and reducing the stigma associated with HIV.”

{TM}

RISE: An Evening of AIDS History in YYC

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Kevin Allen | 1 comment

Two legendary figures associated with AIDS History, Cleve Jones and Ruth Coker Burks, are speaking in Calgary during Calgary Pride; we are agog!

Join us on Wednesday, August 28th, from 7-10 PM at the Plaza Theatre for an evening of social commentary and essential history.

Ruth Coker Burks is perhaps better known as the Cemetery Angel. Ruth, a former caregiver of AIDS crisis victims, is an AIDS awareness advocate based in Arkansas. During the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, she used her salary as a real estate agent to care for AIDS patients whose families and communities had forsaken them. Due to prejudice, fear, and stigma surrounding the disease, she was often the patients’ only caregiver until their passing. She is also recognized for burying abandoned bodies in her own family cemetery in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Cleve Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation which grew into one of the largest and most influential People with AIDS advocacy organizations in the United States.