A tragic but important milestone for the city will be marked by a project planned for the Broadway light rail construction wall that needs your stories and photos to make it happen. Details on the project headed up by Capitol Hill’s Gay City Health Project are below. Organizers are seeking stories and pictures from the community commemorating three decades of living with HIV/AIDS in Seattle.
As the international HIV/AIDS crisis continues into the fourth decade, the Seattle community prepares to reflect upon where we began and where we are headed.
Using three panels from the “red wall” on Capitol Hill (facing Broadway), organizers from different aspects of the community are working together to create an installation that both reflects and commemorates our unique, individual and community experiences in regards to the epidemic that changed the landscape of the world.
Void of entitlement or organizational ownership, the project organizers have congruently planned out the three phases of the installation – the first of which will be available for public consumption just in time for Pride – end of June. The remaining two installations will be presented in the following months to culminate on World AIDS Day – December 1, 2011. The tagline for the project is “Take Action Seattle” and the parties involved hope Seattle will do just that.
In addition to the physical installation, a website will be created harnessing images and recollections from the past 30 years ofAIDS. The website will also include a timeline, containing properties like the following (from the early end of the spectrum):
1981: First cases of Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia (PCP) are reported in young previously healthy gay men in LA, NY, & SF. The phenomenon initially is referred to as Gay Related Immune Deficiency (GRID).
1982: First case of AIDS is reported in King County, WA (Seattle); 2nd case is a person who returned to Seattle after a diagnosis in Hawaii.
1982: Bobby Campbell visits Seattle and shows his KS lesions to a group of doctors and volunteers at the Seattle Gay Clinic: first local AIDS forum sponsored by Seattle Gay Clinic & Seattle Counseling Service for Sexual Minorities is held at Seattle Central Community College to an overflow crowd of 300.
Seattle has a longstanding history with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Broadway, in particular, was a central meeting spot for those affected before treatments and medication became “the norm.” There could not be a more appropriate location for this installment as we approach the 30th Anniversary of HIV/AIDS here in Seattle.
So, how can you get involved? Email us your stories, photos and anything else you feel should be commemorated regarding HIV/AIDS in Seattle. We want to hear from you! Send an email with your stories and photos here: [email protected].
Talked to Gay City yesterday, apparently the wall installation will not happen for Pride as planned, but is delayed a bit. They did not have a new date exact, but implied a few more weeks.
Secondly, in their press release, details about the Bobbi (correct spelling of his first name) Campbell form are completely wrong. A group called the Seattle AIDS Action Committee, Seattle’s first AIDS political action effort, which I chaired, with a hardworking group of activists did the work on the forum from top to bottom.
I will send a corrective letter to this site, sent to to Gay City from one of the original SAAC members, Rick Mc Kinnon. Rick worked tirelessly for a couple of months on the forum planning, etc. I thought they, Gay City, had send our a corrected press release.
Remembering AIDS and the early years is a terrific idea. Precious accuracy needs to be central to the effort as the these postings will become a historical record.
George B. / SGN
You’re taling about a different and later forum, George. Seattle Gay Clinic and Seattle Counseling Service sponsored the first forum in November 1982. There are pictures and story in your own paper — I have a copy. Speakers were Tom Marsella, Doug Allman, Ann Collier, Hunter Handsfield, and myself, facilitated by Steve Werner, Board President of Seattle Gay Clinic at the time.
Bobbi Cambpell dropped in to Seattle Gay Clinic because he wanted to show us (volunteers and clinicians) what his lesions looked like, and warn us how bad things were becoming in San Francisco. We stayed in touch with him, and Seattle Gay Clinic paid his airfare to come back later to speak at another forum, the second, in 1983, “AIDS: Loving and Caring for our Own,” which was co-sponsored by several organizations, including Seattle AIDS Action Committee, and was held at Broadway Performance Hall. I have saved clippings, flyers, photos, etc. from both forums.
Tim Burak
Thanks Tim – I was not at the SGN in 1981. And indeed it seems you all at Settle Gay Clinic worked on the first informational forum – however I am correct about who did the work on the Bobbi Campbell event at Bwy. performance Hall the next year.
Note: Tim Burak and I have been activists forever, know each other and just chatted today. We agree that total accuracy is very important in going back to talk about and document the first ten years of the AIDS pandemic. Tim Burak is one of the founders of the so very important Chicken Soup Brigade….. beloved by all.
Cheers, GB. / SGN