He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve's passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and possibility, and prejudice and violence alike. By turns tender and uproarious - and written entirely in his own words - When We Rise is Jones' account of his remarkable life. When Milk was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1978, Jones took up his mentor's progressive mantle - only to see the arrival of AIDS transform his life once again. With Milk's encouragement, Jones dove into politics and found his calling in 'the movement.' Jones found community - in the hotel rooms and ramshackle apartments shared by other young adventurers, in the city's bathhouses and gay bars like The Stud, and in the burgeoning gay district, the Castro, where a New York transplant named Harvey Milk set up a camera shop, began shouting through his bullhorn, and soon became the nation's most outspoken gay elected official. Like thousands of other young people, Jones, nearly penniless, was drawn in the early 1970s to San Francisco, a city electrified by progressive politics and sexual freedom. Join us in welcoming one of the leading figures in the gay rights movement speaking on his memoir 'When We Rise: My Life in the Movement'īorn in 1954, Cleve Jones was among the last generation of gay Americans who grew up wondering if there were others out there like himself.

When We Rise by Cleve Jones