The AIDS quilt is a huge, 47,000 panel traveling memorial to people who have died of AIDS. And although 42 percent of Americans diagnosed with AIDS are black, only 400 panels — that’s less than 1 percent — of the quilt honor African Americans. That’s where the Call My Name Project, which holds workshops to create panels to memorialize blacks, comes in.
The Call My Name project is organized by the NAMES Project Foundation, which is located in Atlanta and is the caretaker of the quilt. The panels will be stitched together into displays, or blocks, that will travel for exhibitions in schools, corporations, places of worship and community centers.
The quilting workshops have been taking place around the country since 2006. They meet at churches, community centers and colleges.
Some quilters select names of strangers; others are there to pay tribute to a friend or family member. All the materials for the 3- by 6-foot fabric panels are provided by the foundation and no experience is necessary.
The panels will go on a tour of HBCUs in 2008. Click here for more information on the AIDS Quilt.
That’s very interesting, especially considering the very rich tradition of quilt making in many African American families. I would have thought there would have been more AA panels on the quilt already.
Don’t middle schoolers have to do this? (flashback to crying at sewing machine and Mrs. Taylor looking at me as if I had missed some essential female genes) I remember each Home Ec session had to make one and they sent them in. Is th