Bay Area Reporter - May 18, 2001
Katie Szymanski

Facing a rise in HIV infections and a younger population that has not watched their friends die rapidly, community members will remember the dead and fight complacency at the annual AIDS Candlelight Vigil, initiated in 1983 in San Francisco and New York and now the world's largest grassroots event, taking place in over 400 cities and towns in over 60 countries.

This year's local march on Sunday, May 20, will be led by people with AIDS holding the original banner from the first march in 1983 proclaiming, "Fighting for Our Lives." The procession leaves the intersection of Market and Castro at 8 p.m. and marches to the San Francisco Public Library, where there will be speeches, music, performance art, and remembrances held on the steps.

Sunday's march - run entirely by volunteers and fiscally sponsored by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and co-sponsored by Survive AIDS - comes just weeks before the official 20-year anniversary of the emergence of the AIDS epidemic, and is significant in many ways. The march has already seen the involvement and outreach of many different groups who seek to make the event socially uplifting as well as a reminder that AIDS is indeed still a very unglamorous killer.

Although always in need of funds (the march spends money on publicity as well as necessities like sign language interpreters and sound equipment), organizers recently rejected a $500 donation from Coors, the brewing company that conveniently has both a progressive giving program and a right-wing funding arm that company officials have for years said are "unaffiliated." The Coors family has donated to various efforts that are anti-choice, anti-gay, and AIDS-phobic, including the Free Congress Foundation which in 1987 published the vicious book, Gays, AIDS, and You.

"Accepting this money would amount to spitting on the graves of those who have of AIDS," said Michael Lauro of Survive AIDS, who noted that individuals and organizations have all pitched in to replace what would have come from Coors. "The community response has been nothing short of overwhelming, especially as word spread that we had rejected the Coors offer. Local people and groups really stepped up to the plate."

Contingents marching in the vigil are as diverse as the HIV-affected community itself. Pets Are Wonderful Support, for instance, will be marching as a group; people with AIDS, PAWS volunteers, and the animals that love them will all be present. Interested participants should bring their pets and meet at the PAWS office at before the march at 3248 16th Street between Guerrero and Dolores; call (415) 241-1473 for more information.

Also marching as a group will be Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco which for years now has held a pre-vigil service. This year's service, called "Fighting for Our lives for 20 Years" takes place at MCC-SF, 150 Eureka Street, at 7 p.m. As a spiritual home that has been there for AIDS in its entirety, the Castro-based MCC has held hundreds of individual memorial services, perhaps more than any other church in America. Sunday's service will remember all of these faces once again as well as help to renew a commitment to fight the disease. As the service concludes, those attending take candles and march to Market Street where they will join other vigil participants.

A large leather presence is also expected at the vigil, and a call for participation by Mr. Edge Leather Eric Bernier has asked that those interested meet "Mama" Sandy Reinhardt and the rest of the leather family at the Edge, 18th and Collingwood, at 7 p.m. The leather contingent will take off from the Edge at 7:45 p.m. to meet the rest of the group.

For march organizers, the community involvement indicates a powerful event this weekend, one that will set new standards for memorials and send a far-reaching message about the future of AIDS.

"A few of us have survived these last two decades since the epidemic first crashed into our lives. Many of our friends have died and many more are witnessing the daily devastation at ground zero in Africa," said Lauro.

"The truth behind the words, 'Fighting for Our Lives' on that original banner rings as loudly today as when we first marched years ago."

The AIDS Candlelight Vigil could still use some help in the form of volunteers or donations; visit www.AIDScandlelightvigil.org for more information.
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