Miami Herald; Monday, December 2, 1991
Elinor Burkett, Herald Staff Writer

For 15 minutes, downtown Miami joined New York and San Francisco, Austin and Chicago in commemoration of World AIDS Day, the 130,000 Americans dead of AIDS -- and the estimated one million HIV-infected feared to be following them.

Seven hundred South Floridians gathered for Miami's Third Annual World AIDS Day Interfaith Memorial Service watched the lights flicker out as they were led in the Naming of the Names of the dead.

"A memorial, in its true Hebrew sense, means remembering so strongly as to make present again every mother's son, every son's mother, every lover, every spouse, every friend, everyone who died unloved and unnamed," the Rev. John O'Hara told the hushed crowd. At dusk, parents pushing baby carriages, friends pushing the sick in wheelchairs, young white men, older black couples and Hispanic families had filed silently into the amphitheater at Bayfront Park holding candles.

"This is a vigil in which we watch in the night for an enemy that has already made too many advances," O'Hara said. "In this vigil, we wait for the light of a new tomorrow."

Just as the lights of downtown Miami were scheduled to flicker back on, a glowing sphere of light suspended from a helicopter flew into the crowd waiting by the shore of Biscayne Bay: "A Sphere of Life," its designer Allen Brock dubbed it.

Dec. 1 has been set aside as World AIDS Day since 1988. This year, with nine to 10 million people infected with HIV worldwide, people in more than 160 countries marked the occasion with demonstrations, educational campaigns, memorial services and fund-raisers.

In Moscow, members of the Russian Union of Gays and Lesbians passed out free, U.S.-made condoms in front of Moscow City Hall. In Portugal, Lisbon University pharmacy students distributed condoms at shopping centers. In India, a group of prostitutes' children waving banners saying "Don't give AIDS to our mothers!" distributed free condoms outside Bombay's largest train station.

At Tel Aviv University, a quilt bearing the names of Israeli AIDS victims was displayed. In Paris, a Christmas tree was hung with 800 ornaments in honor of that country's 800 children suffering from AIDS.

In Manhattan, the bells of Riverside Church tolled six times an hour because one American dies of AIDS every 10 minutes. The Museum of Modern Art hung 13 framed, blank canvases and papers to "represent all the works that will never get shown" because of AIDS, said Robert Storr of the museum's Projects Committee.

In Broward, more than 200 people gathered in Fort Lauderdale's Stranahan Park for a candlelight vigil. "To be silent is to die," attorney Norman Kent told them.

Earlier in the day, dozens lined up at the Broward Main Library to see pieces of the national AIDS quilt. Today, a rock band called RISK will hand out condoms at three Broward County high schools -- Stranahan, St. Anthony's and South Broward -- before school and during lunch.

In St. Petersburg, red ribbons were handed out at the Salvador Dali museum and other galleries for the annual Day Without Art. In Miami that day will be celebrated this weekend.

The World Health Organization estimates that by the turn of the century, more than 30 million people across the planet will be infected with HIV, that more than 12 million will be sick.

"It is time for government to really take notice," Mayor Xavier Suarez told the crowd at Bayfront Park, reminding them that Miami now has the second highest concentration of AIDS cases per capita of any city in the nation. "It is time for us to forget worrying about how people got the illness and worry about solving the illness."

Sonia Singleton, a Miami AIDS patient, left her bed at Jackson Memorial Hospital on a pass to speak at the memorial service.

"Tomorrow is too late."

Herald Staff Writer Tony Pugh and wire services contributed to this report.

CAPTION: PHOTO Fred Smith and Mary Anderson at Stranahan Park AIDS rally (b); photo: A Night Without Light participants walk near Bayfront Park, Roman Kalinin (in S) (AIDS)

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