lgbt-history-archive:“MY NAME IS DUANE KEARNS PURYEAR. I WAS BORN ON DECEMBER 20, 1964. I WAS DIAGNO
lgbt-history-archive:“MY NAME IS DUANE KEARNS PURYEAR. I WAS BORN ON DECEMBER 20, 1964. I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH AIDS ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1987 AT 4:45 PM. I WAS 22 YEARS OLD. SOMETIMES, IT MAKES ME VERY SAD. I MADE THIS PANEL MYSELF. IF YOU ARE READING IT, I AM DEAD…,” The Names Project–AIDS Memorial Quilt, Washington, D.C., October 10, 1992. Photo © Fred W. McDarrah. On September 7, 1987, twenty-nine years ago today, at 4:45 P.M., Duane Kearns Puryear was diagnosed with AIDS. According to Stephanie Poole’s 1998 article, “The Making of an AIDS Quilt,” the process of making his own quilt panel was Duane Puryear’s first act as an AIDS activist: “In creating this [panel], with needle and thread, Puryear completed the most significant reidentification possible. He identified himself as dead. Duane Puryear was sixteen when he contracted HIV. He was twenty-two when he was diagnosed with AIDS.” He once said that his goal was to be “the longest living person with AIDS.” In 1991, “at the age of twenty-six, he died. He had lived with HIV for ten years. During [that] time, he became an activist…he worked on an AIDS hotline…he became a lecturer. In Dallas, he founded the speakers bureau, which [became] an important part of the Dallas AIDS Resource Center.” By the end of 1991, over 156,000 people in America had died of HIV/AIDS-related diseases. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #QueerHistoryMatters #HavePrideInHistory #FredWMcDarrah #DuaneKearnsPuryear #NeverAgain #NeverForget #WeRemember (at Washington, District of Columbia) -- source link
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