lgbt-history-archive: “MY NAME IS DUANE KEARNS PURYEAR. I WAS BORN ON DECEMBER 20, 1964. I WAS
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. According to Stephanie Poole’s 1998 article, “The Making of an AIDS Quilt,” Duane Puryear, who was born fifty-two years ago today, became an AIDS activist when he made his own quilt panel: “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 #HavePrideInHistory #NeverAgain #NeverForget (at The Mall (Washington DC)) -- source link