Join us for an exciting online appearance from our Fall 2020 Read 2 Succeed author: Cleve Jones, author of When We Rise: My Life in the Movement!
This event will take place on Thursday, November 19 from 12:30-2:30 pm. You DO NOT have to have read the book to come and meet the author!
Register in advance for this event featuring activist and author Cleve Jones!
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about
joining the meeting.
About the Book:
Partial inspiration for the ABC television miniseries (of the same name) and a 2017
Lambda Literary Award winner, “When We Rise: My Life in The Movement" by Cleve Jones,
is an extraordinary and intimate memoir; the superb recollections of a man whose name
has been both intertwined and at the forefront of the shaping and evolution of 20th
century LGBTQ activism. The book commences with Jones diligently recounting his formative
years, but as the author matures, drawn to San Francisco in the 1970s, the narrative
gains a powerful and expressive voice once he meets his mentor, the late Harvey Milk
— kick-starting his lifelong journey of remarkable advocacy. Throughout the memoir,
Jones does an exceptional job of illustrating the context, scale, and evolution of
gay activism (his and the movement's failures and successes) by interweaving global,
political, cultural, and historical events within his narrative. The kidnapping of
Patty Hearst and the Vietnam War are two examples. The last lines of the book read:
“My generation is disappearing; I want the new generations to know what our lives were
like, what we fought for, what we lost, and what we won. Akin to this memoir, the rest, as they say, is history."
About the Author:
Cleve Jones is an American human rights activist, author, and lecturer. Jones joined the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s. He was mentored by pioneer LGBT activist Harvey Milk and worked in Milk's City Hall office as a student intern until Milk's assassination in 1978. Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983 and founded The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, one of the world's largest community arts projects, in 1987. HarperCollins published his first book, Stitching a Revolution, in 2000. Jones was portrayed by Emile Hirsch in Gus Van Sant's Oscar-winning film, MILK, and was the historical consultant for the production. Jones led the 2009 National March for Equality in Washington, DC, and served on the Advisory Board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which challenged California's Proposition 8 in the US Supreme Court. The ABC TV mini-series by the same name was inspired in part by stories from Cleve's book. With a screenplay by Academy Award-winner Dustin Lance Black, it premiered in February 2017 to much acclaim. Jones lives today in San Francisco, California, and works as an organizer for the hospitality workers' union, UNITE HERE.