Memorial Quilt Highlights World AIDS Day in Inglewood

The city of Inglewood has joined 170 organizations across the nation in the global observance of World AIDS Day by hosting a partial display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at the Inglewood Public Library.

The two-week exhibit opened on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, and features 16 panels, each commemorating the life of someone who has died of AIDS. The display is a small portion of the entire quilt that features 40,000 panels displayed in eight-block sections.

Though it is rarely displayed in its entirety, the complete quilt is the size of 24 football fields and weighs 50 tons.

Inglewood officials brought the AIDS quilt to the city in the hope of better educating residents about the disease. Adalin Torres, director of Hispanic Services at the library, said the city hopes to make the quilt exhibit an annual event.

“From the statistics we have we seen we know that AIDS is affecting the minority community in great numbers,” Torres said. “This is the beginning of an effort to educate people in this community, especially young people, about the disease.”

According to Torres, the number of AIDS cases reported in Inglewood has jumped from 480 in 1994 to more than 1,800 this year.

The Inglewood display commemorates people from Southern California who lost their lives to AIDS, including two former South Bay residents. A panel for David Lockert includes the years of his birth and death, 1944 to 1987, a cloth image of a tennis racquet and ball sewn onto the cloth and a Pepperdine University logo. A panel for Anthony Haynes includes photographs and a rainbow stretching across the quilt.

The San Francisco-based Names Project does not reveal where people are from, but makes sure that each exhibit includes panels that represent people who are from the area where the quilt is on display.

The AIDS quilt is on display at the main branch of the Inglewood Public Library, 101 W. Manchester Blvd., through Dec. 15.