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Quote by Cleve Jones

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Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist

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Cleve Jones
Cleve Jones

Cleve Jones is an American activist recognized for his pivotal role in the LGBTQ+ rights movement and his efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS. He co-founded the AIDS Memorial Quilt and has been a leading voice in social justice issues. Jones has been honored with numerous awards for his activism. more

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“It was not the blatant evil that broke the soul. No, in the face of utter darkness, the human spirit often rose to soaring heights. It was the shades of gray, the nuances and subtleties that wore people down. It was dealing with sellouts and side deals, small injustices and petty grievances that turned heroes into stoop-shouldered, weary old men. That was how they crumbled, idealists like this young man. They tripped on the garbage heap of miserly greed and fearful half-measures.”

“Democracy wasn't a set of dry documents nicely laid out on office stationary - it brimmed in the lips of thousands of souls and debated in dozens of accents as it crossed the street from one neighborhood to the next. It was the smell of stale coffee and bodies packed into an old community center. It was the typos in the fliers. It was exasperation, realization, illumination - a knockdown, drag out, sweaty, tearful, impassioned process of people making decisions together.”