VOA标准英语2010年-Cleve Jones, AIDS Quilt Founder, Still

As a teenager growing up in the American Southwest in the late 1960s, Cleve Jones remembers how isolated¹ and lonely he felt.  But he says his life changed one day when he happened to read a magazine article in the school library on the gay liberation movement. "That was the first word that I got that not only were there other people like me, but that they were organizing and demanding rights," Jones says.

After graduation, Jones headed to San Francisco to discover what it meant to be gay. "Every day there were hundreds and hundreds of young gay and lesbian people arriving from all over the country." He says he was, "participating in something that was really brand new." 

Jones joins political gay rights movement

Jones met Harvey Milk, an openly gay politician campaigning for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors². He also worked with Milk to defeat a state ballot³ initiative that would bar homosexuals from working in California public schools. "We got out, like Harvey Milk taught us, and came out of the closet [publicly avowed⁴ their homosexuality] and we walked door-to-door, and we introduced ourselves to our neighbors and said, 'Please don't vote for this it will hurt me.' And that was how we won," Jones recalls.

Harvey Milk was the first gay elected official to hold public office in California.  A year later he was dead, assassinated⁵ in City Hall along with the San Francisco mayor.  Jones followed Milk's lead by forging coalitions⁶ among racial and ethnic⁷ communities, trade unionists, women's rights advocates and environmental groups. "They found common ground that would lead ultimately to them taking power in that city," he says.
 
Jones becomes an early advocate for AIDS research and treatment

It was in the early 1980s, when Jones was working for the California State Assembly on health issues, that the first cases of AIDS hit his San Francisco community. "I spent the first five years really of the 1980s just struggling so hard to alert people, to warm people to try to pressure the scientific community, to try to pressure the federal government," he says.

 
Names Project Foundation
The AIDS Memorial Quilt was displayed in its entirety for the last time in 1996, Washington, DC

Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, an advocacy group for people with this strange and deadly new disease. AIDS is caused by HIV, a potent⁸ virus that's transmitted mainly through sexual contact and that cripples the body's immune system. In the 1980s, getting AIDS, or an HIV-positive diagnosis⁹, meant almost certain death.

Jones says during those early years of the epidemic¹⁰, San Francisco allocated¹¹ more funds than the federal government for AIDS research and treatment. "[Ronald] Reagan was president then and didn't say the word AIDS aloud until more Americans had died of AIDS than had died in the entire Vietnam War," he says.

The genesis of the AIDS quilt memorial

Names Project Foundation
The Names Project Foundation sponsors workshops like this one to help families create AIDS Memorial Quilt panels

By 1985, 1,000 people in San Francisco had died from AIDS. In the annual memorial vigil for Harvey Milk that year, Jones invited marchers to write the names of loved ones on placards and he posted them on the gray stone façade of the federal building across from San Francisco City Hall. "I thought what a perfect symbol!" he remembers.

That symbol blossomed into the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. In 1987, 19,000 cloth panels – each 1x3 meters - had been stitched together and put on display in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The quilt, which eventually grew to 45,000 panels, spent many years on the road helping¹² activists¹³ to raise awareness¹⁴ about the AIDS epidemic. Jones says it also was a powerful education tool. "We could get into school districts that no AIDS educators of any kind could get into, and we were able to begin a conversation about the new epidemic with very young people," he explains.

Jones says bearing witness has helped save lives. In the early 1990s Jones, who is HIV-positive, stepped down from leadership of the Names Project because of poor health.

Jones wants full legal protection for gay rights

In better health in recent years, Jones has rekindled¹⁵ his efforts to address persistent¹⁶ anti-gay attitudes and is working to fight prejudice in the labor¹⁷ union movement.  He recalls that when he addressed tens of thousands of supporters at the Gay Rights 2009 National Equality March in Washington, he spoke¹⁸ about what the movement demands of the nation's political leaders. "We demand equal protection under the law in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states," he says.

Jones has seen many victories for gay rights over his lifetime in communities across the country. But he says those victories will remain, "both incomplete and impermanent" until full equality and civil rights for homosexuals are written permanently¹⁹ into federal law.

1 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

2 supervisors   

n.监督者，管理者( supervisor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I think the best technical people make the best supervisors. 我认为最好的技术人员可以成为最好的管理人员。 来自辞典例句
• Even the foremen or first-level supervisors have a staffing responsibility. 甚至领班或第一线的监督人员也有任用的责任。 来自辞典例句

3 ballot   

n.（不记名）投票，投票总数，投票权；vi.投票

参考例句：

• The members have demanded a ballot.会员们要求投票表决。
• The union said they will ballot members on whether to strike.工会称他们将要求会员投票表决是否罢工。

4 avowed   

adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• An aide avowed that the President had known nothing of the deals. 一位助理声明，总统对这些交易一无所知。
• The party's avowed aim was to struggle against capitalist exploitation. 该党公开宣称的宗旨是与资本主义剥削斗争。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 assassinated   

v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏

参考例句：

• The prime minister was assassinated by extremists. 首相遭极端分子暗杀。
• Then, just two days later, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. 跟着在两天以后，肯尼迪总统在达拉斯被人暗杀。 来自辞典例句

6 coalitions   

结合体，同盟( coalition的名词复数 )； （两党或多党）联合政府

参考例句：

• History testifies to the ineptitude of coalitions in waging war. 历史昭示我们，多数国家联合作战，其进行甚为困难。
• All the coalitions in history have disintegrated sooner or later. 历史上任何联盟迟早都垮台了。

7 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

8 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。

9 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

10 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

11 allocated   

adj. 分配的 动词allocate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The Ford Foundation allocated millions of dollars for cancer research. 福特基金会拨款数百万美元用于癌症研究。
• More funds will now be allocated to charitable organizations. 现在会拨更多的资金给慈善组织。

12 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

13 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

15 rekindled   

v.使再燃( rekindle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• As soon as they met again his dormant love for her was rekindled. 他们一见面，他对她的旧情如乾柴烈火般又重新燃起。 来自辞典例句
• Ive found rekindled my interest in re-reading the books. 我发觉这提起了我再次阅读这些书的兴趣。 来自互联网

16 persistent   

adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的

参考例句：

• Albert had a persistent headache that lasted for three days.艾伯特连续头痛了三天。
• She felt embarrassed by his persistent attentions.他不时地向她大献殷勤，使她很难为情。

17 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

18 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

19 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。