Since the day I walked among the thousands of panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, as it stretched across the grass for what felt like miles on the Washington Monument in the late 1980s, I’ve been a fan of the tireless work of LGBTQ human rights activist and author Cleve Jones.
Jones has spent most of his 67 years of life in activism. From his early days in the 1970s as a mentee of Harvey Milk—California’s first openly gay elected official—to his latest work as an organizer with Unite Here, a hospitality workers’ union representing about 300,000 workers in the U.S. and Canada, Jones has never stopped fighting.
RELATED STORY: Atlanta pastor used science with scripture to keep his all-Black congregation COVID-19-free
“The most important day of my life, unquestionably, was when I saw Harvey's dead body on the floor of City Hall,” Jones tells Daily Kos. “That was the moment when I knew that this is what I would be doing for the rest of my life.”
Jones tells Daily Kos that Milk was in many ways a father figure to him as well as a political mentor. “He encouraged me and believed in me and even persuaded me to go back to college. I loved Harvey,” Jones says.
Jones was famously portrayed by Emile Hirsch in Gus Van Sant’s Oscar-winning film, MILK. And in 1983, he co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the AIDS Memorial Quilt—now under the stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial. He is also the author of a memoir titled When We Rise, published in Nov. 2016.
Listen to Vivian Topping, director of advocacy and civic engagement at the Equality Federation, and Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights talk about the GOP attacks on LGBTQ+ rights on Daily Kos’ The Brief
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He adds that the genius of Milk was his way of finding genuine connections with all kinds of people.
Jones says Milk could go from a union hall full of Teamsters to talking to wealthy white ladies from Knob Hill to rowdy gay boys in a bar.
“He taught me how to choose vocabulary that's accessible to everybody. This is something I think progressives ought to be paying attention to,” Jones says. “I find that the level of jargon within the progressive movement is mind-numbing at this point, and it's very elitist. All that guarantees is that the message is not heard from the people who I think we would hope the most would hear it.”
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Jones uses Milk’s savvy in his work these days building unions with Unite Here and says the battles are strikingly similar to the activism he did within the LGBTQ movement.
“The people who are trying to bust unions are often the very same people trying to deny LGBTQ people our rights. And in my case, with this particular union, it just so happens that all of the hotel companies and all of the airlines market specifically to the LGBTQ community and also employ large numbers of people from our community. So it's very exciting. I enjoy it,” he says.
Jones’ work of late has been hyper-focused on the many young baristas working to form unions.
“Right now I’m communicating with a group of young baristas, many of whom are queer and trans, who are striking at the Great Lakes coffee shop in Detroit, Michigan. And my Union and SEIU [Service Employees International Union] have also been organizing Starbucks workers.”
But, Jones says unions are struggling in general, in a COVID-19 world. He says that about 90% of workers were laid off in 2020, and many workers are choosing not to return. He adds that companies are capitalizing on the lack of workers, and putting more on the shoulders of those who are there to work.
Jones says what he calls “the full-frontal assault on democracy” is the biggest concern he has today. “There's this word we used to overuse on the left, and probably used inappropriately. Maybe we didn't quite understand its definition or maybe we were just engaging in hyperbole, but this is ‘fascism.’ The Republican Party has become a fascist party that has embraced authoritarianism, and it is tearing down democracy itself. If we lose that, we lose everything.”
Today, Jones is battling to stay in his San Francisco rent-controlled apartment as the new owner threatens to evict him—or increase the rent from $2,400 to $5,200 a month.
Jones has lived in the Castro for decades and says the issue isn’t simply about the greed of gentrification, it’s about losing what he calls the “gayborhoods.”
“When these began as gayborhoods, most of them began during a period when the population of the inner cities was declining. There had been upheaval, there’d been crime and the phenomenon of white flight. So when the industry left, gay clubs sprung up where they could dance after-hours and not get the police called on them and this was basically during years where it was illegal to be gay.”
Jones adds that losing these tight-knit communities also means losing housing, certainly, and also losing political power, the arts that come out of these neighborhoods (Gay Men’s Choir, the Rainbow flag, the Memorial Quilt), along with the specialized social services necessary for the gay community, such as senior services and HIV care specialists.
So, as much as Jones says he didn’t want to fight for his apartment, adding that he’s “not in good health.” Jones has been living with HIV for some time.
He says he may win the battle and lose the war on his apartment, but asks, “How can I, who have spent my whole freaking life telling people to stand up and fight, not fight?”
Jones admits that it’s hard to stay hopeful these days.
“Who would have imagined ten years ago that we'd see a horrendous war erupt in Europe that threatened to lead us all into a third world war, displacing potentially tens of millions of people in Europe? And here we are,” he says.
But he adds, “I believe in the global movement for peace and social justice. And so that includes the voting rights fight. It includes equal rights for women. It includes trans rights. It includes union issues, the fight to save the planet. These are all part of the larger movement of ordinary, decent human beings to take on the rich and the powerful who exploit the planet and the people for profit. I am opposed to them, and will always fight them.”
The Good Fight is a series spotlighting progressive activists around the nation battling injustice in communities that are typically underserved and brutalized by a system that overlooks them.
Jones has spent most of his 67 years of life in activism. From his early days in the 1970s as a mentee of Harvey Milk—California’s first openly gay elected official—to his latest work as an organizer with Unite Here, a hospitality workers’ union representing about 300,000 workers in the U.S. and Canada, Jones has never stopped fighting.
RELATED STORY: Atlanta pastor used science with scripture to keep his all-Black congregation COVID-19-free
“The most important day of my life, unquestionably, was when I saw Harvey's dead body on the floor of City Hall,” Jones tells Daily Kos. “That was the moment when I knew that this is what I would be doing for the rest of my life.”
Jones tells Daily Kos that Milk was in many ways a father figure to him as well as a political mentor. “He encouraged me and believed in me and even persuaded me to go back to college. I loved Harvey,” Jones says.
Jones was famously portrayed by Emile Hirsch in Gus Van Sant’s Oscar-winning film, MILK. And in 1983, he co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the AIDS Memorial Quilt—now under the stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial. He is also the author of a memoir titled When We Rise, published in Nov. 2016.
Listen to Vivian Topping, director of advocacy and civic engagement at the Equality Federation, and Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights talk about the GOP attacks on LGBTQ+ rights on Daily Kos’ The Brief
Embedded Content
He adds that the genius of Milk was his way of finding genuine connections with all kinds of people.
Jones says Milk could go from a union hall full of Teamsters to talking to wealthy white ladies from Knob Hill to rowdy gay boys in a bar.
“He taught me how to choose vocabulary that's accessible to everybody. This is something I think progressives ought to be paying attention to,” Jones says. “I find that the level of jargon within the progressive movement is mind-numbing at this point, and it's very elitist. All that guarantees is that the message is not heard from the people who I think we would hope the most would hear it.”
YouTube Video
Jones uses Milk’s savvy in his work these days building unions with Unite Here and says the battles are strikingly similar to the activism he did within the LGBTQ movement.
“The people who are trying to bust unions are often the very same people trying to deny LGBTQ people our rights. And in my case, with this particular union, it just so happens that all of the hotel companies and all of the airlines market specifically to the LGBTQ community and also employ large numbers of people from our community. So it's very exciting. I enjoy it,” he says.
Jones’ work of late has been hyper-focused on the many young baristas working to form unions.
“Right now I’m communicating with a group of young baristas, many of whom are queer and trans, who are striking at the Great Lakes coffee shop in Detroit, Michigan. And my Union and SEIU [Service Employees International Union] have also been organizing Starbucks workers.”
But, Jones says unions are struggling in general, in a COVID-19 world. He says that about 90% of workers were laid off in 2020, and many workers are choosing not to return. He adds that companies are capitalizing on the lack of workers, and putting more on the shoulders of those who are there to work.
Jones says what he calls “the full-frontal assault on democracy” is the biggest concern he has today. “There's this word we used to overuse on the left, and probably used inappropriately. Maybe we didn't quite understand its definition or maybe we were just engaging in hyperbole, but this is ‘fascism.’ The Republican Party has become a fascist party that has embraced authoritarianism, and it is tearing down democracy itself. If we lose that, we lose everything.”
Today, Jones is battling to stay in his San Francisco rent-controlled apartment as the new owner threatens to evict him—or increase the rent from $2,400 to $5,200 a month.
Jones has lived in the Castro for decades and says the issue isn’t simply about the greed of gentrification, it’s about losing what he calls the “gayborhoods.”
“When these began as gayborhoods, most of them began during a period when the population of the inner cities was declining. There had been upheaval, there’d been crime and the phenomenon of white flight. So when the industry left, gay clubs sprung up where they could dance after-hours and not get the police called on them and this was basically during years where it was illegal to be gay.”
Jones adds that losing these tight-knit communities also means losing housing, certainly, and also losing political power, the arts that come out of these neighborhoods (Gay Men’s Choir, the Rainbow flag, the Memorial Quilt), along with the specialized social services necessary for the gay community, such as senior services and HIV care specialists.
So, as much as Jones says he didn’t want to fight for his apartment, adding that he’s “not in good health.” Jones has been living with HIV for some time.
He says he may win the battle and lose the war on his apartment, but asks, “How can I, who have spent my whole freaking life telling people to stand up and fight, not fight?”
Jones admits that it’s hard to stay hopeful these days.
“Who would have imagined ten years ago that we'd see a horrendous war erupt in Europe that threatened to lead us all into a third world war, displacing potentially tens of millions of people in Europe? And here we are,” he says.
But he adds, “I believe in the global movement for peace and social justice. And so that includes the voting rights fight. It includes equal rights for women. It includes trans rights. It includes union issues, the fight to save the planet. These are all part of the larger movement of ordinary, decent human beings to take on the rich and the powerful who exploit the planet and the people for profit. I am opposed to them, and will always fight them.”
The Good Fight is a series spotlighting progressive activists around the nation battling injustice in communities that are typically underserved and brutalized by a system that overlooks them.