Quilts hold a special place in American culture, reflecting pieces of our lives that are passed on from generation to generation. In 1987, a small group of people in San Francisco started a quilt to document the lives and stories of people who died from HIV/AIDS.
Twenty-five years and thousands of stops later, the AIDS Memorial Quilt returns to the National Mall for the first time in more than a decade. To date, more than 48,000 panels have been woven together to memorialize the lives lost to the pandemic.
NPR's Neal Conan talks with Gert McMullin, quilt production coordinator of the NAMES Project Foundation, and Chris Locklear, tour manager for the Call My Name Workshop Program about the quilt's journey and the power of memorials.
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