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When We Rise: My Life in the Movement
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Hachette Books 2016
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Description

This sweeping memoir tells the life story of longtime LGBTQ and AIDS activist Cleve Jones in a profoundly moving account from sexually liberated 1970s San Francisco, through the AIDS crisis, and up to his involvement with the marriage equality battle.

Born in 1954, Cleve Jones was among the last generation of gay Americans who grew up wondering if there were others out there like himself. There were. Like thousands of other young people, Jones, nearly penniless, was drawn in the early 1970s to San Francisco, a city electrified by progressive politics and sexual freedom.

Jones found community—in the hotel rooms and ramshackle apartments shared by other young adventurers, in the city's bathhouses and gay bars like The Stud, and in the burgeoning gay district, the Castro, where a New York transplant named Harvey Milk set up a camera shop, began shouting through his bullhorn, and soon became the nation's most outspoken gay elected official. With Milk's encouragement, Jones dove into politics and found his calling in "the movement." When Milk was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1978, Jones took up his mentor's progressive mantle—only to see the arrival of AIDS transform his life once again.

By turns tender and uproarious, When We Rise is Jones' account of his remarkable life. He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too; his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic; his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history; the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits; and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve's passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and and violence alike.

When We Rise is not only the story of a hero to the LQBTQ community, but the vibrantly voice memoir of a full and transformative American life.

Lambda Literary Award Winner

The partial inspiration for the ABC television mini-series!

"You could read Cleve Jones's book because you should know about the struggle for gay, lesbian, and transgender rights from one of its key participants—maybe heroes—but really, you should read it for pleasure and joy."—Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me

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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
11/29/2016
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780316315449, 9780316315425
ASIN:
B019WQO4P4
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Cleve Jones. (2016). When We Rise: My Life in the Movement. Hachette Books.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Cleve Jones. 2016. When We Rise: My Life in the Movement. Hachette Books.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Cleve Jones, When We Rise: My Life in the Movement. Hachette Books, 2016.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Cleve Jones. When We Rise: My Life in the Movement. Hachette Books, 2016.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Updated:
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      • bioText: Cleve Jones' career as an activist began in San Francisco in 1970s where he befriended pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. After Milk's death, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which memorializes over 85,000 Americans who have died from AIDS. He lives in San Francisco and works as a labor activist.
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fullDescription

This sweeping memoir tells the life story of longtime LGBTQ and AIDS activist Cleve Jones in a profoundly moving account from sexually liberated 1970s San Francisco, through the AIDS crisis, and up to his involvement with the marriage equality battle.

Born in 1954, Cleve Jones was among the last generation of gay Americans who grew up wondering if there were others out there like himself. There were. Like thousands of other young people, Jones, nearly penniless, was drawn in the early 1970s to San Francisco, a city electrified by progressive politics and sexual freedom.

Jones found community—in the hotel rooms and ramshackle apartments shared by other young adventurers, in the city's bathhouses and gay bars like The Stud, and in the burgeoning gay district, the Castro, where a New York transplant named Harvey Milk set up a camera shop, began shouting through his bullhorn, and soon became the nation's most outspoken gay elected official. With Milk's encouragement, Jones dove into politics and found his calling in "the movement." When Milk was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1978, Jones took up his mentor's progressive mantle—only to see the arrival of AIDS transform his life once again.

By turns tender and uproarious, When We Rise is Jones' account of his remarkable life. He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too; his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic; his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history; the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits; and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve's passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and and violence alike.

When We Rise is not only the story of a hero to the LQBTQ community, but the vibrantly voice memoir of a full and transformative American life.

Lambda Literary Award Winner

The partial inspiration for the ABC television mini-series!

"You could read Cleve Jones's book because you should know about the struggle for gay, lesbian, and transgender rights from one of its key participants—maybe heroes—but really, you should read it for pleasure and joy."—Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me

reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: Booklist (starred review)
      • content: Enlightening.... Unsparing.... Powerful.
      • premium: False
      • source: Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me
      • content: You could read Cleve Jones's book because you should know about the struggle for gay, lesbian, and transgender rights from one of its key participants-maybe heroes—but really, you should read it for pleasure and joy. It's an incredibly vivid evocation of a bygone era and a poignant story of someone who started out feeling like the only gay person in the world and ended up organizing millions of them. I loved it for the firsthand history, and the crazily great details about drag queens, radical excess, passionate idealism, how to change the world and everything else that matters most.
      • premium: False
      • source: Gus Van Sant
      • content: I loved this amazing, inspiring, and sometimes outrageous book. When We Rise is about the building of a movement—and the building of Cleve Jones, who came to San Francisco as a teenage adventurer and transformed into an activist whose contributions helped change the course of gay history.
      • premium: False
      • source: Armistead Maupin, New York Times bestselling author of the Tales of the City series
      • content: Some people witness history; other actually make it happen. Cleve Jones, by planting himself boldly in the eye of the storm, has succeeded brilliantly at doing both.
      • premium: False
      • source: David Talbot, bestselling author of The Season of the Witch and The Devil's Chessboard
      • content: When We Rise is a song to what's best in us, when we join together in a movement that takes us higher. The story Cleve Jones tells-of a bullied boy from the sun-blasted Arizona suburbs, who finds an extended family among the street kids of San Francisco and then within the gay movement that revolutionized the world-is thrilling to read. The path to freedom is littered with the names of fallen loved ones. But through all the sorrows and setbacks, Jones persevered-and the movement for human liberation that he helped lead still rises.
      • premium: False
      • source: Publishers Weekly
      • content: An ode San Francisco.... an inspiring reminder that one can go from 'daydreaming about sex and revolution' to making them reality.
      • premium: False
      • source: Village Voice
      • content: Essential reading.
      • premium: False
      • source: Accidental Bear
      • content: Sweeping and profoundly moving... At a critical time in our nation's history when many are afraid and so much is uncertain, When We Rise is a pertinent reminder to all to stand up and continue fighting for what we believe in.
      • premium: False
      • source: Mother Jones
      • content: An ambrosial read, masterfully interweaving major historical events with juicy personal details of romance and heartbreak.
      • premium: False
      • source: Bookreporter
      • content: Powerfully written... Jones is a tireless fighter.... By the end of the book, we practically feel the heartbeat of America, and maybe it's a good heart, one that can accept love for what it truly is—love.
      • premium: False
      • source: Lambda Literary
      • content: A front row seat to history .... Compelling .... A mandatory read for future scholars of LGBT history and for queer millennials to learn about their heritage.
      • premium: False
      • source: The Bay Area Reporter
      • content: [A] love song to San Francisco ... This unvarnished, uplifting, opinionated memoir is a testament to Jones' courage.
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        October 3, 2016
        Jones, an activist and grassroots organizer, weaves together his own coming-of-age story and the broader story of the struggle for LGBTQ rights and safety in America. Much of the story is rooted in San Francisco in the 1970s and ’80s, and Jones writes powerfully about the rise of Harvey Milk, who became San Francisco’s first openly gay elected official in 1977. This is an ode San Francisco during a bygone era when the city was a gay sanctuary and crucible for activism. Jones also details the genesis and execution of the stunningly elegiac Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and how that labor of collective love parlayed a feeling of loss into hope for resilience. Over the course of the book, readers experience Jones’s own personal journey from closeted young man contemplating suicide to a noted player in the history of the gay rights movement who was portrayed by Emile Hirsch in the movie Milk in 2008. The book’s many rose-colored vignettes, coupled with Jones’s impressive accomplishments as an activist, serve as an inspiring reminder that one can go from “daydreaming about sex and revolution” to making them reality. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        A key member of the San Francisco gay movement traces his life story.Like many homosexuals born in the 1950s, Jones "grew up not knowing if there was anyone else on the planet who felt the way we felt." Then he moved from Phoenix to San Francisco and discovered the blossoming world of like-minded individuals who relished their new sexual freedom and transformed neighborhoods into havens for the gay community. In this honest, occasionally explicit narrative, Jones discusses his own gayness and the partying, dancing, drugs, and sex with multiple partners that he and so many others engaged in during the 1970s and '80s. He traveled through Europe, enjoying the scenery and beautiful men he found along the way, but he always wound up returning to San Francisco. Eager to help the "movement," Jones worked in Harvey Milk's office and was present the day he was murdered, an event that led the author to more political and social activism. When the AIDS epidemic struck, killing thousands, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and was the inspiration and push behind the AIDS Memorial Quilt project. Jones provides readers with a precise, uninhibited, inside look into the gay movement from its inception to its present-day status. He includes multiple references to world events as they happened through the past few decades, which help ground readers and link the actions in the gay world to those of society at large. Numerous lovers, political activists, and friends are included in this raw and expressive memoir, which features its most touching moments as Jones describes the anguish and sorrow he and so many others experienced as the AIDS crisis clobbered the gay community. The frank and sometimes-graphic timeline of one gay man's life, his involvement in promoting gay rights, and the AIDS epidemic. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        October 1, 2016

        In this memoir, notable AIDS and LGBTQ activist Jones (coauthor, Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist) chronicles his journey of activism and involvement in the fight for equality within the LGBTQ community. After recounting the depression he suffered as a child owing to a sense of isolation and feelings of loneliness, Jones (b. 1954) explains how he eventually came out to his family and moved to San Francisco. There, he connected with other gay men and became an advocate. The author describes his close friendship with San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, and how Milk encouraged him to lead campaigns for equal rights. Tragically, Jones expresses the painful loss he experienced after Milk's murder in 1978. Also detailed is the devastation of the AIDS epidemic and Jones's role in founding the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the creation of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. While missing the personal perspective Jones presents, Lillian Faderman's The Gay Revolution provides an excellent overview of the LGBTQ movement. VERDICT For those interested in understanding the history of the LGBTQ quest for social justice in America, this work will resonate.--Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA

        Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        Starred review from September 15, 2016
        LGBTQ activist Jones, the father of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, imbues his enlightening memoir with a powerful sense of history in the making. From his youth in the Arizona desertan apt metaphor for the sexually confused and isolated young manto his discovery that he did indeed have a place in the world to his national activism, his story builds to a crescendo of LGBTQ-rights breakthroughs. Though these culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the road was never smooth as Jones and the LGBTQ community took small steps, bigger steps, and missteps based upon their faith that they were entitled to the same rights and freedoms as every other American. En route to this seismic shift in American culture and politics, there were painful setbacks. Jones is unsparing in his account of the 1978 assassination of San Francisco supervisor and LGBTQ activist Harvey Milk and the terrible toll of the catastrophic AIDS epidemic, including discovery of his own HIV infection. Jones' powerful memoir is a primary source for ABC's forthcoming miniseries, also titled When We Rise, starring Guy Pearce as Jones. Sure to be requested.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        September 1, 2016
        A key member of the San Francisco gay movement traces his life story.Like many homosexuals born in the 1950s, Jones "grew up not knowing if there was anyone else on the planet who felt the way we felt." Then he moved from Phoenix to San Francisco and discovered the blossoming world of like-minded individuals who relished their new sexual freedom and transformed neighborhoods into havens for the gay community. In this honest, occasionally explicit narrative, Jones discusses his own gayness and the partying, dancing, drugs, and sex with multiple partners that he and so many others engaged in during the 1970s and '80s. He traveled through Europe, enjoying the scenery and beautiful men he found along the way, but he always wound up returning to San Francisco. Eager to help the "movement," Jones worked in Harvey Milk's office and was present the day he was murdered, an event that led the author to more political and social activism. When the AIDS epidemic struck, killing thousands, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and was the inspiration and push behind the AIDS Memorial Quilt project. Jones provides readers with a precise, uninhibited, inside look into the gay movement from its inception to its present-day status. He includes multiple references to world events as they happened through the past few decades, which help ground readers and link the actions in the gay world to those of society at large. Numerous lovers, political activists, and friends are included in this raw and expressive memoir, which features its most touching moments as Jones describes the anguish and sorrow he and so many others experienced as the AIDS crisis clobbered the gay community. The frank and sometimes-graphic timeline of one gay man's life, his involvement in promoting gay rights, and the AIDS epidemic.

        COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

popularity
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shortDescription

This sweeping memoir tells the life story of longtime LGBTQ and AIDS activist Cleve Jones in a profoundly moving account from sexually liberated 1970s San Francisco, through the AIDS crisis, and up to his involvement with the marriage equality battle.

Born in 1954, Cleve Jones was among the last generation of gay Americans who grew up wondering if there were others out there like himself. There were. Like thousands of other young people, Jones, nearly penniless, was drawn in the early 1970s to San Francisco, a city electrified by progressive politics and sexual freedom.

Jones found community—in the hotel rooms and ramshackle apartments shared by other young adventurers, in the city's bathhouses and gay bars like The Stud, and in the burgeoning gay district, the Castro, where a New York transplant named Harvey Milk set up a camera shop, began shouting through his bullhorn, and soon became the nation's most outspoken gay elected official. With...

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