Written by Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Sunday hosted AIDS survivors, advocates and family members who have lost loved ones to the disease to unveil an AIDS memorial quilt at the White House. what happened was shown there for the first time in its many years of history.
Biden and Jeanne White-Grinder, whose teenage son Ryan White died of AIDS in 1990, spoke at the World AIDS Day event.
Both Bidens became emotional during their remarks, sympathizing with those in the crowd who had lost family members and friends. President Biden’s first wife Nelia and his daughter Naomi died in a car accident in 1972, and his son Beau, whom Jill Biden helped raise, died of cancer in 2015.
“When I look at this beautiful quilt with its bright colors, names in large block letters, depictions of lives and loves, I see my mother in it, and I think of the mothers who embroidered their pain on a patchwork panel so that the world would remember them baby,” said Jill Biden.
President Biden praised the AIDS movement and praised Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former top US infectious disease specialist who battled then-President Donald Trump during the COVID pandemic, for his efforts to combat the disease.
“This movement is completely woven into the fabric and history of America, honoring the memory and legacy of all the sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, moms and dads, partners and friends … we have lost to this terrible disease,” Biden said. “We are united in the fight against this epidemic.”
After their remarks, the president and first lady walked hand-in-hand past sections of the quilt, pausing to take a closer look before returning to the White House.
According to the World Health Organization, 42.3 million people have died since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.
