grand marshals
CLEVE JONES
GRAND MARSHAL
San Diego LGBT Pride welcomes NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt founder
Cleve Jones as the grand marshal to its 2009 parade lineup.
Jones, a globally recognized human rights activist, emerged onto the gay-
rights scene in San Francisco during the turbulent 70’s, while working as an intern
for the late Harvey Milk. After Milk’s tragic assassination in 1978, Jones went on to
work as a legislative consultant for California State Assembly Speakers Leo T. Mc-
Carthy and Willie L. Brown Jr., an experience that ultimately groomed him for later
serving three terms on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee.
While serving also on the city’s Mission Mental Health Community Advisory
Board, he was among the first politicians to recognize the threat of AIDS, thus
co-founding the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983. Two years later, during a
candlelight memorial for Milk, he conceived the idea of an AIDS quilt, and created
afterwards the first panel in honor of his close friend Marvin Feldman.
Today the quilt has grown to become the largest public arts project of its kind,
memorializing more than 80,000 Americans who have lost their lives to AIDS. And
since the late 90’s, Jones has helped extend the quilt concept to South Africa with
the support of the Black Caucus and the late Coretta Scott King.
A resident of Palm Springs, Jones travels extensively throughout the U.S. and
abroad lecturing at high schools and universities on issues pertaining to GLBT
rights and AIDS. He has met with heads of state, including Presidents George
Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as former South African President Nelson Mandela.
During his career, he served as a member of Project Inform and the prestigious Cleve Jones with Emile Hirsch
International Advisory Board of the Harvard AIDS Institute. In addition, he is the
author of the best-selling memoir, Stitching a Revolution (HarperCollins), pub-
lished in 2000.
Jones currently works with UNITE HERE, an international union representing
workers in the hotel, restaurant and textile industries in an effort to strengthen
the growing coalition between labor leaders and the GLBT community.
THE LADY CHABLIS
CELEBRITY GRAND MARSHAL
Famous for her comedic performances at Club One in Savannah, and for play-
ing herself in the movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Lady Chablis
brings a rousing dose of Southern-style wit and glamour to this year’s San Diego
Pride parade, serving as a celebrity grand marshal.
After the 1997 release of Midnight, directed by Clint Eastwood, Chablis hit the
mainstream talk show circuit and was later interviewed about making the movie
in a 2004 documentary titled, Damn Good Dog. Over the past decade, she has
become a hot ticket at Pride celebrations around the country while endearing
herself to a wider spectrum of nightclub audiences. Chablis outlines her adult life
as a preoperative transsexual in the book, “Hiding My Candy” (Simon & Schuster),
where she also offers humorous anecdotes about growing up in rural Florida as a
“sissy child” during the late 50s, as well as favorite recipes and beauty tips for drag
queens and transvestites.
Since her early career as a drag entertainer (under the names Brenda Dale
Knox and The Lady Jonel), she has received a shower of titles that include Miss
Gay World (1976), Miss Sweetheart International (1989), Empress of Atlanta
(1996), Miss Georgia National (1998) and many others. And when her convincing
persona begs the question from reporters as to whether or not she’s a drag queen,
her response has been: “If you bitches pay me to be one, I am.”
20 SAN DIEGO PRIDE 2009
Buy & Print Festival Tickets online at SDpride.org
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