Cleve Jones

Cleve Jones became prominent as a United States activist and memoirist whose work grew from decades in San Francisco’s labor, health, and equality movements. When We Rise recounts his arrival in the city, his friendship with Harvey Milk, his role in founding the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Hachette’s Legacy Lit page identifies the book as Jones’s memoir and dates its publication; Publishers Weekly independently describes how the narrative joins personal experience with major changes in American civic life. Jones writes as a participant rather than a detached historian, showing how friendships, organizing, public loss, and collective memory shaped his political commitments. The memoir also became part of the inspiration for an ABC television miniseries, extending its account into another medium. When We Rise offers readers Cleve Jones’s firsthand view of movement building and explains how private relationships can become the foundation for durable public action.