With AIDS quilt display, Woodlawn UMC offers space to celebrate lives

Woodlawn United Methodist Church will display sections of the famed AIDS Memorial Quilt for the second consecutive year, in conjunction with Central Alabama Pride Week.

Eight quilt panels — each containing eight names — will be on display Sunday, June 3, through Saturday, June 9, according to Rev. Emily Freeman Penfield, the church’s pastor.

And the church council recently named the event The Michael Conway Annual Display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, to honor the son of Jan Conway, the church’s administrative assistant.

Michael Conway died of AIDS in 1988. 

“I can’t express how touched I am,” Jan Conway said.

This is the second year the church has hosted sections of the quilt, which was begun in 1987 to honor people lost to AIDS/HIV and is managed by The NAMES Project.

“Each person’s panel is made as a witness or testimony to who that person was,” Penfield said. “It’s a memorial but one that helps tell the story of that person’s life. It’s part tombstone, part scrapbook, part celebration.”

After Michael Conway died, Jan Conway and her daughters made an AIDS Quilt block for him that was displayed at the church in 2017.

Jan Conway said the quilt is a “comfort” to the loved ones of people who died of AIDS because those people were often stigmatized – especially when her son died in the 1980s.

“It’s our way of commemorating our loved ones when no one else did,” she said.

The church is an appropriate place for this display, according to Penfield.

“To provide a space for people to observe, remember, grieve, celebrate – that’s a big portion of what our church is about,” she said.

About one third of the church’s congregation is part of the LGBTQ community, according to Penfield.

“There’s an affinity to reach out to people who have been friends and family of those in our congregation and to remember the lives of those who died from AIDS,” she said.

The display will be open Sunday, 3-8:30 p.m.; Monday through Friday, 5-8:30 p.m.; and Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Admission is free, but donations will be accepted for Birmingham AIDS Outreach and AIDS Alabama. There will be also some other activities, including HIV/AIDS testing.

For details, call 595-3776 or go to woodlawnbham.com.