“Please save the Village AIDS Memorial- it’s the first AIDS Memorial in New York City and the only permanent AIDS memorial in a house of worship anywhere in the world that was born from Saint Mother Teresa’s AIDS activism and connected to Marsha P. Johnson before she passed.” -Whoopi Goldberg
Visit the Linktree to find out how you can help: https://linktr.ee/VillageAIDSMemorial
Please share! Sign the petition! Buy buttons for Black Trans Lives! Learn the history and the threat against this sacred artifact the Village AIDS Memorial, the first AIDS memorial in NYC, connected to Saint Mother Teresa and Marsha P. Johnson: https://linktr.ee/VillageAIDSMemorial... The #VillageAIDSMemorial, the first AIDS memorial in NYC located in the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Veronica on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, NYC. It was born out of the miraculous AIDS activism of Saint Mother Teresa who opened the first AIDS hospice in NYC, likely the world, on Christmas Eve 1985. Her first three patients were prisoners with AIDS from Sing Sing Correctional Facility. She wanted them to die in peace and dignity and it was only 5 days after arrival that the first patient, Raymond Galvin, passed. Though she had no idea, the Church of Saint Veronica sits on land that was first occupied by Newgate Prison, New York's official state prison from 1796 to 1828. When it became overcrowded, Sing Sing was built to replace it. The fact that Saint Mother Teresa brought Raymond and two other prisoners from Sing Sing to a church that just so happens to once have been a prison is... a miracle?
Hundreds of people with AIDS (mostly PEOPLE OF COLOR) would eventually die in that church, and no less than 167 of those poor souls are honored on the Village AIDS Memorial. Legendary Black trans leader of the Stonewall Uprising Marsha P. Johnson (some called her the "Patron Saint" of the LGBTQ community and "the Jesus of Sheridan Square") last works of activism involved this church. In 1991, Marsha marched down Christopher Street in a parade to the first interfaith AIDS memorial service in history at the Church of Saint Veronica, and was photographed in front of a Pride week soup kitchen at the church, apparently having benefited from that service. One of the greatest civil rights activists of the 20th century and a muse to Andy Warhol, Marsha was a prostitute and often homeless. Shortly after her activities at the church, Marsha's body was found floating in the Hudson River near the Christopher Street Pier, just a few blocks away. Despite a "massive wound" to the back of her head, the New York Police Department ruled her death a suicide, causing outrage in the community #BlackLivesMatter
In 2017, the Archdiocese of New York closed the church and made plans to remove the memorial. The Archdiocese stands to make millions of dollars from the sale of the church, which was built brick by brick by donations from poor Irish Catholics over the course of 16 years starting in 1887, while they patiently worshipped in a horse stable, then a basement. Even after the church was built the Archdiocese refused to sanctify it until the mortgage was paid off, which didn't happen for a full 24 years later. All in all, it took 40 years for these devout but humble Catholics to create a church holy in the eyes of God, prompting the Cardinal at the time to speak these now empty words: “I want to say publicly that this is an accomplishment which will go into the records of this Archdiocese and that it will be recorded in letters of gold.” The same year that the Archdiocese closed the Church of Saint Saint Veronica, the New York Times published an exposé revealing that the Archdiocese was leveraging church held property in order to pay the over $230 MILLION owed to over 1200 innocent children sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests in New York alone. (Link to article on LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/VillageAIDSMemorial...)
The Village AIDS Memorial is more important than ever before because it has the potential to help the public "learn from the AIDS pandemic, which after all continues in some countries to this day," as Dame Emma Thompson eloquently expressed for this campaign. According to the United Nations, upwards of 18 Black children die every hour, over 444 Black children die every day, and over 162 thousand young, gifted and Black souls die every year from HIV and AIDS.