Ruth Coker Burks

https://vimeo.com/226478796

Moving short film by Rose MacGowan about a hero, Ruth Coker Burks, who cared for, claimed and buried those abandoned during the AIDS crisis in Arkansas. This was when people wouldn’t even touch those with GRID/AIDS without gloves, families disowned their children, the plague brought out the worst in people except for the likes of her. Pretty much everything in the film is true, fairly verbatim of her words about what happened (although sadder, Billy thought she was his mother, and she pretended until he died, and I think they combined the first man with Billy, a later case).

We must remember, at the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK and during Pride Month in the UK, those we lost and those who cared for them when they didn’t know how it was transmitted but they still touched, cared, loved those which society had cast out as unclean. We must remember people like Ruth, and those who died because they showed that it was only partial decriminalisation, many thought and still think us LGBTQ deserved that fate. We are still criminals and sinners in their eyes…there is still long way to go. (via Lady Bear)