UNITE HERE’s Cleve Jones named Grand Marshal of 2009 Vancouver Pride Parade

Cleve Jones, leader of UNITE HERE’s Sleep with the Right People campaign, is back in Vancouver for this year’s Pride Parade on August 2. Cleve is a Grand Marshal of the 2009 Pride Parade in honour of his decades of activism and leadership in the LGBT community. Cleve got his start as a young activist working with the legendary gay rights leader, Harvey Milk, in San Francisco. In the 2008 Academy-award winning film, Milk, Cleve is portrayed as young man working closely with Milk. Cleve co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and created the idea for the AIDS Memorial Quilt, now the world’s largest piece of folk art. The Quilt memorializes 85,000 people killed by AIDS and currently weighs 54 tonnes.

Cleve currently leads UNITE HERE’s Sleep with the Right People campaign (sleepwiththerightpeople.org), a powerful alliance between the LGBT community and UNITE HERE, dedicated to fighting for the fair and equal treatment of all individuals.

Come join Local 40 members marching with Cleve in this year’s Pride Parade!