Book summary “When We Rise”: summary

Introduction

You often feel isolated and powerless when you face entrenched systemic discrimination and a society that renders your identity invisible.

Cleve Jones offers a personal chronicle of the modern LGBTQ+ rights and AIDS activist movements from the perspective of a key organizer who stood alongside Harvey Milk.

You will discover how a repressed suburban youth migrated to San Francisco, built grassroots political power, survived the devastating AIDS epidemic, and helped forge a national movement that changed history.

How do ordinary individuals organize effective political resistance against overwhelming institutional power?

• What strategies build lasting coalitions across diverse social groups during times of crisis?
• How does community solidarity transform personal grief into powerful public action?

1. Early Life and Arrival in San Francisco

Growing up as a homosexual in the mid-twentieth century meant complete invisibility, systemic institutional terror, and profound isolation.

Homosexuals faced imprisonment, placement in mental institutions, and relentless police harassment. There were no positive media representations, political figures, or community spaces, leaving young queer individuals to believe they were entirely alone and mentally ill.

At age 12, after being called a derogatory name, Jones looked up the term in his psychologist father's library and internalized the deep shame of being psychologically damaged.

The idyllic surface of white mid-century American suburbs masked deep societal anxieties regarding the Cold War and racial tensions. Children in neighborhoods like Mount Lebanon absorbed adult fears through mandatory air raid drills, civil rights unrest, and the assassinations of political leaders.

Students watched television coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis, practiced air raid drills in school basements, and witnessed smoke rising from urban riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

San Francisco served as a vital geographical refuge and political center for queer youth escaping hostile environments. Visiting the Bay Area offered a stark contrast to the repressive social climate of Arizona and Pennsylvania, introducing Jones to visible gay networks, political clubs, and countercultural infrastructure.

Gary Miller and Ron Bentley, a gay Quaker couple active in the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club, introduced Jones to San Francisco and early activists like Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.

Jones had 42 dollars of remaining funds when hitchhiking to San Francisco permanently in September 1973.

San Francisco's transient street culture offered a chaotic yet liberating ecosystem for young runaways and queer drifters. Lacking formal employment or housing, young queer arrivals relied on communal networks, street economy survival, and nocturnal gathering spots to build an alternative community.

Jones met future music icon Sylvester at the Haven restaurant on Polk Street while navigating homelessness, cheap meals, and the city's foggy neighborhoods.

2. Counterculture, Survival, and Bathhouse Culture

Young, low-income queer individuals in 1970s San Francisco formed improvised communal survival networks while bathhouses served as central institutions for gay socialization and sexual freedom.

Because minimum wage earnings were insufficient to cover rent and security deposits, young queer people pooled their resources, secretly piled into single hotel rooms or shared communal flats, and shared meals and panhandled when necessary.

Cleve stayed at the Leland Hotel with a group of young Mexican and Filipino boys sleeping two to a bed, and later moved into a communal Victorian flat on Central Avenue with friends like Silas, Dora, and Shoki.

• Rent a single hotel room or find a communal flat collectively.
• Pile multiple people into the space until management catches on.
• Share food and pool money for meals at diners like Bob's Burgers after hours.

Bob Stemple paid 20 dollars for bus fare and sexual encounters. Cleve set aside 50 dollars a month in savings from his job at Time Life Books.

Flexible, low-barrier telemarketing and service jobs allowed young, uncredentialed workers in San Francisco to earn enough income to achieve financial independence and save for the future. Jobs like selling Time Life Books over the telephone offered short shifts and commission structures that accommodated alternative lifestyles while yielding steady income and savings.

Cleve worked four-hour evening shifts at Time Life Books in the Flood Building from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., adopting the nom de téléphone "Willie Loman" and successfully lowering his voice using a technique taught by manager Jo Sivers. By April 1975, he saved 1,200 dollars from the Time Life job.

• Lower your chin while speaking on the telephone to artificially deepen your voice.
• Adopt a nom de téléphone to maintain anonymity and humor during cold calls.
• Work short shifts to maintain flexibility for other jobs, classes, or exploration.

Marginalized urban youth created secret sanctuaries within public city parks to establish autonomous spaces for connection, shelter, and interpersonal exchange. Hidden deep within overgrown urban parks, these secret structures functioned as protected hideaways where individuals could escape the dangers and pressures of city life, governed by strict codes of secrecy and gift-giving.

Bobby Kent showed Cleve a secret Victorian tree house built 20 feet off the ground in a eucalyptus tree in Buena Vista Park, complete with 18 months of dating entries in the guestbook, hashish, and an amethyst crystal left as a gift.

• Keep the location of the tree house an absolute secret.
• Cut fresh eucalyptus branches regularly for camouflage.
• Always leave a gift in the wooden box for the next visitor.

San Francisco's bathhouses served as central institutions for gay socialization, sexual freedom, and political community before the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Bathhouses provided a secure, luxurious space for gay men to socialize, find sexual partners, eat snacks, discuss politics, and organize activism, well before sodomy laws were repealed.

Cleve visited the Ritch Street Baths and the Club Baths at 8th and Howard Streets with Silas, utilizing buddy nights and participating in monthly health screenings at the City Clinic. Buddy nights cost 8 dollars for a locker, and the enormous hot tub at 8th and Howard accommodated 20 to 30 men.

• Pay the entrance fee and store valuables in a secure lockbox with the attendant.
• Shower thoroughly upon entry.
• Wander the hallways, socialize, have sex, and visit the hot tub or café.

The gay liberation movement was historically divided by a core ideological conflict regarding whether homosexuals should assimilate as being just like heterosexuals or assert a distinct, revolutionary identity. Originating with Harry Hay and the Mattachine Society started in Los Angeles in 1950, this debate pitted accommodationist factions who sought mainstream professional backing and denied the existence of a unique culture against radical factions like Bay Area Gay Liberation (BAGL) who viewed gay people as a distinct, oppressed minority with revolutionary potential.

Harry Hay argued against the conservative faction that claimed homosexuals only differed in their sexual direction, maintaining that an ethical homosexual culture needed to emerge.

3. European Travels and Expatriate Life

Traveling alone across Europe and working as an immigrant dishwasher in Munich exposed harsh class stratifications while highlighting contrasting international perspectives on gay liberation.

You step outside your comfort zone when you travel alone. This solitude demands that you take risks and find human contact without a safety net.

Cleve used a student special round-trip flight from Montreal to London for 100 dollars to reach Europe. Cleve and Sue traveled through Greece, Turkey, and Egypt with a total budget of 1,000 dollars to last an entire summer.

Many young European gay men in the mid-1970s rejected American-style gay liberation politics. They preferred discretion and private freedom over public identity politics.

Jean Paul scoffed at tales of the Gay Freedom Day Parade, asserting that Frenchmen live as they wish with discretion. Daniél admitted he loved men and practiced homosexuality but still desired a traditional family and would never come out to his parents.

Working as an immigrant dishwasher in a luxury European hotel exposes the harsh reality of class stratification. You experience life as a lower-class outsider among foreign laborers.

At 20 years old, Cleve obtained an Aufenthaltserlaubnis work permit in Munich and toiled on the graveyard shift at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. Cleve worked the industrial dishwashing line from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. alongside Moroccans, Greeks, Tunisians, and Turks, handling dirty plates carrying caviar and champagne for wealthy clientele while covered in kitchen grease.

Legislative victories in California finally ended decades of systemic state criminalization and police entrapment of gay men. Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation authored by Willie Brown and George Moscone ending criminal sanctions against homosexual conduct between consenting adults. This dismantled a system that had resulted in two to three thousand gay men arrested annually in San Francisco prior to decriminalization.

4. The Rise of Harvey Milk and Political Backlash

Harvey Milk forged an independent grassroots electoral machine that challenged the political establishment just as conservative backlash movements mobilized to strip away civil rights.

In early 1976, gay activists estimated their demographic size to be around five percent of the United States population. This percentage translated to over ten million people out of a total population of 215 million.

Doug Norde and Cleve Jones discussed population statistics in an apartment on California Street in San Francisco while listening to cable cars and traffic. They compared Kinsey's data of ten percent for men having sexual experiences with other men against actual self-identification, concluding that five percent constituted nearly eleven million people.

Harvey Milk's early political campaigns pitted an independent grassroots outsider against the established local Democratic Party machine. In the fall 1976 Assembly race, Milk ran against Art Agnos, who was backed by traditional union organizers and established gay clubs like the Alice B. Toklas Club. Milk used white-on-blue campaign signs proclaiming "Harvey Milk vs. The Machine" to highlight the divide between radical grassroots organizing and traditional machine politics.

The conservative backlash led by Anita Bryant weaponized false rhetoric equating homosexuality with child abuse to overturn local civil rights ordinances. In Miami, Florida, Bryant became the spokesperson for Save Our Children, successfully mobilizing fundamentalist Christian donors and churches to repeal Dade County's gay rights ordinance.

Dade County voters repealed their gay rights ordinance on June 7, 1977, prompting mass protests and the murder of Robert Hillsborough in San Francisco.

5. Coalitions, Direct Action, and Community Symbols

Strategic alliances with labor unions, coordinated direct-action marches, and universally recognized visual symbols like the rainbow flag empowered the growing movement.

When the Teamsters struck the Coors brewery, labor organizers like David Sickler and Allan Baird enlisted the gay community. Gay activists successfully pressured bars to drop Coors, costing the company millions and demonstrating the economic impact of gay buying power.

Allan Baird presented Harvey Milk with a battered red and white Teamsters bullhorn used on picket lines as a token of gratitude for the successful boycott. Coors held a 40 percent share of the California beer market in 1977, but that figure dropped to a 14 percent share by 1984.

Harvey Milk argued that widespread coming out was the primary mechanism to eliminate fear and defeat discriminatory legislation. Forcing people to confront the reality that they have gay friends, family, and coworkers destroys prejudice because personal connection overrides abstract hatred. During the campaign against the Briggs Initiative, also known as Proposition 6, thousands of gay workers and citizens knocked on doors across California to tell their neighbors that the law would harm them personally.

Activists designed a specific marching route starting from the Castro to protest without destroying their own neighborhoods following the defeat of gay rights ordinances in St. Paul and Wichita. Thousands of protestors marched the disaster march route to maintain public pressure:

• Gather at Castro and Market immediately following a political defeat
• Keep marchers moving rapidly to avoid static conflicts
• March eastward along Market Street toward Polk Street
• Proceed past City Hall and up the steep slope of Nob Hill to startle wealthy patrons
• Descend via Powell Street into Union Square to snarl traffic and exhaust energy

This 1.5-mile route exhausted protestors before they could clash with police while shocking elite hotel patrons.

Seeking an alternative to obscure historical symbols like the lambda or the pink triangle, artist Gilbert Baker designed a massive, brightly colored rainbow flag to be unfurled publicly. The original rainbow flag featured 8 bars representing hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, and violet.

Gilbert Baker and volunteers dyed massive bolts of fabric in garbage bins at the Grove Street center and raised two giant rainbow flags on the flagpoles of United Nations Plaza during the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade.

6. Assassination Tragedy and National Mobilization

Mobilizing a massive grassroots campaign defeated Proposition 6, marking the first major statewide electoral victory for the gay rights movement. Millions of dollars were raised and tens of thousands of volunteers walked precincts across California. Harvey Milk and Sally Gearhart served as public spokespeople, debating proponents like John Briggs and shifting public opinion until major newspapers and former Governor Ronald Reagan opposed the measure.

Proposition 6 was defeated with 58.4 percent voting no and 41.6 percent voting yes on November 7, 1978.

The political landscape of San Francisco was shattered when former Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk inside City Hall.

Dan White had previously resigned from the Board of Supervisors, but after facing heavy pressure from the Police Officers Association, he asked for his job back. When Mayor Moscone considered appointing a liberal activist instead of reappointing White, White sneaked into City Hall and shot both men on November 27, 1978.

Cleve Jones arrived at City Hall shortly after the shooting and discovered Harvey Milk's body in Dan White's office.

A lenient voluntary manslaughter verdict for Dan White provoked an explosive, spontaneous mass uprising known as the White Night Riot.

When the jury convicted Dan White of manslaughter instead of first-degree murder, the LGBTQ+ community and allies felt the verdict signaled that killing a gay person was considered acceptable. Thousands of participants in the march on City Hall clashed with police, burning police cruisers, and breaking windows.

Protesters smashed through City Hall windows, leading to a violent police charge with tear gas before demonstrators pushed back and forced the police to retreat.

Activists utilized legal strategies and tactical delays during Civil Grand Jury investigations to protect participants from self-incrimination following civil unrest. When subpoenaed to appear before the county civil grand jury regarding the White Night Riot, activists relied on the right to consult with legal counsel before answering each individual question to run out the clock and avoid identifying participants.

Cleve Jones repeatedly asked to consult with his lawyer Matt Coles after every single question asked by the deputy district attorney during the grand jury hearing.

• Request permission to consult with counsel before responding to each grand jury question.
• Leave the room to talk over the question with legal counsel before returning to answer.

Harvey Milk's assassination and the subsequent San Francisco riots served as catalysts for organizing the first national march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights. Although local groups previously viewed a national march as a waste of resources, Milk's bridge-building efforts and his tragic death inspired activists nationwide to unite. The historic mobilization brought together about one hundred thousand participants in the march, marking ten years since the Stonewall rebellion.

On October 14, 1979, marchers emerged from the Dupont Circle Metro station to find "Harvey Milk Lives!" spray-painted on the walls.

Transforming individual political figures into shared movement legends helps unite geographically dispersed communities and empowers marginalized people. Cleve Jones emphasized that while it is vital to remember the human flaws and ordinary daily life of Harvey Milk, turning his struggle and dream into a collective legend provides strength, dignity, and inspiration to queer youth and isolated individuals everywhere.

Cleve Jones called upon thousands of gathered citizens holding candles during the anniversary commemoration to reflect on shared survival against violence, rape, and suicide.

• Remember the human reality and ordinary life behind movement leaders.
• Share histories of struggle to empower isolated individuals.
• Gather communities with shared symbols like candles and flags during memorial events.

7. The Onset of AIDS and Creation of the Quilt

The devastating arrival of the AIDS epidemic decimated the community while inspiring ordinary citizens to create the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to humanize the mounting death toll.

Hank Wilson and Cleve Jones look at Bobbi Campbell's feet in the Twin Peaks bar and see the blue-grey spots of Kaposi's sarcoma, making Bobbi one of the first publicly identified people living with AIDS. Early observations and reports, such as the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, highlight a mysterious new disease that destroys the immune system, leading to widespread fear that the epidemic will destroy the community's hard-won political and cultural gains.

Standing outside a pizza place in San Francisco, Joseph Durant and Cleve Jones read a San Francisco Chronicle headline stating ONE THOUSAND DEAD and begin listing the names of everyone they knew who had died. The author experiences deep despair, nightmares, and personal health scares while watching friends and acquaintances waste away and die. The sheer scale of the tragedy prompts activists to demand visibility and federal action.

To counter government inaction, media silence, and overwhelming grief, the concept of a giant memorial quilt is born to humanize the statistics. Cleve Jones and Joseph Durant paint their first panel in the backyard for Marvin, creating 3-by-6-foot blocks of fabric matching the approximate size of a grave.

• Paint or sew names on 3-by-6-foot blocks of fabric.
• Sew panels eight at a time into squares measuring 12 by 12 feet.
• Edge squares with canvas containing evenly spaced grommets for linking.

Overcoming bureaucratic resistance from the National Park Service and event organizers, volunteers successfully unfold thousands of panels during the National March on Washington, offering a profound visual testament that silences the crowds with grief. Whoopi Goldberg wraps her tour coat around a dying Jim Maness as he is wheeled to the center of the Quilt before it is opened to the public.

8. Medical Breakthroughs and Cultural Legacy

Combination therapies finally reversed health declines for AIDS patients as labor coalitions and biographical films preserved the historical struggle for future generations.

As panels arrived from across the world, the NAMES Project organized nationwide tours to major cities. The Quilt served as a centerpiece for education, fundraising, and uniting ordinary Americans to fight the pandemic despite government inaction.

Debra Resnik drove the truck named Stella across twenty major cities on the Quilt's first tour in 1988, collecting thousands of panels sewn by grieving parents and friends. Over twenty thousand Americans were killed by AIDS in the fifteen months leading up to the 1988 display, which featured 1,920 initial panels before it grew to almost 9,000.

When traditional medications and treatments failed, a triple-drug clinical trial offered by Dr. Conant allowed patients with dangerously low T-cells to recover their health and return from deathbeds. A new clinical trial combining low doses of AZT with ddC and 3TC finally reversed health declines and saved dying AIDS patients.

Cleve Jones endured severe side effects while taking the new medication regimen, eventually experiencing a miraculous recovery of his appetite and physical strength.

Building strategic coalitions between the LGBT community and labor unions successfully advanced workers rights and healthcare access. Cleve Jones partnered with UNITE HERE to organize hotel workers and align LGBT travelers and event planners with union contracts, securing better pay and safe working conditions under the banner of Sleep with the Right People.

During the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto, union members voted to authorize a strike but postponed it in solidarity with people with AIDS, wearing red ribbons that forced management to respect their protest.

The production of the biographical film Milk brought together original survivors, historical consultants, and top-tier actors to accurately preserve Harvey Milk's legacy for a new generation. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and director Gus Van Sant collaborated with Cleve Jones and other members of Harvey Milk's inner circle to recreate 1970s San Francisco and capture authentic historical performances.

Thirty years elapsed between Harvey Milk taking office and the start of filming on January 21, 2008. Sean Penn portrayed Harvey Milk, Josh Brolin played Dan White, and Emile Hirsch played Cleve Jones, working closely with the real historical figures on set to ensure emotional and political truth.

Conclusion

Grassroots organizing, personal coming out, coalition building, and legal strategies converged to secure constitutional marriage equality and transform public life.

You can apply these historical lessons to modern struggles by following these practical rules for community resilience and social change:

1. Come out of the closet in your own life because personal visibility strips away the anonymity that powers bigotry.
2. Build broad coalitions by connecting with labor unions and other civil rights groups instead of fighting in isolation.
3. Invent visible symbols and rituals like the rainbow flag and the quilt to humanize your cause and claim public space.
4. Demand immediate institutional action during crises through direct protest, civil disobedience, and relentless public pressure.
5. Record your personal stories and preserve movement history so that future generations understand the cost of their freedom.

10 Key Ideas

1. Mid-century homosexuals faced complete invisibility, systemic institutional terror, and profound isolation before escaping to San Francisco's liberating countercultural street and bathhouse communities.
2. Traveling through Europe exposed harsh class stratifications while highlighting contrasting international perspectives on gay liberation.
3. Harvey Milk forged an independent grassroots electoral machine that challenged the political establishment just as conservative backlash movements mobilized to strip away civil rights.
4. Strategic alliances with labor unions, coordinated direct-action marches, and universally recognized visual symbols like the rainbow flag empowered the growing movement.
5. Defeating the Briggs Initiative marked the first major statewide electoral victory for the gay rights movement through a massive grassroots campaign.
6. The political landscape of San Francisco was shattered when former Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk inside City Hall.
7. A lenient voluntary manslaughter verdict for Dan White provoked an explosive, spontaneous mass uprising known as the White Night Riot, which catalyzed the first national march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights.
8. The devastating arrival of the AIDS epidemic decimated the community while inspiring ordinary citizens to create the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to humanize the mounting death toll.
9. Combination therapies finally reversed health declines for AIDS patients as labor coalitions and biographical films preserved the historical struggle for future generations.
10. Grassroots organizing, personal coming out, coalition building, and direct-action strategies converged to secure constitutional marriage equality and transform public life.