By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Sunday hosted AIDS survivors, advocates and family members who have lost loved ones to the disease at the White House AIDS Memorial Quilt exhibit, the first time that shown there in its decades-long history.
The event, marking World AIDS Day, included remarks from the Bidens and Jeanne White-Ginder, whose teenage son Ryan White died of AIDS in 1990.
Both Bidens became emotional during their remarks, sympathizing with those in the crowd who had lost family members and friends. President Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and daughter Naomi died in a car accident in 1972, and his son, Beau, whom Jill Biden helped raise, died of cancer in 2015.
“As I look at this beautiful quilt, with its bright colors, names in capital letters, depictions of life and love, I see it as a mom and I think of the mothers who sewed their pain into a patchwork panel so the world would remember their child,” said Jill. Biden.
President Biden praised the AIDS advocacy movement and praised Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former top US infectious disease expert who clashed with then-President Donald Trump during the COVID pandemic, for his efforts to combat the disease.
“This movement is fully woven into the fabric and history of America, shining a light on the memory and legacy of all the sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, partners and friends…we’ve lost to this horrible disease,” Biden said. “We are united in the fight against this epidemic.”
After their remarks, the president and first lady walked, holding hands, past pieces of the quilt, pausing to take a closer look, before returning to the White House.
According to data from the World Health Organization, 42.3 million people have died since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.
(This story has been edited to correct the spelling of ‘White-Ginder’ in paragraph 2)
