Public Art Honoring HIV Caregivers Goes Up in D.C.

A Saturday dedication ceremony is planned in Washington for a public art project honoring those who have worked to care for people with HIV/AIDS. The memorial features an excerpt from Walt Whitman's Civil War poem "The Dresser" carved into the granite wall of the Dupont Circle Metro station. A nearby bench features a second poem, this one by Howard University Professor E. Ethelbert Miller. The driving force behind the memorial is Jim Graham, a member of the D.C. Council and the Metro board, who served as executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic from 1984 to 1999. The engraved lines, he said, are meant to salute the work of people who cared for AIDS patients in the epidemic's early days, when little was known of the disease and federal support was slim. The project, which was funded by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and implemented by Metro, is expected to be completed in August.

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