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Veteran Activist Dedicates Local Memorial to Matthew Shepard

"This is sacred ground," said veteran activist Morris Kight, as he presided over a small gathering in West Hollywood on May 30 to memorialize GLBT and AIDS activists.

After setting up a wreath at the Matthew Shepard Triangle, at Crescent Heights and Santa Monica Boulevard, Kight announced that he intends to present the West Hollywood City Council with a petition to make the area--which has been the site of several major gay rights protests--an official memorial to Shepard and others lost in the struggles against AIDS and for equality.

The petition would also require the city to hold a remembrance ceremony there each Memorial Day. "We must never let someone leave us who we don't come here to memorialize," Kight said.

Among the other nine celebrants attending the ceremony was the Rev. Nancy Wilson, minister at the Metropolitan Community Church of Los Angeles. "We need to find a way to both grieve and celebrate ways in which our community has struggled," she said. "We need an act of remembrance."

--Karen Ocamb