(This great photo of Hank was taken by his friend Rick Gerharter.)
Hank Wilson,
Longtime Gay AIDS Survivor, Has Died
Longtime Gay AIDS Survivor, Has Died
Our friend and colleague Hank Wilson, a veteran of many gay and AIDS battles, including his own fights with AIDS since the 1980s and lung cancer in recent years, died today. As a close friend of his, who was in touch these past few weeks, I knew about serious deterioration, but told only very close friends about his condition.
Hank didn't want me blabbing all over town, maybe the web too, about his end approaching and that loved ones and activists everywhere might want to express kindness and thanks for his decades of unstinting volunteer services, before he died. At his request, I kept quiet.
If ever there was a man whose vocation was helping other less fortunate and speaking truth to power, it was Hank.
Okay, I'm crying right now over learning of his passing, but I gotta say something. Hank, thanks so much for joining me every time in the past 2 years at countless demonstrations at foreign consulates or shouting at UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and forcing him to say the "gay" word or demanding accountability from AIDS Inc at HIV prevention planning council meetings.
How you had the strength, dear friend, to deal with global gay concerns in our backyard, while juggling AIDS problems, chemo and other drugs for the lung cancer, doctors appointments, and put up with my political advocacy, I'll never know.
But let me say again, thank you, Hank Wilson, for all the unsung activism you performed in your life.
May you rest in peace.
Here's the note from Rodger Brooks of the AIDS group Thrive announcing Hank's passing:
Henry "Hank" Wilson, who for more than 30 years has been a leader of both the Queer Liberation and AIDS Communities,
died peacefully at 4 P.M. Sunday November 9th in Davies Hospital.
A long-term HIV/AIDS survivor and "Thriver" he succumbed to Lung Cancer.
I had seen him in the hour before;
Hank was under sedation and was sleeping deeply, so I did not wake him.
I am thankful that his passing was so gentle.
I will post more as information becomes available.
Remembering one of my heroes,
Rodger Brooks
Hank Wilson was my mentor. He worked for years for the Homeless population in the Tenderloin often giving hope to others. Because of this wonderful man many programs and peoples lives have been changed for the better. Thank you Hank for all your dedication to others that were less fortunate... Thank you Hank for being my mentor and providing and sharing your commpassion and your gentle soul.
ReplyDeleteYou will be missed!!
Esther Chavez
Farewell to another stalwart warrior! Godspeed...
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this Michael.
ReplyDeleteHank Wilson was an inspirational figure to me and to many others in the gay men's health movement. He understood what liberation meant. He was at the White Night riots and told me that he helped to set the police cars on fire. He explained to me the choreography of the activism that night-- the back and forth between activists and cops. He knew what was important.
He was also a powerful voice for many people who had no voice.
I'm so sad to hear of his death.
Chris Bartlett, Philadelphia
This is a very sad day...a hero has passed.
ReplyDeleteHe fought so long and hard for us. I hope at the rallies, around California tonight, he is remembered. For he will be in my thoughts.
Thank you Hank for all you gave us!
I too learned so much from Hank. In the 80's I had so much fun watching him do trainings for new cops about our community. He'd pass around the BAR and tell war stories. Hank was fearless and funny and fierce. I will miss him.
ReplyDelete-Jill Tregor
It breaks my heart to hear of Hank's passing. We have danced around each other ever since the early days of the epidemic, when I was publishing holistic articles, papers, and my book. He was a great man.
ReplyDeletejason victor serinus
At the end of the 1970s, when Jimmy Carter was President, I got to know Hank and his partner Ron Lanza after they allowed me to live as a working ethnographer in their first community-based, community-building apartment -- the Hotel Zee at the bottom of the Tenderloin. Hank never forgot the underclass while becoming an anchor of our LGBT healthcare movement. For more than 30 years he remained one of our most modest, unassuming, and effective founding fathers. God bless you, Hank.
ReplyDeleteGosh, I had known Hank since he and Ron Lanza started the Gay Community Center on Page Street back in 1976 or so. I'd never heard of two people getting together without starting a non-profit or a board of directors or any of the machinery we think of when it comes to starting something. Hank told me, "We just need to do it. We'll take care of the formal things later."
ReplyDeleteAnd then later, he and Ron went on to start this gay nightclub thing, Valencia Rose. Again, just doing something that needed to be done.
That's what he was about: Doing things without worrying about the loose ends the rest of us fret about.
Hank was always a sweetheart. Some months ago he called me to fix his computer (this is what I do for a living). I tried to give him a discount owing to all the years he spent as an activist, but he'd have none of that. He insisted not only on paying me my going rate but he insisted on tipping me as well!
Doing things that needed to be done and always going out of his way to do a little more. That was his way. Damn, I'll miss him.
Hank and I first connected in Sacramento during at the time of the bombing of Haipong Harbor, 1973?. We were both helping to occupy Hwy 80 and then the capitol building. Hank was ardently trying to educate young folk on the war in Vietnam including conducting a one-man demonstration in front of his former high school, Christian Bros. High. I visited him a few times in the Berkely boarding house where he rented. His bed, a thin mat on the floor. At the time he was working on educational toys for kids. I believe he also coached Mark Spitz way back when. Hank definitly left alot of good works.
ReplyDeleteHank was tenacious fighter with a huge heart. His love for gay and lesbian people empowered him through the darkest of times. The Coors fight the popper education; his role modeling how to live each day fully and with a belief that change could be made qualifies him fully as a hero. We collectively cannot let his history be erased Picking up his legacy and running with it is what Hank would have wanted ... anyone ready?
ReplyDeleteI remember some of the Hank-isms from our time working together at TARC and St. Boniface: "What's the next step?", "What are the pluses and minuses?" "What a circus!", how he would sometimes write in the air while talking, how he would ALWAYS say "um" when he answered the phone: "Um..... Hank here", his infectious laugh, his gifts in seeing the good and very best in people, his dazzling sense of humor.....He was such a quirky, adorable man. I talked to him about a week before he died and he told me that he felt "very centered" about dying, and that he also had a sense of humor about it all. I have never seen such an immaculate example of universal compassion and equanimity. I will so dearly miss him.
ReplyDelete--Michele Thorsen
Thank you so much Hank, for showing all me that real compassion and truth are the most valuable legacy any person can leave.
ReplyDeleteYou changed me forever.
elana galante