The Patron Saint Of Queer Underdogs

Called the “Johnny Appleseed of gay liberation”, Hank Wilson is the fiercest gay activist you never heard of. Without him, there might never have been an AIDS candlelight vigil. And Whoopi Goldberg might not have a career.

Hank Wilson was quite a man. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, long before it was remotely fashionable — or even newsworthy,

He quit teaching to manage the Ambassador Hotel, a derelict 150-room residency hotel in the toughest part of town as a refuge for street kids and anyone else with nowhere to go.

AIDS arrived, and Hank spent the next 20 years running the hotel as an unfunded hospice for the homeless and drug-addicted who were dying of AIDS. Many hundreds of poor people died in the Ambassador.

Somehow, Hank found the time to start the first queer comedy club in San Francisco, where Whoopi Goldberg and Lea Delaria got their start.

In 1983 The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence worked closely with Hank Wilson to organize the first AIDS Candlelight Vigil. The Sisters canonized Hank Wilson as a saint in December 2000, and perform a ritual in the Thanks to Hank movie declaring Hank the Patron Saint of Housing Justice, Plague Survivors, Queer Underdogs, and Compassionate Action.

“A community is something that takes care of its least privileged members,” is what Hank believed. A Kickstarter campaign has been launched who like Hank, had a very modest budget. The goal is to ensure Hank’s story, and the community he loved and we all belong to, is never forgotten again.

For more on Hank’s remarkable life and to help preserve his legacy, please visit “Thanks to Hank”

 
 
 

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