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SAN FRANCISCO — Here in the city where so many have died from what at first was known as “the gay disease,” some say the move of the AIDS Memorial Quilt to Atlanta is like another loss in their family. 

But the quilt’s founder says it can be a stronger force for change in the South, since infections among blacks are rising sharply. 

“The power of the quilt is not limited to serving the gay community,” said Cleve Jones, who stitched the first panel in 1987 to remember his best friend. 

More than 40,000 quilt panels are dedicated to 80,000 people who have died from AIDS. In a farewell ceremony Friday, the final 12 foot by 12 foot section will be folded and sent to Atlanta. The NAMES Project Foundation, keeper of the quilt, is moving its offices to Washington. 

And while the move is a happy event for those accepting it in Atlanta, many here say the 54-ton canvas is a a symbol that belongs in its birthplace. 

“I think it’s better for me not to be there, because I would just cry my eyes out,” said Felicia Elizondo, an HIV-positive transgender woman who has sewn nearly 60 panels since 1988. “It’s just like any unfolding of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, it’s sad. It’s all those people who have died. I think my heart would just fall to the ground if I saw the last panel leaving.” 

But it has a purpose in going to Atlanta: Although HIV infection numbers are again rising in gay communities nationwide, the disease also is striking other groups. “The epidemic has really changed and grown to African American and Hispanic communities,” Jones said. 

The quilt’s power in educating and preventing new infections should follow that shift, despite the memorial’s long history in San Francisco, Jones said. 

“At this point, I think strategy is more important than sentiment,” he added. 

The idea for the quilt originated when Jones attended a 1985 candlelight memorial march for former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk. The two politicians were gunned down by former supervisor Dan White in 1978. 

AIDS was beginning to take its toll on the city’s gay population and Jones felt the need to keep their memories alive. The newspapers were brimming with obituaries of AIDS victims. 

“I knew almost every one of them. They were friends. They were neighbors,” Jones said. 

He handed out cardboard squares and felt-tip markers to those in attendance at the memorial, urging them to jot down something about a loved one lost to AIDS. The crowd responded, and then pasted the cardboard panels on a downtown health services building, covering the outer wall with their words and drawings. 

Jones mentioned to a friend that the panels looked like a quilt – and the memorial movement was born. “The power of the quilt is not limited to serving the gay community,” Jones said. In Atlanta, the quilt will be housed in a secure, climate-controlled warehouse in the Inman Park community.