6 days ago
Lori Cannon, Chicago LGBTQ+ activist and advocate for people with HIV/AIDS, dies at 74
Lori Cannon, a renowned Chicago activist and advocate for Chicago's LGBTQ+ community and people living with HIV/AIDS, died this past weekend.
The Center on Halsted announced Cannon's death on social media Monday. The Windy City Times reported that Cannon died the evening of Sunday, Aug. 3, at her home. She was 74.
A 2004 Chicago Tribune profile said Cannon was born in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood and grew up in West Rogers Park. She earned a degree in cinematography filmmaking from Columbia University in New York, the newspaper reported.
The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame noted that Cannon was drawn into Chicago's organized gay and lesbian activist community while working as a show business "Bus Driver to the Stars." In the mid-1980s, Cannon began working as one of the earliest volunteers for Chicago House, the first local agency to provide housing to people with AIDS.
"Among other things — like working with the Buddy Program — my job was to plan the weekly 'family meals' that were enjoyed by residents, staff, and volunteers alike," Cannon wrote in a 2016 article for The Advocate magazine. "It was the earliest, darkest days, and we formed a bond of community that would come to define everything going forward."
In addition to planning those Thursday night meals, Cannon also helped residents complete routine tasks with which they were struggling — such as personal care, shopping, and laundry, the Hall of Fame noted. She called on friends and business associates to help out, and scheduled hair stylists and planned recreational outings for Chicago House residents, according to the Hall of Fame.
In 1987, Cannon traveled to Washington, D.C., for the National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights. She wrote in The Advocate that she encountered the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt at that event.
The quilt, conceived of by San Francisco AIDS and LGBTQ+ rights activist Cleve Jones, covered a space larger than a football field and included 1,920 panels when it was put on display at the march in Washington, according to the National AIDS Memorial.
Cannon, who wrote that she was losing many of her closest friends to AIDS at the time, helped create the local chapter of the NAMES Project and brought the quilt to Chicago — at Navy Pier in 1988 and McCormick Place in 1990, according to published reports.
Meanwhile, Cannon ramped up her involvement in activism and protests on behalf of those with HIV and AIDS.
"As AIDS reached epidemic proportions, where death was our constant companion, our anger at government's and society's indifference needed a place to go," Cannon wrote in The Advocate. "For me it meant becoming a regular fixture in the street activism of ACT UP/Chicago — the AIDS protest group that used guerilla tactics and street 'zaps' to challenge the political indifference of the establishment. Our need for assistance of every kind was met by a deafening silence — so we fought back the only way we know how."
Cannon organized the ACT UP-Chicago demonstrations along with her best friend — cartoonist Danny Sotomayor — and fellow activist Paul Adams.
Also in 1988, Cannon cofounded Open Hand Chicago, which served as a meals-on-wheels program for people with AIDS. Aided by Cannon's background as a bus driver, Open Hand Chicago laid out driving routes for delivery of meals "cooked in a modest kitchen," Cannon wrote for the Advocate.
But soon, with the emergency growing, Cannon wrote that she was "overseeing an army of 400 volunteers who turned out seven days a week to deliver hot ready-to-eat evening dinners and box lunches (for the next day) to over 1,200 people suffering from AIDS. And there was never a waiting list."
Cannon and Open Hand Chicago went on to open the GroceryLand food pantry, initially at 3902 N. Sheridan Rd. in Lakeview.
In 2011, Open Hand Chicago came under the umbrella of Heartland Alliance — which last year split into four separate entities as a cost-saving measure.
This past February, one of those entities, Heartland Alliance Health, announced plans to close its three food pantries — including GroceryLand, now at 5543 N. Broadway in the Edgewater neighborhood — and its two clinics. But the organization went on to reverse that decision.
In March, after the announcement that GroceryLand would stay open, Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th) posed for a photo with Cannon, whom the alderwoman noted had been "feeding people with HIV for 36 years and isn't about to stop now."
In a social media post, entertainer Angelique Munro noted that Cannon was also a volunteer with AIDS Legal Counsel of Chicago, STOP AIDS Chicago, Howard Brown Health, and the AIDS care unit at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. Cannon was also a cofounder of the Chicago-based Legacy Project honoring LGBTQ+ history and culture.
"Mama Lori was the lifeline for so many of us. Her kitchen was open. Her arms were open. Her heart — endlessly open," Munro wrote. "To Lori—and every volunteer who's ever packed a grocery bag, delivered a meal, or sat bedside with someone in need—thank you. Your love and devotion built this community. Nothing can take that legacy away."
