PRIDE - The HIV/AIDS memorial stop

This five-minute stop en route will take place in remembrance of the late activist Simon Nkoli and to encourage the government to sit up and take notice of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

It is not only a memorial to a hero who lost his battle against HIV/AIDS, or just a moment's silence to remember friends and loved ones who lost their battle against HIV/AIDS, but also a call of solidarity and support for our brothers and sisters who are living with the disease, and a call to the government to make treatment affordable. This stop also calls to the pharmaceutical companies not to hold our friends' lives to ransom with high costs for drugs.

This stop is an opportunity for you to support the Treatment Action Campaign.

Nkoli, a political activist against discrimination by an unjust apartheid government, was charged with treason during the time of the Delmas Treason trials. He came out to his comrades and defied the myth that being gay was "un-African". During his parole he initiated the first Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade in Johannesburg.

This march was a demonstration and a public call to end discrimination against gay and lesbian people living in South Africa. Nkoli was instrumental in founding the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW) and the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality (NCGLE). When he was diagnosed HIV-positive, he again decided to live in the face of fear and discrimination by openly living with his HIV status and he was instrumental in starting the Township AIDS Project (TAP) and the Treatment Action campaign (TAC).

He died on the eve of World AIDS Day, 30 November 1998.