Keep Singing: Two Mothers, Two Sons, and Their Fight Against Jesse Helms

On June 5, 1994, Patsy Clarke sat down and wrote a long letter to her friend Jesse Helms. In it she recounted the last night of her son Mark's life. "I sat by his bed, held his dear hand, and sang through that long last night the baby song that I had sung to all of our children. 'Rock-a-bye and don't you cry, rock-a-bye, little Mark. I'll buy you a pretty gold horse to ride all around your pasture'" She had hoped to touch the heart of the notoriously homophobic senator, to ask him to soften his antigay stance, and to end his opposition to AIDS research funding. She failed. His callous and self-serving reply, in which he said, "I wish Mark had not played Russian roulette in his sexual activity," first broke Patsy's heart-and then it made her furious. Together with her friend Eloise Clark who had also lost a son-also named Mark-to AIDS, they formed Mothers Against Jesse in Congress (MAJIC) to drive him from office. Keep Singing is the inspiring true story of two women who became the unlikeliest of activists and gave a new face to the fight against bigotry and hatred. Their journey would carry them from their quiet North Carolina homes to the stage of the 1998 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Their battle would put their names and faces in the pages of People magazine and The New York Times. Their lives would be changed forever, driven now by the desire that even in death their children would be given the simple human respect that is due everyone.

Patsy Clarke is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a degree in Drama and Literature. She was an instructor for ten years at her alma mater, teaching classes in Theater, Communications, and Speech. In 1987 she began using her skills in the training of trial lawyers, serving as an adjunct faculty member at California Western School of Law in San Diego. In 1996 she shelved this career to concentrate on MAJIC, but remains active in regional theater in her home of Raleigh, NC.

Eloise Vaughn graduated from the University of North Carolina, and was a junior high-school teacher for 15 years. Her husband was a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives, serving as Speaker of the House before becoming a judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. After her son Mark's death, Eloise became active with a local AIDS Services Agency before cofounding MAJIC. She now lives in Blowing Rock, N.C., and remains active in AIDS causes.