All the Young Men: How One Woman Risked It All To Care For The Dying

Ruth Coker Burks, a 26-year-old Florence Nightingale-inspired nurse, cares for AIDS patients in 1986. She becomes an accidental activist, providing housing, jobs, and funeral homes for them. She defies local pastors and the medical community to store rare medications and teaches sex education to drag queens. Burks advocates for their safety and visibility, advising Governor Bill Clinton on the national HIV-AIDS crisis and becoming a beacon of hope to marginalized gay men.

Format: Hardback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 21 January 2021
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

In a remarkable tale of compassion and combating prejudice, a renegade Florence Nightingale cares for the ill in a hospital. The Guardian describes it as "breath-taking courage and compassion," while The Sunday Times calls it a "beautiful book." Evening Standard praises it as an "extraordinary tale." The author, Ruth Coker Burks, emphasizes the message that we all have to care for one another, not just in 1986 but today. She learned more about life from the dying than from the living, and her experiences include an elephant ride, wildflowers dancing on their way to a shared grave, and caring for a young man who needed information without judgment.

In 1986, Ruth Coker Burks, a 26-year-old woman, visits a friend in the hospital and notices that the door to one of the patient's rooms is painted red. The nurses are reluctant to enter, and they draw straws to decide who will tend to the sick person inside. Out of impulse, Ruth herself enters the quarantined space and begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in his last moments.

As word spreads in the community that Ruth is the only person willing to help the young men afflicted by the growing AIDS crisis, she goes from being an ordinary young mother to an accidental activist. She forms deep friendships with the men she helps and works tirelessly to find them housing, jobs, and funeral homes willing to take their bodies, often in the middle of the night. Ruth also prepares and delivers meals to her guys, supplements her income with discarded food found in the dumpsters behind supermarkets, defies local pastors and the medical community to store rare medications for her most urgent patients, and teaches sex education.

Her courage and compassion in the face of prejudice and adversity are truly inspiring, and her story serves as a reminder of the importance of caring for one another, no matter the circumstances.

Weight: 612g
Dimension: 163 x 241 x 37 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781409189107