Lori F. Cannon - Inductee

Chicago native Lori Cannon grew up in the West Rogers Park neighborhood. Her teen years were defined by caregiving for her brothers – J.H., born with blue baby syndrome – and Jules – who had suffered permanent traumatic brain injury after a devastating motorcycle accident. Though Lori found her first jobs as a kindergarten and preschool teacher rewarding, she turned a passing interest in driving a bus into an off-beat career as “Driver to the Stars” for the Arie Crown Theatre. It was through her budding friendships with the actors she met that Lori started hearing the stories of illness and swift horrific deaths at the dawn of the AIDS Era. She jumped in feet first with meetings at medical professionals’ homes and as one of the earliest volunteers for Chicago House. Lori volunteered with AIDS Legal Counsel of Chicago, STOP AIDS Chicago, Howard Brown Health, AIDS Walk Chicago, and the AIDS Care Unit at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. In 1987 she attended the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, where she first encountered the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. That launched her extensive work to establish the NAMES Project/Chicago which brought the Quilt Display to Chicago’s Navy Pier in 1988. That Quilt display became the inspiration for a meals-on-wheels program for people with HIV/AIDS modeled after San Francisco’s Project Open Hand. As a founding board member of Open Hand/Chicago, her years of expertise as a bus driver proved instrumental in developing the routes which covered deliveries city-wide undertaken by 400 volunteers serving 1200 meals daily. Lori was best friend of political cartoonist/activist Danny Sotomayor, co-founder and most-public face of ACT UP Chicago. After Sotomayor’s death in 1992, the advancing treatments for those impacted by HIV meant more people could be fed with home-prepared meals through groceries. Lori led the charge and the “Groceryland” pantry network was born, which continues to service people across three locations. Friend and fierce advocate – and a beacon of red, from the hair to the talon nails – Cannon believed it was the job of the healthy to care for the sick and for those who could, to speak out for those who could not. In 2010 Lori co-founded the Chicago-based Legacy Project, which honors LGBTQ+ contributions to world history and culture.