An Olympic athlete; a gay activist; a boy with hemophilia; a recovering heroin addict; a closeted Navy commander: five very diverse lives that shared a common fate. Their lives - along with thousands of others - are woven together in a giant memorial patchwork quilt that is solemnly unfolded in the U.S. capitol to protest the government's refusal to respond to a growing epidemic. Common Threads tells the powerful story of the first decade of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S.