Ron Weekes has a great story.

A writer who has AIDS and is traveling across the United States finds himself at a tavern in an obscure town, where he encounters a man sitting at the bar, crying.

	Autograph trading has “sentimental value” for Ron Weekes, a UB staffer who has been in the business for 40 years.
	photo: Stephanie Hamberger

The man explains his son has died of AIDS-no small irony there, Weekes points out-and from his pocket pulls a letter, which he shares with the writer. The letter, from then-President George Bush, was a response to the father's original missive criticizing the Bush administration's lack of support on the AIDS issue. Enclosed in the letter from Bush is a copy of the speech he is planning to give before the Third World Congress on AIDS. Bush would like to know the father's thoughts on his speech.

In 1993, a year after the book was published, Weekes—a member of the UB Center for the Arts staff—read "Heartlands: A Gay Man's Odyssey Across America," and was moved by author Darrell Yates Rist's encounter with that father.

So moved, in fact, that he wrote a letter to the former president who-again, no small irony here-responded in kind.

The letter, sent by Bush from Houston-the words "self-typed" at the top-read to this effect: "Every once in a while, something comes along that really makes an impact. Your letter was such a happening. I know what was in my heart, and I know what I did for my country. That you found someone a little kinder and gentler means a great deal to me."

Weekes-an autograph collector and dealer for 40 years-says that letter speaks to the true value of his trade.

"That's how profoundly powerful autograph collecting is," says the 51-year-old Weekes, who was a collector for 20 years before trying his hand at the business-specifically his business, Weekes Autographs. For the former entertainment writer and public-relations guru, the autograph trade is about much more than turning a buck. For Weekes-and to borrow an industry phrase-what he does has "sentimental value."

Weekes, who grew up in Seattle, was given his first autograph at the age of 12 by his friend and mentor, Wing Luke, who Weekes described as the first Asian-American elected to political office on the West Coast. A year later, Luke gave him John F. Kennedy's autograph, and he was hooked.

Weekes eventually found his niche in African-American history, having amassed nearly 1,000 documents over the years.

"It's one thing to read about history from a theoretical perspective," he said. "It's quite another to actually see a handwritten letter of Frederick Douglass talking about the struggle for freedom, and to hold it in your hand. You're touching history.

"It's just an area of—history that interests me, that strikes a chord with me," Weekes explains. "Maybe I've always been a champion of the disenfranchised because I identify with them personally on some level. I've overcome a lot of odds in my own life."

Autograph collecting began in the 1800s, Weekes said, and ephemera today can include autographs, photographs, letters, manuscript pages-any and all historical documents. With nearly 6,000 documents in his business inventory, Weekes considers himself "small-time" in a pool of some 500,000 collectors-up from 15,000 20 years ago.

As temporary custodian of many of these items-most of which are sold into private collections-Weekes has held in his hands documents from the 1500s, letters written by Renaissance-era popes, and even first-edition Ernest Hemingway novels-with lengthy inscriptions. Surely, they all would seem significant to the outside viewer.

But where personal collections are concerned, what is significant varies with taste-and time.

"As you mature, you begin to narrow your focus and.be more discerning about what you collect," he said. With regard to his personal collection, Weekes says he's guided by a sense of duty in preserving history.

"Signed photos are nice, and it's nice to make the visual connection, but they're not nearly as significant in the great scheme of things."

What Weekes strives for is represented in his annual display in Lockwood Library commemorating Black History Month. This year's exhibit, "They, Too, Had a Dream," includes an autographed manuscript page from Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon," the aforementioned Douglass letter, an autographed photo of recently deceased poet Gwendolyn Brooks, and an autograph of 1920s entertainer Josephine Baker, who was shunned by the United States until earning fame in Paris.

Weekes, who says he feels nurtured by libraries, is eager to lure the community into Lockwood-where arising curiosities can be satisfied.

"If we can get them in by showing them this exhibit, maybe they'll go to the shelf and get a book on Gwendolyn Brooks, or on Patricia Roberts Harris, who was the first black ambassador," he said.

Overcoming a fear of the unknown-what Weekes describes as taking away the power people give to fear through discrimination or not caring to know about something outside personal experience-is something he has been able to do through collecting black history, and is something he hopes others will be able to do through viewing his exhibit.

"The more you open up, the more you get to really know something for its real essence-what you may uncover may be something beautiful," he said.

Weekes chooses exhibit materials from his private stash, the selection process a struggle each year due to the enormity of his collection.

This year's assortment also showcases pop culture alongside political clout-from RuPaul on a MAC cosmetics flier to a signature from Coretta Scott King. But no matter the individual, Weekes said, he's always humbled in his research.

"While some people might say, 'Oh, what a horrible cross you had, oh, isn't that unfortunate,'.for them, it was a gift in a way, because it's brought them to where they are," he said. "They turned what we might consider a tremendous cross into something very beautiful."

The late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who served from 1972-79, gave keynote speeches at the 1976 and 1992 Democratic conventions and spoke at President Richard Nixon's impeachment, battled adversity throughout her life-from her upbringing in Harlem's slums, to her 25-year relationship with a woman, to her struggle with multiple sclerosis, leukemia and diabetes.

"Look at our lives compared to—Barbara Jordan," said Weekes, pointing to what he said is a rare photograph of Jordan in her wheelchair that is part of Lockwood exhibit. "We don't know adversity."

"They, Too, Had a Dream" will be on display through Feb. 28 near the circulation desk on the main level of Lockwood Library.