ACT UP Protests (1987-1990)

Nurth Aizenman, “How To Demand A Medical Breakthrough: Lesson From The AIDS Fight,” National Public Radio (NPR), February 9, 2019, How To Demand A Medical Breakthrough: Lessons From The AIDS Fight.

The ACT UP acronym stands for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. This organization was founded in March 1987 at a Lesbian and Gay Community Center in New York City’s Greenwich Village. The leader/founder is Larry Krammer. Larry Krammer was giving a speech at this community center and it inspired many. The goal of the organization is to draw the attention of many including doctors, drug companies, the general public, etc. to the severity of AIDS and how it has impacted the lives of many. ACT UP is a non-partisan action group and stresses this in their mission statement. Background knowledge consists of the fact that AIDS was becoming a huge epidemic, and many were dying, especially those in the LGBTQ community. It was being evident that the government was not doing anything to help prevent the AIDS epidemic and no research/medicine advancements were being made. This outraged many. Therefore, within the first four years of the organization being created in New York, gained thousands of followers and now has many chapters worldwide. 

Gays and Lesbians felt very targeted by society with the expansion of AIDS. Many were relating the disease as a "gay disease". This made those apart of the LGBQ community feel victimized and shamed by society. With the number of deaths and the judgment from society, it caused the organization ACT UP to be created. By having no interference from the government, it made those who were involved helpless as they were not being seen. When the organization was created it was called ACT UP and later it was created into an acronym giving each letter a purpose. ACT UP organized many pride rallies and candlelight vigils for those who have died of AIDS. Those involved in ACT UP took the movement very seriously. The protest was not just people carrying signs and chanting many would block traffic with their bodies. ACT UP gave gay men, lesbians, and minorities a voice in the sense that they can now speak up on making structures as in the past they were ignored. 

On March 24, 1987, only a short few weeks after it was founded started a protest on Wall Street. The purpose of this riot was to protest profiteering of Pharmaceutical companies.  Seventeen people were arrested during this protest.  The protests that were happening were a way for those involve feeling power and strength as they were a unity of anger. Many believed the people involved were testing the limits of authority. Members of ACT UP would aim towards getting arrested more so than being obedient because it would draw media attention and make the public aware of what is going on. Notable demonstrations that occurred in 1987 included protests on the Northwest Ordinance Airlines, New York’s hospitals, and the President Commission on AIDS in Washington DC. 

ACT UP had a women’s branch that protests Cosmopolitan magazine in January 1988. There, protest arose when the magazine posted an offensive article stating heterosexual women were not at risk for AIDS. On the one-year celebration of ACT UP, the group returned to Wall Street in March to riot in the streets resulting in over one hundred arrests. In October, ACT UP, and many other AIDS organizations shut down the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) out of Washing DC. In 1989, ACT UP went after many other places to protest like City Hall, the Fifth International Conference on AIDs in Montreal, and the New York stock exchange. The younger members of ACT UP started protesting out of schools to practice safe/clean sex by handing out condoms and using clean needles when appropriate. ACT UP was involved in many protests and used many visuals to get their message across. The first symbol being anger and death. Both showing the severity of the disease and why there should be additional research. The members would sometimes cover themselves in fake blood and chase people. Putting Fear in the public helped their cause and created more media for themselves. When the 1990s hit the group ACT UP hit a slow decline the organization opened the eyes of many and helped make the topic of AIDS relevant. ACT UP changed the face of AIDS in society both politically and socially and left its mark in history especially during the 20^thcentury. To learn more, see The ACT UP Historical Archive. 

The organization Act had lots of propaganda and one of the most moving pieces was the t-shirts they created. Right below shows an image of one of the t-shirts made. It states "IGNORANCE = FEAR" and "SILENCE = DEATH" which were slogans used during the movement in 1987. By putting a pink triangle on the shirt was a way to compare how the government is treating the gays and lesbians in the nation is how the Nazis treated Jews. If marked by a pink triangle in a Nazi concentration camp meant you were gay. Keither Haring is the artist of this shirt. He was an advocate for AIDS and suffered from the disease. Haring later died due to complications in 1990 at age thirty-one

AIDS/ACT UP t-shirt, Digital Public Library of America, 1987, Digital Public Library of America.