First AIDS Demonstration by ACT UP
Larry Kramer helped establish the Gay Men’s Health Crisis on January 4, 1982, but was ousted from the group because he insisted on more militant actions regarding the AIDS crisis in America. He then helped to found ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) on March 10, 1987, and it held its first demonstration on the AIDS crisis on this day.
The crisis was accentuated by the failure of President Ronald Reagan and his administration to recognize the AIDS epidemic and mobilize federal efforts to deal with it after it was first identified by the Censters for Disease Control June 5, 1981.
The first White House conference on HIV/AIDS was held by President Bill Clinton on December 6, 1995, fourteen years after the HIV/AIDS epidemic was first identified by the Centers for Disease Control.
One of the most important LGBT activists of his time, Larry Kramer died on May 27, 2020.
Read the important new book on the history of ACT UP: Sarah Schulman, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP in New York City, 1987-1993 (2021)
Don’t miss: David France, How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS (2016)
Watch a 1989 ACT Up demonstration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA7op98oVuM
Read about the early AIDS crisis: Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987)
Learn more at the ACT UP web site: http://www.actupny.org/
Read: Lawrence Mass, We Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer (1997)
Watch an interview with Larry Kramer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avITb-TZWOQ
Learn more at a timeline on HIV/AIDS: http://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/aids-timeline/