Petrelis Files

ACT UP Turns 20 in March 2007; Actions Planned

Ten random notes for a column on ACT UP:

No 1.

It all started because writer Nora Ephron had a cold. She was supposed to hold a reading at the NYC gay and lesbian community center at its monthly guest speakers series for February 1987, but a case of the sniffles forced her to cancel about a week before the talk.

Yes, the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power would have come into existence even if Ephron had delivered her speech, but her small role in the birth of ACT UP is something that has always given me special pleasure, because I've been a fan of her writing since the 1970s and feel part of her sterling wit, ferocious intelligence, liberal political leanings and humor, are qualities that ACT UP embodied.

Ephron is that rare individual, who all because of a runny nose, changed human history for the better at the end of the last century. I think only rulers of the old Soviet Politburo affected history, for the worse, when they caught colds.


No 2.

Prior to ACT UP coming around, I was in the Mob, as in the Lavender Hill Mob, a group of queer and AIDS activists, numbering no more than a dozen individuals, that engaged in zaps against religious, government, media institutions and, occasionally, gay leaders and AIDS executives.

A week or so before Larry Kramer stood in for Ephron and roused a crowd into anger, getting organized and hitting the streets to get arrested, a handful of us Mobsters descended on Atlanta for a CDC conference to consider routine HIV testing of all people entering hospitals.

Wearing drab gray shirts with streaks of black stripes, stenciled numbers and pink triangles sewn above the numbers, and painters' caps also dyed gray on our heads, evoking homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps, we disrupted the federal conference.

Actually, just showing up at the amFAR cocktail reception the night before the meeting started made many gay leaders and government officials nervous and tense. All we Mobsters wanted was to change the agenda to one about drugs for the infected.


No 3.

Since I'm name-dropping, let me mention that actor Martin Sheen, a friend of Larry's who had performed as Ned Weeks in his play "The Normal Heart," was at ACT UP's first meeting. Time magazine's medical reporter Christine Gorman was also there. I'd love to read the notes she took that night. Can we count Sheen and Gorman as among the first ACT UPpers?


No 4.

This is an important name to file away for the historical footnotes. The man who gave us the acronym ACT UP, may he rest in peace, was named Steve Bohrer. Here's another name to remember -- Mike Salinas. He wrote the first story on ACT UP while serving as news editor at the NY Native.


No 5.

As 2006 drew to a close, I made phone calls over the last weekend of the year to surviving ACT UP veterans in New York City to get the ball rolling on a speak out and action back there to mark our twentieth anniversary.

To my activist heart's absolute pleasure, I quickly found out from Bob Lederer that his partner John Riley is putting out a call with Eric Sawyer for folks to start thinking about the anniversary.

James Wentzy reminded me about the tenth anniversary, which encompassed a speak out and remembrance of our missing and dead loved ones at Judson Memorial Church, and march on Wall Street over drug access and pricing. When I got Sarah Schulman on the horn, she had just walked in the door, back from a trip to Europe, and good sister that she is, even with jet lag, she expressed support for getting something going.

I think it was Andy Humm who may have said Eric Sawyer is making phone calls, stirring up the pot on the anniversary. Actually, it was at least one other person I spoke to who mentioned Eric, so, of course, I found his number and left him a message.

And Larry Kramer has a voice mail from me, asking what he's planning for the twentieth anniversary. I can't recall if he put in an appearance at the tenth's actions. Brother Jay Blotcher also received voice mail from me today, asking him to starting spreading the word that the twentieth anniversary is coming up.

In between calls, I looked up Nora Ephron's number and plan to ring her up in the new year. First, to thank her for her tangential role in ACT UP's founding, and, to invite her to join the actions, whatever they may turn out to be, in March.


(Photo credit: NY Times. Larry, in tee shirt, with his brother Arthur in 2006.)

No 6.

When was ACT UP founded, the exact date? Some say it was the night Larry screamed us into action, March 10, 1987, at the community center, and others declare our founding day as March 24, 1987, when we protested on Wall Street and seventeen of us were arrested.


No 7.

In the honorable ACT UP tradition of asking everyone for proposals, I'd like to issue my suggestions for how best to organize around the twentieth anniversary:

a) Hold a speak out, emphasizing emotions and camaraderie, to remember where we came from and our to honor the dead and fallen;

b) Organize a meeting with a strong focus on today's HIV/AIDS issues that need addressing, and rekindling or strengthening existing networks of fellow activists;

c) Stage a raucous demonstration at a drug company's office, or a UN health agency, or in front of the New York Times, or at Sen. Clinton or Mayor Bloomberg's office, or any number of other worthy targets;

d) Make sure there's something people beyond NYC can do to participate in the anniversary actions.

No 8.

I've never told this to anyone but my partner. For years, I avoided seeing or reading Tony Kushner's play "Angels in America." Sure, everyone of my friends raved how wonderful it was and critics heaped praised sky high upon it, I just didn't want to go on the journey the play takes the audience.

When HBO produced the fabulous movie version, the cable giant allowed an advanced screening for the members of the SF gay film festival organization, Frameline, at the Castro theatre, where I finally experienced Tony's play.

One scrap of dialogue reduced me to tears. It comes when the pill-popping Mormon wife Harper, in a Valium induced haze, tells the gay man with AIDS, Prior, in his nightmare as he sweats from fever.

"Deep inside you, there's a part of you, the most inner part, entirely free of disease. I can see that," she says.

Being someone who keenly remembers the vile condemnations on people with AIDS in those horrible days, when too many powerful people couldn't resist loudly reinforcing hateful notions of "homosexuality equals deadly disease," Harper's lines got to me.

Makes total sense to me that only in a PWA's hallucination, can he hear that he has a part of him that is free of AIDS, and that a nutty chick strung out on downs is the person to tell him.


No 9.

It's a great shame that a book by ACT UP members, for and about us and our incredible activism, has not yet been written. My nominees to spearhead and coordinate a book to commemorate our comrades, demands and influences? Sean Strub, founder of POZ magazine; Walter Armstrong, former editor of POZ; and Ann Northrop, a smarty-pants former debutante who facilitated many ACT UP meetings, keeping the group's agenda and purpose very clear, during some crazy and murky times.


(Photo credit: NY Times. The paper's first bit of coverage on ACT UP, from March 1987.)

No 10.

This announcement came my way today:

ACT UP 20th ANNIVERSARY EVENT - MARCH 2007
Join the Planning Meeting! Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007

March 2007 will be the 20th anniversary of ACT UP's fight as an organization committed to ending the AIDS crisis. Our bold history of fearlessly speaking truth to power through direct action has brought about numerous important victories for people living with HIV and AIDS and inspired countless individuals to engage in all aspects of the struggle against the pandemic.

As we mark 20 years of ACT UP's strong and visionary efforts, we would like to bring our community together to recognize our historic work, and recharge the organization for it to be a force in the pressing fights which still lie before us. Indeed, people with AIDS are very much under attack, from the present attempt to force major rent hikes on PWAs in HASA-supported housing in NYC to the battle for providing universal access to treatment for the millions of PWAs in need around the world.

For this to be a success, we need folks to come together, regardless of how long you have been away, to take part in planning and producing a 20th anniversary event. The idea is that this event will include fundraising efforts to strengthen ACT UP as well as an energizing action which can involve many participants, new and old to
the group.

Please mark your calendars and get involved at the meeting and through the listserv. And please, spread the word to all our friends. This is our time to celebrate our fierce tradition of fighting for the rights of people living with HIV and AIDS and to let it be known to all that ACT UP will not be history until AIDS is.

We will also be hosting a broader planning meeting on Thursday, Jan. 11, at the NYC gay and lesbian community center to draw folks together and begin the steps of creating a successful event.

Thank you - see you soon!

Eric Sawyer & John Riley

What else can I add to what Eric and John have said, except the words of that always appropriate chant: ACT UP! Fight Back! Fight AIDS!