The introduction of the “AIDS cocktail” - an antiretroviral drug regimen - in 1995 dramatically prolonged the lives of infected people. Ferd Eggan became the AIDS coordinator for the City of Los Angeles he died in 2007. Subsequent actions were smaller and met with even more police force.ĭanny Sotomayor quit ACT UP that August, saying publicly that “AIDS has become the fourth item on the ACT UP agenda, after racism, sexism, and gay and lesbian visibility.” He died of AIDS complications on February 5, 1992. While the organization lived on and even grew, it suffered from fissures and internal tensions. To many, the April actions were the pinnacle of ACT UP Chicago’s work. Photo: SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARY Their words bring to life not only their own experiences but also the heroism of those who didn’t live to tell their stories. They range from key players to then-neophytes, activists to academics.
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I recently sat down with 10 people - sometimes in pairs, usually one on one - who were there. The protest brought national attention to the epidemic in the Midwest, shed light on the fact that it wasn’t just young white gay men who were dying, and brought about crucial changes at Cook County Hospital, which, like many urban public health facilities, had lagged in meeting the challenges of the epidemic. (In my defense, April 20, 1990, was my 12th birthday.) But in the research I undertook for my novel The Great Believers, which chronicles the AIDS epidemic in Chicago, I discovered that our city was home to one of the most important, complex, and effective actions in the history of AIDS activism. Like many Chicagoans, I was unaware of the protests at the time. For others, battling with all they had left, it would be their last. The demonstrators’ props were banners, costumes, and mattresses their motto, emblazoned on T-shirts, was “Silence = Death.” For some, it was their first protest. At a time when the disease was a death sentence, when promising new treatments cost thousands of dollars a month, when insurance companies were effectively redlining gay communities, this massive public plea for fair and adequate health care was nothing less than a bid for survival. The Chicago chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, played host to activists who came from around the country to protest increasingly glaring inequities in the way the health care establishment was responding to the AIDS crisis.
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But what about the unmarked battleground, the one that the next day resumes its role as a city street, an office window, an intersection?Īpril 20 to 23 marks the 30th anniversary of the National AIDS Action for Healthcare, a weekend of gatherings and rallies that culminated in a massive protest in downtown Chicago - one of the largest AIDS demonstrations ever held. When you cross a battleground and read a plaque commemorating the fallen and the brave, you start to believe you can feel the history in your bones.