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Larry Kessler (1942-February 1, 2024 [1] ) was the Founding Director of the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, [2] an agency that has served over half of all people diagnosed with AIDS in Massachusetts, educated generations about the disease, and secured progressive city, state, and federal AIDS policy.
Kessler was born in 1942 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He worked as an ironworker, a small businessman, a seminarian, and a community organizer. [3] In 1960, after high school, he briefly studied for the priesthood before becoming a full-time social activist.
Kessler founded and directed Project Appalachia, an anti-poverty program, from 1966-1968. The Meals on Wheels program he started in McKees Rock, Pennsylvania, still operates today. As co-founder and director of Pittsburgh's Thomas Merton Center from 1970-1973, he took an active role in the civil rights, anti-poverty, and anti-war movements.
Kessler continued his activism at Boston's Paulist Center from 1973-1979, where he expanded the Walk for Hunger into the year-round anti-hunger program, Project Bread. [4] During Boston's desegregation crisis in 1974, Kessler served as a bus monitor to help Boston kids get to school safely.
Kessler retired in 2006, but returned to activism in 2013, when Victory Programs asked him to run the Boston Living Center, which serves HIV-positive individuals. Kessler retired for a second time in 2015. [5] [3]
While running a successful business in 1982, Kessler first heard about the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He and others met at Fenway Community Health Clinic to discuss the crisis, and AAC was created. Kessler became its first employee in 1983, [4] and served as AAC's Executive Director from 1983 until early 2002, when he moved into the Founding Director's role at the agency. [3]
In 1985, Kessler was a founding board member of the National AIDS Network, and later a founding board member of AIDS Action Council in Washington. In 1989, he was appointed to the National Commission on AIDS by the U.S. Senate. [4]
AAC relies on funding each year from its annual AIDS Walk Boston and Larry Kessler 5K Run where participants engage in peer-to-peer fundraising in support of the agency. The Larry Kessler 5K Run was created as a 5K race held concurrently with AIDS Walk Boston in 2001. It was renamed in honor of AAC's founding director in 2006, and has since been referred to as the Larry Kessler 5K Run.
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, and working to change legislation and public policies.
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Laurence David Kramer was an American playwright, author, film producer, public health advocate, and gay rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London, where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for the film Women in Love (1969) and received an Academy Award nomination for his work.
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Urvashi Vaid was an Indian-born American LGBT rights activist, lawyer, and writer. An expert in gender and sexuality law, she was a consultant in attaining specific goals of social justice. She held a series of roles at the National LGBTQ Task Force, serving as executive director from 1989-1992 — the first woman of color to lead a national gay-and-lesbian organization. She is the author of Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (1995) and Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics (2012).
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Boston is a hub of LGBT culture and LGBT activism in the United States, with a rich history dating back to the election of the nation's first openly gay state representative, Elaine Noble, in 1974. The city is home to notable organizations like GLAD and Fenway Health, and it played a pivotal role in the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. Various neighborhoods, including the South End, are known for their sizable LGBT populations, while numerous LGBT bars and entertainment venues offer spaces for community gatherings. Boston hosts an annual Pride Parade, and despite challenges, it continues to be a prominent event. Noteworthy organizations like The Welcoming Committee and the Boston Gay Men's Chorus contribute to the city's vibrant LGBT community, while The History Project preserves its rich history through an extensive LGBTQ archive.
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