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.
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.
Daniel Joseph Berrigan was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author.
Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She holds an endowed chair in nonfiction at Northwestern University and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award and the Lambda Literary Award.
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt is a 1989 American documentary film that tells the story of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, with a musical score written and performed by Bobby McFerrin, the film focuses on several people who are represented by panels in the Quilt, combining personal reminiscences with archive footage of the subjects, along with footage of various politicians, health professionals and other people with AIDS. Each section of the film is punctuated with statistics detailing the number of Americans diagnosed with and dead from AIDS through the early years of the epidemic. The film ends with the first display of the complete Quilt at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., during the 1987 Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.
Cleve Jones is an American AIDS and LGBT rights activist. He conceived the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which has become, at 54 tons, the world's largest piece of community folk art as of 2020. In 1983 at the onset of the AIDS pandemic, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which has grown into one of the largest and most influential advocacy organizations empowering people with AIDS in the United States.
The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) was a law passed by the United States Congress in 1992 which allowed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to collect fees from drug manufacturers to fund the new drug approval process. The Act provided that the FDA was entitled to collect a substantial application fee from drug manufacturers at the time a New Drug Application (NDA) or Biologics License Application (BLA) was submitted, with those funds designated for use only in Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) or Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) drug approval activities. In order to continue collecting such fees, the FDA is required to meet certain performance benchmarks, primarily related to the speed of certain activities within the NDA review process.
Treatment Action Group (TAG) is a U.S.-based organization that has been prominent within the movement of HIV/AIDS activism. Being formed in 1991, it has possessed the goals of working with worldwide efforts to increase research on treatments for HIV and for deadly co-infections that affect individuals with HIV, such as hepatitis C and tuberculosis, as well as spur on greater access to and efficient usage of already available treatments. The group additionally monitors research on a possible HIV vaccine and on fundamental science aimed at understanding the pathogenesis of HIV/AIDS.
Stop the Church was a demonstration organized by members of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power on December 10, 1989, that disrupted a Mass being said by Cardinal John O'Connor at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. One-hundred and eleven protesters were arrested, 53 of whom were arrested inside the church. The main objective of the demonstration was to protest O'Connor's opposition to the teaching of safe sex in the public school system, and his opposition to the distribution of condoms to curb the spread of AIDS. During planning, the protest was joined by Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!), who opposed the Catholic position on abortion rights.
Robert Hilferty was an American journalist, filmmaker, and AIDS activist based in New York City.
David France is an American investigative reporter, non-fiction author, and filmmaker. He is a former Newsweek senior editor, and has published in New York magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and others. France, who is gay, is best known for his investigative journalism on LGBTQ topics.
How to Survive a Plague is a 2012 American documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. It was directed by David France, a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings. France's first film, it was dedicated to his partner Doug Gould who died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1992.
Peter Staley is an American political activist, known primarily for his work in HIV/AIDS activism. As an early and influential member of ACT UP, New York, he founded both the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and the educational website AIDSmeds.com. Staley is a primary figure in the Oscar-nominated documentary How to Survive a Plague.
Patrick Spencer Cox was an American HIV/AIDS activist. He was involved in ACT UP New York and the Treatment Action Group during the height of the AIDS Crisis in New York. He helped facilitate the production of protease inhibitors, which revolutionized AIDS care in the 1990s.
Michael Anthony Petrelis is an American AIDS activist, LGBTQ rights activist, and blogger. He was diagnosed with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in 1985 in New York City, New York. As a member of the Lavender Hill Mob, a forerunner to the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, he was among the first AIDS activists to protest responses to the disease. He was a co-founding member of ACT UP in New York City, New York, and later helped organize ACT UP chapters in Portland, Oregon, Washington, D.C., and New Hampshire, as well as the ACT UP Presidential Project. Petrelis was also a founding member of Queer Nation/National Capital, the Washington D.C. chapter of the militant LGBTQ rights organization.
Jean Carlomusto is a New York filmmaker, AIDS activist, and interactive media artist. She produced and directed HBO's Emmy nominated documentary, Larry Kramer in Love & Anger, which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival. Her works have been exhibited internationally in festivals, museums and on television. She was an early pioneer in documenting the AIDS crisis. As the founder of the Multimedia Unit at Gay Men's Health Crisis, she created the television series Living with AIDS. She was a founding member of DIVA TV and a member of the Testing The Limits Video Collective.
The Silence=Death Project, best known for its iconic political poster, was the work of a six-person collective in New York City: Avram Finkelstein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Soccarás.
Raymond Robert Navarro was an American video artist, filmmaker, and HIV/AIDS activist. Navarro was an active member of ACT UP and a founder of Diva TV. His activism was featured in the documentary How to Survive a Plague. Navarro's art was exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Tacoma Art Museum, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, among others. Navarro's papers, videos, and artworks are held at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries in Los Angeles.
Socio-political activism to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS as well as to advance the effective treatment and care of people with AIDS (PWAs) has taken place in multiple locations since the 1980s. The evolution of the disease's progress into what's known as the HIV/AIDS pandemic has resulted in various social movements fighting to change both government policies and the broader popular culture inside of different areas. These groups have interacted in a complex fashion with others engaged in related forms of social justice campaigning, with this continuing on to this day.
Ortez Alderson was an American AIDS, gay rights, and anti-war activist and actor. A member of LGBT community, he was a leader of the Black Caucus of the Chicago Gay Liberation Front, which later became the Third World Gay Revolution, and served a federal prison sentence for destroying files related to the draft for the Vietnam War. In 1987, he was one of the founding members of ACT UP in New York City, and helped to establish its Majority Action Committee representing people of color with HIV and AIDS. Regarded as a "radical elder" within ACT UP, he was involved in organizing numerous demonstrations in the fight for access to healthcare and treatments for people with AIDS, and participated in the group's meetings with NYC Health Commissioner Stephen Joseph as well as the FDA. In 1989, he moved back to Chicago and helped to organize the People of Color and AIDS Conference the following year. He died of complications from AIDS in 1990, and was inducted posthumously into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame.
