• Series 3: ACT UP: The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power

• Published by Primary Source Microfilm

From the New York Public Library

The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) united a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. The direct action consisted of vocal demonstrations and dramatic acts of civil disobedience. The focus of ACT UP was on speeding governmental approval of new, often experimental, anti-AIDS drugs and on forcing pharmaceutical firms to reduce the prices of AIDS-related medications.

ACT UP was formed following a meeting at New York's Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center on Tuesday, March 10, 1987. Larry Kramer, novelist, playwright and a founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, gave a speech detailing the incredible difficulties doctors and patients were experiencing in obtaining new AIDS drugs.

Kramer asked everyone on one side of the room to stand up:

"At the rate we are going, you'll be dead in less than five years. Two thirds of this room could be dead in less than five years."

He went on to excoriate the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) for its slowness in testing and approving experimental AIDS drugs and stressed that direct action was required.

"Did you notice what got the attention the most at the recent CDC (Center for Disease Control) conference in Atlanta?" he asked. "It was a bunch called the Lavender Hill Mob...They protested. They yelled and screamed and demanded and were blissfully rude to all those arrogant epidemiologists who are ruining our lives."

Kramer's speech inspired the formation of ACT UP. As more than 70 chapters formed across the country and around the world, tens of thousands joined forces to make their voices heard. The organization created a distinctive visual style, most famously visible in its logo -- a pink triangle against a black background carrying the words SILENCE = DEATH.

This collection was acquired by the New York Public Library and provides unrivalled insight into the transformation of the movement during the AIDS crisis.

It consists of memoranda, correspondence, large amounts of ephemera, meeting minutes, clipping files, materials from other ACT UP chapters and an extensive collection of medical and pharmaceutical information. Among the documentation of ACT UP's direct action protests in this collection are:

• Initially, much of ACT UP's energy was directed at Burroughs Wellcome, manufacturers of AZT, the first, but extremely costly, drug licensed to treat AIDS. Insisting the company reduce the price of AZT, 50 protestors gathered at the New York Stock Exchange in March 1987 where they demanded that investors sell their stock in Burroughs Wellcome. They staged a "die-in," sitting down in rush-hour traffic, bringing lower Manhattan to a virtual standstill
• In 1987, Northwest Airlines was forced to abandon its policy of barring travelers with AIDS after an ACT UP phone 'zap' flooded the airline with false reservations
• In January 1988 the ACT UP New York Women's Caucus targeted the offices of Cosmopolitan magazine. Five hundred people protested the publication of an article claiming that heterosexual women were not at significant risk of contracting AIDS
• In October 1988 efforts to shut down the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration in Rockville, Maryland nearly succeeded
• In October 1989 ACT UP's youth Brigade began distributing condoms and safe sex/clean needles information outside New York City public schools.
• In December 1989 the most controversial 'zap' occurred when several ACT UP members targeted St. Patrick's Cathedral and disrupted a mass by stomping on communion wafers

Through its efforts and actions, ACT UP helped to:

• Revolutionize the way that drug research is conducted
• Redefine the syndrome more fairly and accurately so that women with AIDS could gain access to disability benefits
• Cut through the red tape at federal agencies, such as the FDA and the National Institute of Health, bringing about the release of non-harmful, potentially promising, but federally unapproved drug treatments in compassionate use programs
• Embarrass several pharmaceutical giants into reducing the high cost of drugs that might extend people's lives
• Implement needle exchange programs that have since become widely accepted as an effective means of decreasing the rate of HIV infection among intravenous drug users and their partners

The collection is also of interest to those in medicine, pharmacology and epidemiology. As the historian John Louchery has written, many ACT UP members "had become as knowledgeable about HIV and drug trials as any scientist in the country." A guide accompanies the collection.

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