ACT UP
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international direct action advocacy group working to impact the lives of people with AIDS. The group demanded that government officials address the AIDS epidemic. Through protest, the group was instrumental in bringing about legislation, medical research and treatment and policies that mitigated the loss of health and lives.
ACT UP was formed in March 1987 at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York. Larry Kramer was asked to speak as part of a rotating speaker series, and his well-attended speech focused on action to fight AIDS. Kramer spoke out against the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, which he perceived as politically impotent. Kramer had co-founded the GMHC but had resigned from its board of directors in 1983. Kramer posed a question to the audience: “Do we want to start a new organization devoted to political action?” The answer was “a resounding yes.” Approximately 300 people met two days later to form ACT UP.
Chapters formed across the country. Members protested the inaction of the federal government as well as local policies that affected people living with AIDS. The group staged major protests demanding greater access to experimental AIDS drugs and a coordinated national policy to fight the disease. ACT UP shut down the Food & Drug Administration on October 11, 1988. The group protested the Catholic church’s public stand against safer sex education and condom distribution.
ACT UP, while extremely prolific and certainly effective at its peak, suffered from extreme internal pressures over the direction of the group and of the AIDS crisis. ACT UP chapters continue to meet and protest, albeit with a smaller membership. Housing Works, New York’s largest AIDS service organization and Health GAP, which fights to expand treatment for people with AIDS throughout the world, are direct outgrowths of ACT UP.