March 16, 2007
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, ACT UP!
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ACT UP in action in 1988 |
Dust off your Doc Martens, people.
To commemorate 20 years of acting up against indifference to the AIDS epidemic, the New York chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is once again taking to the streets. You’re cordially invited to march from Federal Plaza to Wall Street’s Charging Bull statue on Thursday, March 29 to mark that two-decade milestone. ACT UP, Housing Works, and other groups will use the anniversary procession as a platform to demand universal healthcare for all, an end to price-gouging by the pharmaceutical industry, and expanded housing assistance to low-income people with HIV.
“It’s conservatively estimated that 50 people a day die each day from not having health care,” says Eustacia Smith, an ACT UP NY member. “It’s a politically rich time to march to help push universal health care.”
The march will begin at noon at the Federal Building at the corner of Broadway and Worth Streets in Lower Manhattan. It will include a stop at Trinity Church, the site of ACT UP NY’s first demonstration on March 24, 1987, where protestors demanded the FDA release available HIV meds. Additional stops include City Hall, the New York Stock Exchange and, at the end, the Charging Bull statue near Bowling Green.
The City Hall visit, in particular, will serve as an opportunity for Housing Works to further the ongoing HASA for All campaign; members of the HASA for All effort, including GMHC and New York AIDS Housing Coalition, are asking the city council and Speaker Christine Quinn to take the lead on revising an outdated and costly policy that requires low-income folks progress to an AIDS diagnosis before getting a full range of benefits and services.
Sign of the times
ACT UP was founded in 1987 when AIDS stigma and governmental indifference created a waking nightmare for PWAs, who were dying in droves. The organization combined in-your-face demonstrations, flashy graphics, and science savvy to force a complacent country to wake up to the crisis—and blood--on its hands.
“We have made incredible progress from the advent of ACT UP,” says Eric Sawyer, a cofounder of ACT UP, Housing Works and Health GAP. “At that time, there was no viable treatment, very little concern by the public or the government, almost no research and no access to safety nets like welfare, food stamps, and housing programs.”
Long-lasting impact
Activist organizations of all stripes have taken a page out of ACT UP’s playbook. Housing Works itself was born out of the movement. Most of the founders of Housing Works, including Charles King, Keith D. Cylar and Eric Sawyer, were members of ACT UP’s Housing Committee; they split off to form Housing Works in order to focus on helping homeless people with HIV.
Among ACT UP’s greatest accomplishments is revolutionizing the FDA’s drug approval process. Thanks to ACT UP’s efforts, the agency reduced the number of participants required for clinical trials. That reduction led to lower drug development costs and dramatically cut the time from drug discovery to approval. ACT UP also played a critical role in the fight for access to housing subsidies for short-term assistance in the 1980s, developing a Patient’s Bill of Rights and pushing for legal protections for people with HIV and AIDS.
Over the years, ACT UP membership has fallen off. There were once over 100 chapters; today, New York, Philadelphia and Paris boast the most active groups. Nonetheless, the group’s historical influence and reputation remain undiminished.
“I’m surprised by how quickly 20 years have passed,” says Sawyer. “It’s interesting that more things change, the more they remain the same. We are still fighting for many of the same things that we did almost 20 years ago.”