Health is a Human Right
Race & Place in America

Silence Equals Death

ACT UP or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power was founded in 1987 at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York.  Both gay and straight persons came together to launch a new type of emboldened activism “united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis.”  ACT UP chapters quickly sprung up around the country.

The Silence = Death Project, color lithograph, 1987
ACT-UP, The AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power
ACT UP postcard mail campaign with an image of Dr. James Curran, Director of CDC’s HIV/AIDS Task Force, sent to Dr. Curran, 1991
Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

In December 1990, ACT UP took on CDC when it staged a protest outside of the agency’s headquarters. The key issue: expansion of the case definition of AIDS to include infections specific to women and others.  After the CDC protest in Atlanta, ACT UP relentlessly continued its actions, including sending 20,000 graphic postcards to Dr. James Curran, CDC’s HIV/AIDS Task Force Director.  In 1993, once the data supported the change, CDC did expand the case definition of AIDS to reflect the fuller spectrum of the disease. 

ACT-UP die-in in front of Grady Hospital, protesting the six-month waiting list of AIDS patients to beds at the hospital, Atlanta, Georgia, May 7, 1991
Georgia State University Library, Special Collections and Archives, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archives, AJCP178-017g
“What Happens to a Dream Deferred? AIDS and Children of Color,” ca. 1988
Courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Poster for the Department of Health and Human Services demonstration designed by ACT UP/DC Women’s Committee, 1990
Courtesy National Library of Medicine
The AIDS Memorial Quilt, spread out on the National Mall.
Courtesy of The NAMES Project Foundation.