I was a kid when the AIDS crisis began and a teenager when it exploded into mainstream media. It had “left” the greater metropolises and moved closer to home.
When I was 15, I met a queer woman who was in her 30s. She wore a jean jacket with a black triangle and told me about ACT-UP, the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power. I was mesmerized.
ACT-UP polarized, enraged, moved, excited and helped people from all over. Good or bad, it is arguably one of the most prominent social activism movements to happen within the queer community since Stonewall.
After years of work, Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman have produced a visual document that tells the story of ACT-UP, in a film called “United in Anger: A History of ACT-UP.”
You can check out the trailer here: