This weekend (March 24, 2012) marks the 25th anniversary of ACT UP — the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power — an international direct action advocacy group formed by a coalition of activists outraged over the government’s mismanagement of the AIDS crisis. We speak with ACT UP founding member Peter Staley, one of the longest AIDS survivors in the country; and David France, director of the new documentary "How to Survive a Plague," which tells a remarkable history of AIDS activism and how it changed the country. "I’m alive because of that activism," Staley says of the triple drug therapy he was able to take. "This was a major victory this movie tells about getting these therapies. But that was only the beginning of the battle. Now we have these treatments that can keep people alive, and there are still two to three million dying every year. There are more dying now than when we actually got the therapies to save people. So it’s a huge failure of leadership internationally. And it shows a failure of our own healthcare system." [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: This weekend, ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, celebrates its 25th anniversary. The international direct action advocacy group was formed by a coalition of activists outraged by the government’s mismanagement of the AIDS crisis. On March 24th, 1987, ACT UP staged its first major action: a "die-in" with hundreds of protesters convening on Wall Street to demand access to experimental drugs and an end to discrimination against HIV-positive people. While most protesters stayed behind police lines, some crossed the barricades and sat in the street to block traffic. In total, 17 members of ACT UP were arrested, charged with disorderly conduct, and later released. The protest was the first in a long line of demonstrations, speeches, die-ins, political funerals, and marches that helped propel the HIV/AIDS crisis into the national spotlight. Over the years, ACT UP played a vital role in securing legislation, medical research and treatments and policies.
Now, a new documentary about ACT UP and the history of the AIDS epidemic is screening Saturday in Manhattan. It’s called How to Survive a Plague. It chronicles the rise of AIDS activism though the lens of those who captured it firsthand. It tells the heart-wrenching yet deeply inspiring story of people organizing, marching, lobbying to curb a plague that vast swaths of society saw as just punishment for allegedly immoral acts. When the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, I spoke to its director, David France, and Peter Staley, one of the longest AIDS survivors in the country. In the mid-’80s, after being diagnosed, Staley left his job as a bond trader in New York to work as a full-time activist. In 1987, he helped found ACT UP. I began by asking director David France why he made How to Survive a Plague.
DAVID FRANCE: This is a story that I’ve known for a long time, and it seemed to me that the stories about AIDS have all been about the arrival of the virus and the way the virus impacted the community, and the devastation, really. But the truth about the epidemic, especially those darker days of the epidemic, is that there was a lot of amazing activity that took place, and the community really rallied and made a difference. And that part of the story about the plague had never been told. So, that’s what I wanted to go and try to see if I could wrap my hands around.
AMY GOODMAN: And it’s really a story about strategy and about activism in the face of death, so it was a life-and-death struggle. Peter, when were you diagnosed?
PETER STALEY: I found out shortly after Rock Hudson became a major news story, when he disclosed that he was dying of AIDS in the fall of 1985. And the country was in a complete panic that point. Parents were pulling their children out of school. There was a lot of fear. There were no drugs. There were no treatments. So it was a frightening time to find out.
AMY GOODMAN: And that’s when you were tested?
PETER STALEY: That’s when I was first tested. They had only isolated the virus about nine months before that, and they quickly developed an assay to test for it.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it fair to say you’re one of the longest surviving people with AIDS?
PETER STALEY: There are those that were infected earlier, even before we first started seeing those dying from AIDS. There were some infected in the late ’70s who are still with us today, thanks to the treatments that are out there. But not many got through the ’80s and ’90s, so I feel very lucky.
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about your journey of activism. You certainly didn’t start as an activist.
DAVID FRANCE: This is a story that I’ve known for a long time, and it seemed to me that the stories about AIDS have all been about the arrival of the virus and the way the virus impacted the community, and the devastation, really. But the truth about the epidemic, especially those darker days of the epidemic, is that there was a lot of amazing activity that took place, and the community really rallied and made a difference. And that part of the story about the plague had never been told. So, that’s what I wanted to go and try to see if I could wrap my hands around.
AMY GOODMAN: And it’s really a story about strategy and about activism in the face of death, so it was a life-and-death struggle. Peter, when were you diagnosed?
PETER STALEY: I found out shortly after Rock Hudson became a major news story, when he disclosed that he was dying of AIDS in the fall of 1985. And the country was in a complete panic that point. Parents were pulling their children out of school. There was a lot of fear. There were no drugs. There were no treatments. So it was a frightening time to find out.
AMY GOODMAN: And that’s when you were tested?
PETER STALEY: That’s when I was first tested. They had only isolated the virus about nine months before that, and they quickly developed an assay to test for it.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it fair to say you’re one of the longest surviving people with AIDS?
PETER STALEY: There are those that were infected earlier, even before we first started seeing those dying from AIDS. There were some infected in the late ’70s who are still with us today, thanks to the treatments that are out there. But not many got through the ’80s and ’90s, so I feel very lucky.
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about your journey of activism. You certainly didn’t start as an activist.
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