Timeline

August 11, 1981

Larry Kramer Hosts First Meeting to Discuss Pandemic

Acclaimed writer and film producer Larry Kramer holds a meeting of over 80 gay men in his large New York City apartment at 2 Fifth Avenue. Learn More.

Invited speaker Dr. Friedman-Kien, a dermatologist alarmed about the spread of Kaposi's sarcoma among the gay male population of New York, explained that they were witnessing the arrival of a new disease with a mysterious predilection for gay men. "We listened intently, respectfully, and full of dread as the soft-spoken Dr. Friedman-Kien described the devastation he was seeing in his practice and hearing from other physicians treating gay men," wrote activist Andy Humm in 2021 for Plus magazine.  "You could have heard a pin drop." When Dr. Friedman-Kien asked attendees to contribute money to support his research, Kramer passed a hat around the room and attendees ponied up a total of $6,635.  This would be the only money raised -- public or private -- to fight the AIDS epidemic in 1981. "While there were many gay groups in those days, none of us stepped up to coordinate a community-wide response -- whether through a sense that health authorities would address it (ha!) as they did with Legionnaire’s Disease in 1976 or fear that a community that had just officially ditched the mental illness label in 1973 would now be linked with a deadly physical malady," Humm wrote in his Plus opinion piece .  "It took Larry Kramer ... to bring us together." Kramer's call to action and other early efforts to raise funds and awareness around the disease that would later be called HIV and AIDS led directly to the creation of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) Committee.  The committee would transition into a corporation in the summer of 1982, and become New York's primary service organization for HIV/AIDS. "The August 11, 1981 fundraiser at Kramer's apartment and the efforts of a handful of volunteers on Labor Day weekend 1981 were intended to raise money, but they succeeded mainly in raising discussion about Kaposi's sarcoma," according to David Román in his book Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture and AIDS. Kramer himself would emerge as an early leader of the effort to raise awareness about the new disease and solicit donations for the new Gay Men's Health Crisis.  And right away, he would be challenged by members of the gay community who accused him of causing unnecessary panic and villifying gay sex. Kramer's crusade would continue for decades. * * * * * Sources: How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France (2017, Vintage Press) Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture and AIDS by David Román (1998, Indiana University Press) "40 Years Ago: Meeting at Larry Kramer's House as a Pandemic Began" by Andy Humm, Plus magazine, August 11, 2021 Photo courtesy of Larry Kramer Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

December 10, 1981

Bobbi Campbell Starts Publishing 'Gay Cancer Journal'

Bobbi Campbell, a San Francisco nurse, becomes the first Kaposi’s sarcoma patient to go public -- and in print -- with his diagnosis. Learn More.

Campbell began publishing a series of articles about his KS diagnosis for the San Francisco Sentinel, the first titled “I Will Survive: Nurse’s Own ‘Gay Cancer’ Story.” Calling himself the “KS Poster Boy,” Campbell continued to share his experiences in the column “Gay Cancer Journal.”  His AIDS activism would go on to include being pictured in San Francisco’s first AIDS poster, organizing the first candlelight vigil to raise AIDS awareness, and eventually becoming one of the first openly gay men to appear on the cover of a major news magazine when he posed for Newsweek with his lover Bobby Hilliard. Starting with a case of shingles in February 1981, Campbell suffered from a series of unusual illnesses, including Leukopenia later that summer.  After a hike with his boyfriend in September 1981, he noticed KS lesions on his feet.  He was formally diagnosed as having KS by dermatologist Marcus Conant, M.D., in October 1981.  This would be Dr. Conant’s first diagnosis of a patient with what would become known as AIDS. After joining the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in early 1982, Campbell cowrote the first San Francisco safer sex manual, Play Fair!, using his nun persona, Sister Florence Nightmare RN.  The booklet was among the very first to use plain sex-positive language and humor to give practical advice.

In February 1982, Campbell and Dan Turner, who had just himself been diagnosed with KS, attended what would be the founding meeting of the KS/AIDS Foundation (which later became the San Francisco AIDS Foundation).  Campbell also became involved with the Shanti Project, which moved from its original focus of supporting people with terminal cancer, to providing emotional support to people diagnosed with AIDS. Campbell also helped start the People with AIDS Self-Empowerment Movement (PWA), arguing that people with AIDS should expect to participate actively in the response to the AIDS crisis. The PWA Movement rejected the term “AIDS victim.” With others, Campbell drafted the Denver Principles, the defining manifesto of the PWA Movement.  Inspired by the Lavender Menace radical feminists storming the National Organization for Women convention stage in 1970, Campbell and other activists decided to do something similar at the closing session of the Second National AIDS Forum. As each of the 11 men read out one of the 11 statements of Denver Principles, they did so with a banner stating "Fighting for Our Lives."  These words became the slogan of the PWA Movement. Campbell gave one of his last speeches at the National March for Lesbian and Gay Rights, occuring while the 1984 Democratic National Convention was in San Francisco.  Campbell told the crowd that he had hugged his boyfriend on the cover of Newsweek, and then kissed Hilliard on stage “to show Middle America that gay love is beautiful." In a powerful speech, Campbell denounced the Christian right for their practice of using scripture to justify their homophobia, and he slammed the Reagan administration for its lack of action.  He held 15 seconds of silence for “the 2,000 who had died of AIDS at that point and for those who will die before this is over.” Two weeks later, Campbell appeared on CBS Evening News in a live interview with Dan Rather.  While the rumors and fear of AIDS had reached the general public, the facts had not, so Campbell was placed in a glass booth, and technicians refused to come near him to wire up his microphone for the interview. Soon after his TV appearance, he was admitted to a hospital and placed on life support.  With Hillard and his parents by his side, Campbell died on August 15, 1984, exactly a month after his DNC speech.  He was 32 years old. * * * * * Sources: San Francisco Sentinel, "I Will Survive!" by Bobbi Campbell, R.N. Newsweek magazine, cover photo of Bobbi Campbell and Bobby Hilliard, August 8, 1983 The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Inc., "Sistory" Bobbi Campbell Speech, 1984 National March for Lesbian and Gay Rights (YouTube) CBS News Dan Rather Interview with Bobbi Campbell, June 12, 1982 (YouTube)

January 4, 1982

Gay Men's Health Crisis Opens in NYC

Gay Men’s Health Crisis becomes the first community-based AIDS service provider in the U.S. Learn More.

The informal meeting that Larry Kramer held in his NYC apartment in 1981 to address the "gay cancer" was credited with being the genesis of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC). Nathan Fain, Larry Kramer, Larry Mass, Paul Popham, Paul Rapoport, and Edmund White officially established GMHC in early 1982.  It began with creating simple lines of communication for the community and medical personnel:  an AIDS hotline, a newsletter, a space to meet, and the landmark Buddy program to assist PWAs (People with AIDS) with their day-to-day needs. Later in the same year, GMHC would open its first office on West 22nd Street in Manhattan. GMHC would become New York's leading AIDS service organization, serving approximately 10,000 people each year living with and affected by HIV/AIDS in the five boroughs of New York City.  GMHC would continuously provide HIV and STI testing, food and nutrition programs, housing support, workforce development, legal assistance, advocacy for benefits and health insurance, mental health and emotional support, substance use counseling, and more. Today, over 60% of GMHC clients are people of color, nearly 75% identify as LGBTQ+, and over 80% are people living at or below the Federal Poverty Line. * * * * * Sources: Gay Men's Health Crisis, "History" and "At A Glance"

April 8, 1982

GMHC Holds First Major AIDS Fundraiser, Others Follow

A fundraising event hosted by the newly formed organization Gay Men's Health Crisis draws over 2,000 attendees to the Paradise Garage in New York City and raises more than $30,000. Learn More.

"Showers: A Benefit to Aid Gay Men with Kaposi's Sarcoma and Other Gay Related Immunodeficiencies" was considered a major success as both a fundraiser for people in need and as a way to address the gay community about the health crisis. The mega-dance party featured live performances by Evelyn "Champagne" King, the Ritchie Family, and the New York City Gay Men's Chorus.  It also included a promise from GMHC President Paul Popham that his fledgling organization could be relied upon to be a clearinghouse for the latest information on the "medical emergency" facing the community. During his address to attendees, Popham announced that more than 150 people had already died of Kaposi's sarcoma and other immunodeficiency diseases, and "about that many more are very ill and may leave us, too." At the time, federal funding was not yet available for reserach or disseminating information about the new fatal illnesses slowly spreading among members of the gay community.  The GMHC was among the first organizations to begin soliciting donations from its own community to put into place research funding streams, compassionate care programs, and awareness/information campaigns. Not only did the event provide GMHC with seed money for its service programs, it also attracted "a flood of new volunteers," according to David France in his book How to Survive a Plague. "The multiple successes of the fundraiser dramatically shifted the AIDS consciousness of gay New Yorkers," wrote David Román in his book Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture and AIDS.  "It boosted the morale of a city under siege, and put into motion a series of smaller, more localized fundraisers throughout Manhattan." Among those fundraising events in 1982 were Maneuvers' "tea dance benefit" for the St. Mark's Clinic, a benefit performance by the cast of the Broadway show Dreamgirls, and various events at Don't Tell Mama. Meanwhile, the San Francisco community was busy planning its own large-scale fundraiser.  On June 13, 1982, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Hollywood star Shirley MacLaine hosted the Dog Show and Parade event, which benefitted the Kaposi's Sarcoma Clinic at the University of San Francisco Medical Center. In Chicago, performance benefits at venues like the Riverside Club and Park West helped to provide the funding needed to launch the Action AIDS program at the Howard Brown Memorial Clinic. While the federal government and the White House seemed to be stymied by this new disease spreading in the country's largest cities, local LGBTQ communities were spinging into action.  The age of the big-city AIDS benefit had begun. * * * * * * Sources: How to Survive a Plague by David France (Penguin Random House, 2017) Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture and AIDS by David Roman (Indiana University Presss, 1998)

May 1982

LA Activist Ivy Bottini Creates Informational Network

Lesbian feminist Ivy Bottini, upset by the AIDS-related death of her friend Ken Schnorr, starts asking questions of the medical community and founds the AIDS Informational Network in Los Angeles. Learn More.

Bottini called the CDC to ask about the black and blue bruises that covered Schnorr’s body.  The CDC refered Bottini to Dr. Michael Gottlieb at the University of California Los Angeles, who co-authored the CDC's first report on HIV/AIDS. Bottini and Dr. Gottlieb became friends and met every Friday at Crest Coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake to discuss AIDS.  Fueled with trustworthy information, Bottini formed what would become to be known as the AIDS Informational Network, an informal group of leaders who discussed the crisis. She organized a community town hall at Fiesta Hall in West Hollywood with Dr. Joel Weisman, Schnorr’s physician.  More than 300 gay men attended (Bottini and her friend Dottie Wine are the only women in the packed hall), and for years afterward, Bottini heard from men who claim that this event saved their life. * * * * * * Sources: The Liberation of Ivy Bottini by Judith V. Branzburg (Bink Books, 2018) Watermark, "Tribute to 'Give 'em Hell' Lesbian Feminist Pioneer Ivy Bottini" by Karen Ocamb, March 3, 2021

May 9, 1982

Genesis for San Francisco AIDS Foundation is Launched

Bay Area dermatologist Dr. Marcus Conant and gay activist Cleve Jones found the Kaposi’s Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation, which later becomes the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Learn More.

The foundation's goal was to provide information on Kaposi’s Sarcoma to local gay men.  Frank Jacobson, Richard Keller, Bob Ross, and Dr. Paul Volberding were also organization founders. In the first year, the organization existed in a very small office on Castro and 18th Street, seeing a limited number of clients and operating a single-telephone information and referral Hhotline. The organization was operated entirely by volunteers. It wasn’t long before the organization gained recognition locally and nationally as a trusted source of information.  As the epidemic grew, the organization expanded with funding from local and state sources and grassroots community fundraising. They were able to hire paid staff. In 1983, the organization split into national and local chapters, and in 1984 the local chapter renamed itself the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and officially separated its affiliation from the National Kaposi’s Sarcoma Research & Education Foundation. Still active today, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation continues to promote health, wellness, and social justice for communities most impacted by HIV, through sexual health and substance use services, advocacy, and community partnerships.  SFAF currently serves more than 25,000 a year. * * * * * * Source: San Francisco AIDS Foundation, "Our 40 Years of History: From 1982 to 2022"

June 27, 1982

Play Fair! First to Advocate for Safe Sex Practices

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence creates Play Fair! -- the first "safer sex" pamphlet to address the growing AIDS epidemic. Learn More.

The Sisters distributed 16,000 copies of Play Fair! during the San Francisco Gay & Lesbian parade in June 1982. Written by Sister Florence Nightmare and Sister Roz Erection, who outside the Order were known as registered nurses Bobbi Campbell and Baruch Golden, Play Fair! was among the first guides promoting safe sex and raising awareness around sexually transmitted diseases. The Sisters originated in 1979 with three gay men who wanted to combine radical politics, street theater, and high camp, according to Will Kohler.  Having obtained nuns' habits from a community theater production of The Sound of Music, these men (a.k.a., Sister Vicious Power Hungry Bitch, Sister Missionary Position, and Sister Roz Erection ) turned heads as they strolled Castro Street on Easter Sunday. By 1982, the Sisterhood had many members and promoted a lively campaign around sex-positivity through a combination of fundraising, community outreach and events.  With growing anxiety and concern around the spread of Kaposi's sarcoma and other immune disorders among gay men, it was inevitable that the Sisters would incorporate AIDS awareness into its mission. For over 40 years, the order of queer and trans nuns has been spreading its ministry across San Francisco, the U.S., and the world.  Each professed nun takes a religious name (usually irreverent and hilarious).  For example, cities, events and venues have been ministered to by Sisters Psychedelia, Hellen Wheels, Innocenta, Rhoda Kill, Lotti Da, and Hysterectoria. Although originally founded as an "Order of Gay Male Nuns," the group now includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, and transgendered men and women. Many of their rituals are influenced by Eastern religious practices and beliefs, as well as by Roman Catholicism. Their doctrine stresses universal joy and the expiation of guilt. Members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who have died are referred by the Sisters as "Nuns of the Above." * * * * * * Sources: The Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence, "Sistory" The Abbey of St Joan, "Play Fair" Back2Stonewall, "Gay History – April 15, 1979: San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Founded," April 16, 2022 The Culture Trip, "Meet the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, San Francisco’s Order of Queer Nuns" by Deanna Morgado, July 3, 2019 GLBTQ Archive, "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" by Robert Kellerman, 2002

July 1982

Activists Launch Hotline at Center in Los Angeles

After activists Nancy Cole Sawaya, Max Drew, Matt Redman, and Ervin Munro attend a community meeting featuring a speaker from the Kaposi Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation, they create a hotline to serve the panicked LA community. Learn More.

The emergency meeting with the representative from San Francisco was held at the LA Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center (now called the Los Angeles LGBT Center).  The four activists decided to set up the telephone hotline in the only space available to them: a closet at the Center. Sawaya, Drew, Redman and Munro, along with eight additional volunteers, would undergo training by Dr. Joel Weisman and then take turns answering the telephone and reading information from a carefully prepared fact sheet.  Word quickly got out about the hotline, which would start to receive more than 20 calls a day. In December 1982, the Los Angeles chapter of the Kaposi Sarcoma Foundation would host “Christmas Present,” a $25 event at a private home in Bel-Air to raise money for the hotline.  Music is provided by Mother Lode DJ Stewart Barkal, and refreshments are donated by local restaurants, coordinated by Truffles owner Steve Wilson. Sawaya, Drew, Redman and Munro would go on to found AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA), which would become the oldest and largest organization in Southern California providing educational and support services for people living with HIV/AIDS. * * * * * Sources: AIDS Project Los Angeles, "History"

October 1982

California AIDS Hotline is Launched in San Francisco

In a collaboration between the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) and the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the California AIDS Hotline begins taking calls in an effort to provide information and dispel rumors. Learn More.

Staffed by SFAF volunteers, the hotline quickly gained recognition locally and nationally as a trusted source of information.  The hotline operators received intensive training that included 16 hours of classroom sessions, practice calls, and resource-finding techniques. Training topics included immunology, virology, epidemiology, risk reduction, harm reduction theory, risk assessment, injection drug use, testing, information access, media reporting and theories, crisis and suicide calls, sex roles and power, role playing and practice calls, according to SFAF.  The training also instructed volunteers on communication skills and cultural competency. The hotline developed an "Encyclopedia" which was an accumulation of articles, brochures and memos arranged by subject.  Hotline workers would consult the Encyclopedia for the latest information on topics like oral sex, opportunistic infections, alternative treatments, community resources and AIDS research. In the first few years of the hotline's operation, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) was still known as Kaposi’s Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation, which was founded in April 1982 (the organization would rename itself SFAF in 1984). Mark Leger began volunteering at the AIDS Hotline in the mid-1980s, so he could stay updated on AIDS research, treatment, education and politics. "I do it because I think education is the best way to stop the spread of the disease," Leger told the San Francisco magazine Processed World in December 1986. Most people called the hotline to find out where they could get anonymously tested for HIV, according to Leger.  Questions around safer sex techniques and IV drug use were also common. "At my last shift, I fielded more than 20 calls during a three-hour shift. By the end, I felt like an overworked Bell operator, checking myself from being too snappy, not always succeeding," Leger said. "My life was a lot less busy when I started working at the hotline. I should stop. But I'm still answering calls."

January 7, 1983

APLA Elects Founding Board of Directors

AIDS Project Los Angeles elects its first board of directors, which include Dr. Michael Gottlieb and political organizer Peter Scott.  Dr. Joel Weisman and attorney Diane Abbitt serve as the organization's first co-chairs. Learn More.

APLA moves into a converted motel built in 1955, located at 937 Cole Street in Hollywood. * * * * * Sources: AIDS Project Los Angeles, "History"

February 8, 1983

Northwest AIDS Foundation Founded in Seattle

A group of Seattle-area health and business professionals launches the Northwest AIDS Foundation to help provide financial and educational resources to people impacted by AIDS. Learn More.

Under the leadership of Dr. Thomas Marsella, NWAF began raising money for public education programs for the Seattle area and setting up volunteer-run support services for persons with AIDS.  One of the first projects was the production and distribution of the AIDS awareness pamphlet "Can We Talk?" Also instrumental in the foundation’s early days was Dr. Robert Wood, a New York-born internist who moved to Seattle in 1975 to finish his medical training and remained to provide care for people living with AIDS.  Dr. Wood, who served as the foundation's second president, was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1985. He would go on to become King County's first AIDS control officer. In 1986, NWAF opened its first office in Pioneer Square at 619 Third Avenue, and hired a full-time executive director.  In the first year the office was open, a Seattle plumbing company refused to send plumbers to unclog the foundation’s sink, stating that the plumber would be in danger of contracting HIV. “What did they think they were going to do, have sex with the sink?” responded then-president Robert Rohan, according to historylink.tours. In 1987, NWAF held its first AIDS Walkathon fundraiser, which attracted more than 2,000 participants and raised about $335,000.  Speaking at the event was Congressman Mike Lowry, who criticized the Reagan administration for viewing AIDS as a moral issue. "It's not a moral issue, but the most important health issue in the history of the world," Rep. Lowry said. "Today we're going to vote with our feet to get the money the federal government should be providing. And we'll keep voting until we get the money." When HIV infections in the Seattle area spiked in 1990, NWAF launched a new public education campaign called "Keep It Up, Seattle!" to remind gay and bisexual men to adhere to safer sex practices.  In 1991, the foundation turned its focus to at-risk women with a series of skills-building workshops.  NWAF also began training businesses on how to humanely address HIV in the workplace. The 1991 AIDS Walk raised a record $1.5 million. The next year, the foundation expanded its outreach program, placing volunteers in bathhouses, public parks, bars, clubs, and other late-night venues. In 2001, the Northwest AIDS Foundation would merge with another Seattle AIDS service organization, the Chicken Soup Brigade, to form the Lifelong AIDS Alliance (now known simply as Lifelong). - - - - - - - Sources:   HistoryLink.org (an online encyclopedia of Washington state history) https://www.historylink.org/file/22555   HistoryLink.tours - https://historylink.tours/stop/northwest-aids-foundation/

February 11, 1983

MECLA Briefing on AIDS Delivers Troubling News

An AIDS briefing hosted by the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles (MECLA) draws hundreds of attendees eager for more information on the epidemic. Learn More.

Speakers include Rep. Henry Waxman, who tells attendees, "I believe that much of the lack of federal research on AIDS has arisen from discrimination intent and self-righteous neglect.” Held at the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel, the MECLA breakfast event also features presentations by Dr. Joel Weisman (APLA Co-Chair), Dr. Michael Roth of UCLA’s Department of Allergy and Immunology, Assemblymember Burt Margolin, and Mark Feldman, founder of the “Phooey on AIDS” emergency healthcare fund, according to a report from Pat Rocco. * * * * * * Source:

March 14, 1983

Larry Kramer Publishes '1,112 and Counting'

Readers of the New York Native take notice of "1,112 and Counting," AIDS activist Larry Kramer's urgent plea for the NY Gay Community to get angry at the lack of government support and scientific advances in the fight against AIDS. Learn More.

Published in the New York Native, Kramer provides a blistering assessment of the impact of AIDS on the gay community, the quickly rising numbers of sick and dying gay men and the slow pace of scientific progress in finding a cause for AIDS. Kramer's historic essay opens with: "If this article doesn't scare the shit out of you, we're in real trouble. If this article doesn't rouse you to anger, fury, rage, and action, gay men may have no future on this earth. Our continued existence depends on just how angry you can get." This essay was just the beginning for Kramer, in what would become a lifetime of activism and advocacy.  He would go on to write The Normal Heart, the first serious artistic examination of the AIDS crisis, and he would found ACT UP, a protest organization widely credited with having changed public health policy and the public's awareness of HIV and AIDS. "There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country. And he helped change it for the better. In American medicine there are two eras. Before Larry and after Larry," said Dr. Anthony Fauci. * * * * * * Sources: New Yorker Magazine, "Larry Kramer, Public Nuisance," by Michael Specter, May 5, 2002 The Bilerico Project on LGBTQ Nation, "Larry Kramer's Historic Essay: AIDS At 30," June 14, 2011

March 30, 1983

Frontiers Magazine Re-prints '1,112 and Counting' on Cover

Los Angeles publisher Bob Craig publishes activist Larry Kramer’s essay “1,112 and Counting" in Frontiers magazine.  Many of the gay bars where the free community magazine is distributed throw it out. Learn More.

First pubished in the March 14-27, 1983 edition of New York Native, Kramer's long, comprehensive essay expresses frustration, anger and despair.  A newcomer to the gay press, the bi-weekly news-magazine Frontiers gave the essay prominent placement on its cover. After listing the names of 20 friends who had died of the disease (“and one more, who will be dead by the time these words appear in print”), Kramer closed with a plea: “Volunteers Needed for Civil Disobedience.” By the end of 1983, 2,807 cases of (and 2,118 deaths from) HIV/AIDS had been reported in the U.S. * * * * * * Sources: Los Angeles Blade, "March 27, 1983: 1,112 and Counting" by Larry Kramer, May 27, 2020 LGBT History Archives, "AIDS: 1,112 and Counting ..." by Larry Kramer

April 30, 1983

Circus Event Collects $250,000 for AIDS Organization

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus holds a special one-night event to benefit the Gay Men's Health  Crisis, raising $250,000. Learn More.

Considered a political milestone for the HIV/AIDS community, the event drew about 18,000 attendees and was remarkable for the galvanizing effect it had on the  LGBTQ and expanding AIDS communities. Held at Madison Square Garden, the show featured Leonard Bernstein conducting the circus orchestra and opera diva Shirley Verrett singing The Star Spangled Banner. "Leonard Bernstein walking across the length of the Madison Square Garden in his white dinner jacket to conduct the circus orchestra in the national anthem, while 18,000 gay men and their friends and families cheered, was one of the most moving moments I have ever experienced," recalled activist and organizer Larry Kramer in his 1989 book Reports from the Holocaust. Proceeds raised by the event would go a long way to support programs at the Gay Men's Health  Crisis, which had already distributed 250,000 copies of its safe sex brochure and coordinated hundreds of volunteers providing household assistance and compassionate care to men stricken with AIDS. But the event was much more than a money generator, according to David Roman in his book Acts of Intervention. "Gathering over 17.000 supporters of AIDS consciousness and intervention in 1983, and at the circus no less, was and could only be a political landmark," writes Roman. About a month after attending the circus event, Andrew Holleran would write of his experience in an essay for The New York Native: "We sang the words of Francis Scott Key amidst the spotlights, in the great cavernous space filled with hearts dedicated to the same goal, and not a few moist eyes -- I felt two identities which are most often separated in time and place, merge: homosexual and American." * * * * * * Sources: Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist by Larry Kramer (St. Martin's Press, 1989) Acts of Intervention by David Roman (Indiana University Press, 1998)

May 2, 1983

Candlelight Vigils Held in San Francisco & NYC

The Kaposi's Sarcoma Foundation organizes the first AIDS Candlelight Vigils in New York and San Francisco, creating the first public demonstration with people living with AIDS and bringing global awareness to the epidemic. Learn More.

Photos of the event are circulated around the world, revealing for many the growing health crisis.  It is the first time that people with AIDS come together in a public demonstration. * * * * * * Sources: San Francisco AIDS Foundation, "SFAF History in Pictures" San Francisco Examiner, "Candlelight Memorial" by Carol Ness, May 13, 1998

May 3, 1983

5,000 Attend Candlelight March at Federal Building in Los Angeles

APLA sponsors a Candlelight March in Westwood attended by 5,000 people.  Activists from the Los Angeles area do their part to bring awareness about AIDS to the community and the nation. Learn More.

Tens of thousands of people also turn out in marches in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston.  In San Francisco, 10,000 activists walk for hours from the Castro to City Hall behind a banner reading “Fighting For Our Lives.” Organizers Bobbi Campbell, Bobby Reynolds, Dan Turner and Mark Feldman succeed in their goal of putting “a face on the disease.” * * * * * * Sources: APLA Health, "35 Years: A Collective Voice of Advocacy" The Body, "AIDS Project Los Angeles | Public Policy and Communication"

May 1983

Daniel P. Warner Launches LA Shanti, Promotes Death with Dignity

Daniel P. Warner co-founds the non-profit LA Shanti Foundation, the first organization in Southern California to provide direct services for people with AIDS that also promotes death with dignity. Learn More.

Located on La Brea Avenue, L.A. Shanti became a leader in quality volunteer-driven programs that provided information and emotional support using the Shanti model of compassionate presence. Warner served as the organization's first Executive Director. “I have committed myself to helping the fight against the misconceptions and prejudices, which can overwhelm a person with this infection, by working as a health educator for the city of West Hollywood,” Warner would write to the Los Angeles Times in 1988.

Warner, who was HIV-positive, would receive Shanti’s first Commitment to Service Award in 1991. The same year, he would receive Los Angeles County’s Community Service Award and a certificate of recognition from the state Senate.* * * * * * Source: Los Angeles Times, "Daniel P. Warner; AIDS Activist, Shanti Foundation Co-Founder," June 15, 1993

May 23, 1983

Ken Ramsauer - First Person with AIDS on TV - Memorialized in Central Park

Ken Ramsauer, a businessman who was featured in reporter Geraldo Rivera's investigative report for ABC's 20/20, dies of AIDS-related illness in New York City.  He was 29 years old. Learn More.

Ramsauer was a freelance lighting designer and hardware store manager who became the first person with AIDS to be the subject of a national television program when he was interviewed by Geraldo Rivera on 20/20. His final televised wish was that people might gather in Central Park to remember those who had died of AIDS.  The following month on June 13, more than 1,500 would gather in Central Park for  a candlelight vigil to commemorate Ramsauer and others who died of AIDS.  The event featured a eulogy by Rivera, a speech by New York Mayor Ed Koch, and a reading of the names of the 600 people known to have died from AIDS by that time. ''Kenny Ramsauer wanted the people of New York and of this country to learn about the disease,'' Rivera told the people gathered at the park's Naumberg Bandshell on that early summer evening. ''He wanted society to know the discrimination and negative publicity that has allowed this disease a mortal head start.'' The vigil was considered the first large gathering acknowledging the existence of the epidemic. David France, author of How to Survive a Plague, attended the vigil with a friend and later wrote: "The plaza was crowded with 1,500 mourners cupping candles against the darkening sky.  As our eyes landed on one young man after another, it became obvious that many of them were seriously ill.  A dozen men were in wheelchairs, so wasted they looked like caricatures of starvation.  I watched one young man twist in pain that wsa caused, apparently, by the barest gusts of wind around us." Frances goes on to write that 722 cases of AIDS were reported in New York at the time, but judging from the scene around him, the numbers were likely considerably higher. "We had found the plague," he wrote. * * * * * * * Sources: The New York Times, "1,500 Attend Central Park Memorial Service for AIDS Victim" by Lindsey Gruson, June 14, 1983 How to Survive a Plague by David France (MacMillan, 2017)

May 27, 1983

3,000 Marchers in LA Demand AIDS Research

A Candlelight March in Los Angeles brings 3,000 activists into the streets, reports the Los Angeles Times. Learn More.

The event’s organizer and emcee, Matt Redman of AIDS Project Los Angeles, told the crowd, “Let’s put the screws to the Reagan administration.” Redman blasted Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Edward Brandt for asserting that AIDS funding was adequate. “That’s bullshit!” he declared. As reported cases in Los Angeles County jump from 19 in April 1982 to 81 in May 1983, activists mobilize to demand more AIDS research. * * * * * * * Source: Tell Me David, "Candles in the Wind" by David Hunt, February 6, 2016

June 1983

'How to Have Sex in an Epidemic' Hits the Streets of NYC

Richard Berkowitz and Michael Callen publish How to Have Sex in an Empidemic: One Approach. Learn More.

Written by Berkowitz and Callen, both New Yorkers living with AIDS, the pamphlet was groundbreaking by being among the first to promote safer sex practices, offering pointed advice on condom use and promoting self-empowerment for those diagnosed with AIDS. As one of the first publications to recommend the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of STDs in men having sex with men, the pamphlet is considered one of the foundational publications in the advent of modern safe sex. Sex in an Epidemic was widely read by gay men living in New York City.  In the melee of all the confusion and desperation about AIDS, a comprehensive guide appeared to help gay men navigate the risk of developing the seemingly fatal syndrome while also enjoying a sex life. In 2017 -- 34 years later -- David France would write about Berkowitz and Callen's efforts to educate their community about AIDS in his book How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS. According to France's account, Sex in an Epidemic originally started as an article proposed by Berkowitz with medical guidance from his openly gay doctor, Joseph Sonnabend, M.D., that proposed a new "sexual ethic" for men who had sex with men. Berkowitz couldn't find a publication willing to publish the article, largely due to his reputation of being "sex-negative," which he and Callen unfairly acquired after they wrote an article about "the consequences of sexual overconsumption" for the gay publication the New York Native. "Deep down, we know who we are and why we are sick," they wrote for the November 8, 1982 edition of the Native.  After publication, the article drew a torrent of angry criticism from readers of the Native, as well as from gay periodicals across North America, including the Toronto newspaper Body Politic, which accused Berkowitz and Callen of creating unnecessary panic in the community. Even so, Berkowitz, who was open about his history as a sex worker, was more determined than ever to find ways to save lives.  In the new writing project, he decided to take a different approach than the one he and Callen put forth in their Native article. This time, Berkowitz was focused on a sex-positive message.  He wanted to share information about the kinds of intimacy gay men could engage in safely, rather than what gay men shouldn't do.  When gay publications rejected the article Berkowitz proposed, Dr. Sonnabend recommended that they format the information as a pamphlet "in the model of left-wing and feminist political tracts," according to France. At that point, Callen got involved in the project.  He and Berkowtiz would meet to work on Sex in an Epidemic at Dr. Sonnabend's office or at Callen's loft in Tribeca.  Callen's partner, Richard Dworkin, also assisted in assembling the editorial content.  Their process involved revisiting the painful mistakes of their approach to their Native article and applying lessons learned from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals and other guides to influencing people. "Their self-assigned mission was outsized, almost radical," wrote France.  "In order for safe sex to staunch an epidemic, it had to be embraced by the entire community of gay men -- a fundamental and universal change in behavior ... This was how they invented what they called 'safe sex.'" Callen and Berkowitz took care to ensure all their advice was sex-positive and affirming.  They used frank and playful language in their risk assessment of various acts of sexual intimacy.  And, in a groundbreaking move, they promoted the use of condoms -- something that very few gay men used at the time -- as a way to avoid the AIDS virus as well as other sexually transmitted diseases.  They even included a passage on love. "Men loving men was the basis of gay male liberation," they wrote, "but we have now created 'cultural institutions' in which love and even affection can be totally avoided." They went on to advise that if readers love the subjects of their sexual intimacy -- even those of the briefest of liaisons -- then they will not want to make them sick. The initial 5,000-copy printing of the 46-page Sex in an Epidemic cost about $1,000, donated by Callen and other patients of Dr. Sonnabend.  Berkowitz, Callen and Sonnabend distributed copies throughout New York City, primarily in shops and bars frequented by gay men. Within weeks, the post-office box they included in the pamphlet began to receive letters.  They expected a response similar to the Native article, hate mail with accusations branding them traitors to the gay liberation movement.  But they were surprised to instead receive letters of appreciation for the work they produced and with requests to send copies to various locations around the U.S.  They immediately printed more copies to meet the demand that grew each week. Then, on August 18, Jonathan Leiberson reviewed Sex in an Epidemic for the New York Review of Books.  Soon afterward, Sex in an Epidemic received attention from the Greenwich Village bookstore B. Dalton, which had created a window display around the 46-page guide. Word was getting out.  Best of all, gay men began to use condoms. "One night on Christopher Street, I watched a team of lesbians on a flatbed truck lovingly hurl the things into the air like rose petals over the heads of their gay brothers," wrote France in How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS. Condom manufacturers responded to the consumer demand in the largely gay communities by developing new products in a range of sizes, textures and colors that appealed to the market.  Transmission rates for all sexually transmitted diseases began to slow as a result. * * * * * * Sources: POZ magazine, "How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: 30th Anniversary" by Joseph Sonnabend, M.D., May 17, 2013 www.RichardBerkowitz.com, "How to Have Sex in an Epidemic" (full text) New York Review of Books, "Anatomy of an Epidemic" by Jonathan Lieberson, August 18, 1983

June 12, 1983

Denver Principles Adopted after AIDS Forum Take-over

The Denver Principles are adopted after 11 gay men living with AIDS crash the stage at the National AIDS Forum and demand attention. Learn More.

At the National AIDS Forum in Denver, about 400 gay and lesbian healthcare workers had gathered to share information about the new disease creeping across various populations in the U.S.  Also in attendance were AIDS activists from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Kansas City and Denver. It was the first time activists from different U.S. cities convened in one place for the first time for the purpose of taking action.  They found they had significant differences in their approaches to the AIDS crisis.  In particular, the contingents from New York, led by Michael Callen, and San Francisco, led by Bobbi Campbell, dominated the discussion between the activists, lobbying for their different agendas. "The West Coast cadre saw the epidemic in starkly political terms," wrote France in his book How to Survive a Plague. "They rejected the phrases 'AIDS patient' and 'AIDS victim' as being reductive." In comparison, the NYC contingent was focused on the theory that widespread auto-immune disorders in the gay population had been caused by promiscuity and sexually transmitted disease.  They were more concerned about getting this message out to the community and less concerned about how people outside the community viewed them. The one area they could all agree on, according to France, was that "it was time for the sick to assert themselves." Led by Campbell, the activists crafted a statement on the rights of people living with AIDS which included the demands to be at the table when policy is made, to be treated with dignity, and to be called “people with AIDS,” and not “AIDS victims.” After making copies of their statement, they attended the closing session of the conference and eleven of them siezed the stage, unfurling a banner that read Fighting for Our Lives. "One by one, each of the eleven men declaimed one of the eleven points until the whote list of recommendations and responsibilities had been publicly uttered for the first time," wrote France in How to Survive a Plague.  "The last line was Callen's to deliver.  Looking from the dias, he saw that there wasn't a dry eye in the house.  For many of the assembled delegates, representing parts of the country not yet touched by AIDS, seeing those doomed young men in that line was devastating." The statement became known as The Denver Principles, and it serves as the charter for the founding of the National Association of People with AIDS. * * * * * * Sources: UN AIDS, "The Denver Principles" (1983) How to Survive a Plague by David France (Penguin Random House, 2017)

June 14, 1983

First Legal Services Provider for PWAs Launched

The AIDS Legal Referral Panel of San Francisco becomes the first legal services provider in the nation dedicated to meeting the needs of people with HIV/AIDS. Learn More.

The AIDS Legal Referral Panel was founded in 1983 by attorneys Frederick Hertz, Steven Richter, Mark Senick, and Gary James Wood.  It was originally a committee of the LGBT organization Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF), but its founders recognized the group's potential as a stand-alone non-profit organization. Concerned that gay men in the Bay Area were near death from complications of AIDS, Hertz, Richter, Senick and Wood sought to create a legal resource that included the creation of wills and setting of durable powers of attorney.  Drafting legal documents such as these allowed individuals to die with dignity and fulfill their wishes about healthcare and disposition of assets. The four began by publicizing a phone number where people with AIDS could call to receive legal help and by recruiting other attorneys to join them.  Soon, the legal community was leveraging its skills and resources through ALRP to respond to the AIDS crisis by providing those dying with AIDS the right to die with peace of mind. As Hertz recounts, “[Preparing emergency wills] was wrenching.  But if people asked me how I kept my sanity, it was through using my legal skills in a way that really helped people.  I was doing something productive and meaningful and focused my grief on making a difference in people’s lives.” Four founders and ten original Panel members sustained the organization for several years without any other infrastructure.  First led by BALIF co-chair Steve Richter with a list of telephone numbers, then by Gary James Wood when Richter developed AIDS in 1983, the organization operated solely as a volunteer-staffed organization until 1986, at which time ALRP hired attorney Clint Hockenberry. With Hockenberry at the helm, ALRP grew from a grassroots community of concerned attorneys to an established lawyer referral service. Fundraising efforts excelled and extensive recruitment, training, and supervision of ALRP’s pro bono attorneys began. ALRP also partnered with the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Volunteer Legal Services Program, which increased the legitimacy and visibility of the organization. Hockenberry expanded outreach to better serve people of color, children, women, injection drug users, non-native English speakers, and the homeless. During his tenure, ALRP hosted the first national AIDS Law Conference and published the first AIDS Law Manual, extended outreach to other counties, garnered Ryan White CARE Act funds, and founded ALRP’s Public Policy Project. ALRP became an independent organization in 1990, separate from BALIF, with a formal Board of Directors. In March 1992, Clint Hockenberry passed away from AIDS, but under his leadership ALRP had grown from an organization that formed in reaction to a crisis to an agency creatively and proactively responding to and anticipating the ever-changing needs of the HIV/AIDS community. As those with HIV/AIDS began living longer, Kristin Chambers, ALRP’s second Executive Director, and her successor, Irwin Keller, continued Hockenberry’s model of dynamic client services. Under Chambers’ and Keller’s tenures, the 1990s saw an expansion of services and public policy efforts and an improved client referral system that better served the legal needs of the HIV/AIDS community. Full-time housing attorneys were hired when rising real estate prices left many in the HIV/AIDS community confronting homelessness. In addition, “Working in the Cycle of HIV,” an educational manual published in conjunction with AIDS Benefits Counselors (now Positive Resource Center) and the Employment Law Center, was created to respond to the large numbers of people with HIV/AIDS who wanted to return to the workplace after experiencing positive outcomes from new treatments. On the public policy front, ALRP advocated for national health care reform, continued and improved HIV privacy and confidentiality protections, and Social Security reform to provide expanded, fair, and adequate access to benefits. By 2000, when Bill Hirsh became ALRP’s fourth Executive Director, ALRP had grown from solely serving patients at San Francisco General Hospital to serving clients in seven Bay Area counties. From preparing emergency wills and powers of attorney, ALRP now provided legal assistance to clients in all areas of civil law. Instead of a simple lawyer referral service, ALRP was now an organization that provided both direct legal representation and personalized attorney/client referrals. ALRP is the first organized legal outreach effort for those with HIV/AIDS in the United States, and many original Panelists from 1983 remain active in the organization to this day. Initially formed to draft emergency wills and other necessary documents for terminally ill clients, ALRP has shifted its focus to issues illustrative of the fact that those with HIV/AIDS are living longer lives than ever before and facing more complex legal needs. What started in 1983 as a small circle of attorney friends has grown to a full-time staff of fifteen and a Panel of over 700 volunteer attorneys donating over $1 million each year in pro bono legal services. Since its inception, ALRP has handled over 76,000 legal matters for people living with HIV/AIDS. * * * * * * Sources: AIDS Legal Referral Panel, "ALRP Milestones" and "History" University of California Libraries, "AIDS Legal Referral Panel Records" Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom

June 1983

Genesis of AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin is Launched

The Brady East STD Clinic responds to the emergence of HIV in other states by re-focusing its services and education programs around HIV and AIDS. Learn More.

Some of the volunteers at the Brady East STD Clinic (BESTD Clinic) formed the Milwaukee AIDS Project (MAP) as a committee of the clinic and began preparing for the inevitable spread of HIV to the city. When in 1985 concerns about the new disease were growing, BESTD Clinic President Nova Clite, MAP Director Sue Dietz, local business leader Marc Haupert, and community leader Don Schwamb decided to form a new organization, to be spun off from BESTD.  The new organization was the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW), and Sue Dietz became its Executive Director. ARCW's first home was an old residence near what was then St. Anthony Hospital, and later moved to a location at 315 W. Court St., just west of the old Schlitz Brewery complex (the same building that would years later house the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center). During the early years of the epidemic, one of the most pressing needs was housing.  One of the first major fundraisers was for the rent and renovation of a house in the Sherman Park neighborhood, near Sherman and Hadley, to provide a residence for people with AIDS who had no other place to live. In 1993, ARCW would merge with an AIDS service organization located in the northern city of Eau Claire, which helped to establish a statewide presence.   In 1996, ARCW would also merge with the Center Project in Green Bay and Appleton, Wisconsin.  By 2007, ARCW would become the largest provider of medical care to people with HIV in Wisconsin.

The first AIDS case in Wisconsin was reported in 1983, and the number of cases reached 100 in 1986.  By 1991, the number of cases exceeded 1,000.  In 1995, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Wisconsin would peak with the cumulative number of HIV cases exceeding 3,000 and cumulative deaths exceeding 2,000.

Thanks largely to the quick response of BESTD Clinic volunteers, along with the state's largely rural populations, the spread of HIV was more effectively controlled in Wisconsin than in most states. Sources:   BESTD Sexual Health Clinic History of Gay and Lesbian Life in Wisconsin, ARCW - AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin

June 23, 1983

Stars Align for KS Benefit in San Francisco

Movie actresses Debbie Reynolds and Shirley MacLaine head the lineup for the annual benefit for the Kaposi Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation, founded by Cleve Jones, Marcus Conant, Frank Jacobson, and Richard Keller. Learn More.

"An evening with Debbie Reynolds and Friends" was the largest and most successful of the early San Francisco fundraisers, according to David Roman, author of Acts of Intervention.  The event raised $43,000 for the newly formed Kaposi Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation. In his book And The Band Played On about the early years of the AIDS crisis, Randy Shilts would write: “The fundraiser for the National KS/AIDS foundation had all the raciness of a true San Francisco event. When host Debbie Reynolds introduced the surprise guest -- actress Shirley MacLaine -- with the comment that MacLaine had great legs, MacLaine responded by pulling down the top of her long strapless gown, demonstrating that she had other equipment to match. The crowd cheered enthusiastically: 'We love you, Shirley!'  Not to be outdone, Reynolds lifted the rear of her slitted gown to reveal her brief black underwear." Reynolds would go on to appear in another benefit for the organization at the Hollywood Bowl. "Reynolds was known to always be available, without perks, to lend her name and talent to fighting the AIDS epidemic," writes journalist Karen Ocamb.  "And her fondness for the gays never disappeared either, landing the role as Kevin Kline’s mother in the satirical 1997 film In & Out, and playing her Emmy-nominated role as Deborah Messing’s eccentric mother in NBC’s Will & Grace.” Reynolds' last role would be Liberace’s mother in the 2013 HBO movie Behind the Candelabra. In 1984, Kaposi Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation would be renam, ed the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. * * * * * * Sources: Acts of Intervention by David Roman (Indiana University Press, 1998) And The Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts (MacMillan, 1987) The Pride LA, "Debbie Reynolds, Early Hollywood AIDS Activist" by Karen Ocamb, December 29, 2016

June 1983

Mark Feldman of 'Phooey on AIDS Fund' Dies

Mark Feldman, a board member of the synagogue Congregation Sha’ar Zahav who founded the "Phooey on AIDS" emergency fund, dies of AIDS-related illness at the age of 31. Learn More.

An emerging leader in the Bay Area Jewish and gay communities, Feldman was director of admissions at New College and co-director of publicity for Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, a largely gay and lesbian San Francisco synagogue. After he was diagnosed with AIDS and learned of others in the community who were also ill, Feldman asked the congregation’s Bikkur Cholim (outreach to the ill) Committee to start a “Phooey on AIDS” fund to support the financial needs of members and the community. This fund made annual gifts to the organizations providing direct care including Shanti, Project Open Hand, the San Francisco General Hospital Ward 86, and the Food Bank of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, according to Paul Cohen in My Jewish Learning. After gay men were prohibited from donating blood, the women of Sha’ar Zahav organized a blood drive.  Feldman gave every woman who donated blood a rose in appreciation, according to Rabbi Leslie Bergson. Feldman was the first Sha’ar Zahav congregant to die of AIDS. "Sadly, he was not the last," writes Dan Pine in The Jewish News of Northern California.  "The names of nearly 80 other congregants felled by the virus adorn the synagogue’s memorial wall today." During the first years of the AIDS epidemic, Rabbi Allen Bennett served as Sha’ar Zahav’s spiritual leader. “You were on call 24/7,” Rabbi Bennett told The Jewish News of Northern California  “There was no easing up. Every day there were more casualties and, as things progressed, more fatalities. Until things started to taper off, I and an awful lot of my friends were losing, on average, a friend or acquaintance once a week for probably five years.” “I remember the devastation of hearing the names on the Kaddish list of young people,” says Rabbi Eric Weiss, a Sha’ar Zahav member and executive director of the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center (the Institute on Aging). “During the service, everyone stands, links arms and sings ‘Hinei Mah Tov.’ I remember the utter sadness when there were people we couldn’t put our arms around anymore.” * * * * * * Sources: Photo of quilt panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt The Jewish News of Northern California, "How AIDS Battered One SF Synagogue" by Dan Pine, June 9, 2006 My Jewish Learning, "Remembering on World AIDS Day" by Paul Cohen, December 1, 2015. Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, "40th Anniversary Shabbat," drash by Rabbi Leslie Bergson, February 23, 2018

June 1983

Employer Puts AIDS Activist on Medical Leave Without Pay

Employed as a legal clerk, Michael Callen found himself put on medical leave without pay when his employer, a law firm, learned he was diagnosed with AIDS. Learn More.

Callen, who earlier that month was open about his condition in a New York magazine article, was not even allowed to return to his desk at work to collect his personal belongings. "Too many of his colleagues had expressed fear about working with him," wrote David France in his book How to Survive a Plague. * * * * * * Source:

August 28, 1983

Debbie Reynolds & Rip Taylor Perform at AIDS Benefit at Hollywood Bowl

Film star Debbie Reynolds appears with comic performer Rip Taylor at the first public AIDS benefit in Los Angeles, which takes place at the Hollywood Bowl. Learn More.

The benefit for the Kaposi Sarcoma Foundation is technically the "second annual" fundraiser in Los Angeles, but it is the first to be held in a public venue. As the featured star of the event, Reynolds is already an arden AIDS activist -- long before Elizabeth Taylor becomes an advocate, journalist Karen Ocamb writes in The Pride LA. Along with comedian Joan Rivers, singer-actress Rita Moreno, and actor Robert Guillaume, Reynolds is among the first Hollywood celebrities to appear in AIDS fundraisers at a time when HIV/AIDS is still a topic shunned by many. * * * * * * Source:

September 1983

Health Crisis Network Opens in Miami

Health Crisis Network (HCN) is formed to provide a response to the Miami area's HIV/AIDS epidemic. Learn More.

A group of volunteers created HCN to provide an organized response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, according to the Greater Fort Lauderdale LGBT Chamber of Commerce.  HCN created the first programs in South Florida for HIV/AIDS crisis intervention, social support and education. In 1998, HCN would merge with another HIV/AIDS service provider, Community Research Initiative, which was founded in 1989.  The new organization would be called Care Resource, and is considered South Florida's oldest and largest HIV/AIDS service organization.

October 1983

Nationwide Vigil Draws Attention to Federal Inaction

At the first National AIDS Vigil in Washington, D.C., speaker Bobbi Campbell urges President Ronald Reagan to appoint a federal task force on AIDS that includes people living with AIDS and start addressing the "national health emergency.” Learn More.

"Let no one call us victims. We are citizens and some of us are dying," Bobbi Campbell, 31, spoke to the crowd, who numbered about 1,500.  Campbell told The Washington Post that he has not worked since physicians told him two years ago that he had AIDS. "We need the government to recognize our legitimate rights to exist," Campbell told the crowd. "We are dying to be free." The demonstration, which was organized with support of the National AIDS Vigil Commission, ended with a candlelight rally around the reflecting pool at the foot of Capitol Hill.  Organizers said the march and vigil were "in memory of the approximately 1,000 people who have died of AIDS and the 1,500 who now have the disease." The commission that sponsored the event included Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.), D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, and San Francisco Mayor Diane Feinstein. The next day, the Associated Press would report that memorial marches and services were held in cities across America, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Tampa and Denver. "Thousands of homosexuals, their families and friends joined candlelight parades for whom they said were cast aside by an insensitive public scared of catching the deadly disease," the AP would report. * * * * * * Source:

October 13, 1983

3-year-old Sammy Kushnick Dies in Los Angeles

Samuel Jared Kushnick becomes the fourth premature baby in an eight-month period to die of AIDS-related illness in Los Angeles. He was 3 years old. Learn More.

The infant, called "Sammy" by his family members, contracted the virus through a blood transfusion he received as a premature baby. His parents, Helen and Jerry Kushnick, who ran an entertainment agency in West Hollywood, would become AIDS activists and found the Samuel Jared Kushnick Pediatric Immunology Research Center at Chaim-Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, Israel, according to the Los Angeles Times. As the parents of one of the first babies living with AIDS, the Kushnicks had to navigate a difficult and treacherous path, first in the struggle to find treatment for Sammy and ultimately in the effort to give him a proper burial. When officials at the mortuary learned Sammy had died of AIDS, they refused to dress the infant for burial, Helen Kushnick told the LA Times.  Later, the Kushnicks were hit with $94,000 in medical bills, which their insurance company refused to cover (the Kushnicks would fight and win in court). From the start, the Kishnicks decided to go public with their story. "It was clear to us then that AIDS was not a homosexual disease, but a virus," Helen Kushnick told the LA Times.  "That mislabeling caused years of apathy on the part of the government and the public in the struggle against this deadly killer. We were killing in the name of morality.” Kushnick, who said she received calls from mothers around the country who had babies with AIDS, was convinced that other infants received transfusions, perhaps from AIDS-infected donors, without knowing it. Sammy was not diagnosed correctly until two months before his death.  The Kushnicks said they had never been told that their son had received 20 blood donations from 13 individuals during his first seven weeks of his life.

Helen Kushnick would go on to testify before Congress, advocating for the reform of policies and procedures governing the nation's blood supply.

November 14, 1983

Stephen Lamb, Profiled in New York Times, Dies

Stephen Lamb, a man living with AIDS who was profiled in a widely-read New York Times article, dies of AIDS-related illness at New York University Medical Center.  He was 40. Learn More.

In a NYT article published in the December 5 issue on Page 1 of Section B, celebrated reporter Maureen Dowd chronicled Lamb's final months. Lamb, his body overwhelmed with cryptococcal meningitis, tuberculosis of the bone marrow, and an intestinal infection, had until recently lived on the upper east side of Manhattan and worked as a travel consultant. One of the few visitors at Lamb's hospital bed was William Carroll, a volunteer from the Gay Men's Health Crisis who two months before had been assigned to be Lamb's "buddy."  According to the NYT article, Lamb and Carroll found that they shared a love of literature, and in Lamb's final weeks, Carroll often read to him from books of poetry by John Keats and Andrew Marvell. "Bill and I have grown to like each other," Lamb told the reporter four days before he died.  "I just needed some companionship." Lamb's death was the 514th AIDS-related fatality recorded by the City of New York.  At the time, the Gay Men's Health Crisis had provided services to 420 people with AIDS, and was facing a surge in their caseload, according to Dowd's article. The organization had been receiving about 50 new cases every month, but in November, they noticed a dramatic increase in the number of people with AIDS (PWAs) who needed help.  Some were gay men, but there were also intravenous drug users who were heterosexual as well as people who had received tainted blood transfusions. The GMHC was running 20 therapy groups, organizing its volunteer-run "buddy" program, and operating a 24-hour hotline which received an average of 1,200 calls every week, according to the article. The organization's volunteers, which then numbered about 200, did whatever was needed, from taking orange juice to homebound PWAs to serving as intermediaries with the city's social-service agencies. "They clean apartments, do laundry, make dinner, pick up prescriptions, mail rent checks, walk dogs, take their patients to doctor's appointments, and simply keep them company," Dowd reported. Many of the volunteers, she wrote, had horror stories about the terrible treatment of PWAs. "They tell of government clerks who neglect AIDS cases, because they are afraid to be in the same room to fill out forms. They tell of nurses and orderlies in hospitals who are so loath to enter the rooms of AIDS patients that they let the food trays pile up outside the door, leave trash baskets overflowing, or neglect patients lying in their own urine or excrement," wrote Dowd.

One volunteer, Diego Lopez, told the reporter that he went to visit a dying patient in the hospital, and discovered him with blood seeping from his nose and mouth. When he asked a doctor to help the patient, the doctor handed him some gauze and told him to take care of it himself.

"I was shocked, but I did it," Lopez said.  "Afterward, I looked at my hands and there was blood all over them. I realized I had to start being more careful. But when you see a person dying, you don't think about finding some gloves to wear."

Dowd closed her article with a conversation she had with Larry Kramer, co-founder of Gay Men's Health Crisis.  Kramer told Dowd of how the AIDS crisis had deeply affected him.  Already, 37 of his friends in New York were dead from the disease.

"I heard about Vinny on Saturday," Kramer said. "Ron is a Black actor I know. Paul, a pianist. Gayle went to Yale with me. Ron Doud, the designer of Studio 54. Mark, I was involved with a long time ago. Peter, an architect."

"Can't something be done?" he asked, clenching a small green notebook he used to record the names of his dead friends. "The rest of the city, my straight friends, go on with life as usual -- and I'm in the middle of an epidemic."

December 1983

Activist Morris Kight Starts Aid for AIDS in Los Angeles

Gay activist Morris Kight and a small group of friends create Aid for AIDS  to help those devastated by AIDS who have been evicted, fired or unable to pay for food, rent or  utility bills. Learn More.

As AFA's Director in the early years, Knight set ambitious goals, ensuring assistance was allocated to those who needed it most. In the 1980s, most people who developed full-blown AIDS would die within a short time, and AFA prioritized the need for people to die with dignity in their own homes.  In the coming years, AFA would go on to help more than 16,000 men, women, and children.

April 8, 1984

Chicken Soup Brigade Starts Caring for PWAs in Seattle

Tim Burak, an employee of the Seattle-King County Health Department, founds the Chicken Soup Brigade to help people living with AIDS. Learn More.

Brigade members transported people with AIDS to doctor appointments, brought meals, cleaned apartments, helped care for pets, and provided companionship.  Burak and his friend Josh Joshua received referrals from physicians, clinics, and patients, and were assisted by volunteers Tom Speer and Will Jones. In early 1987, Carol Sterling joined the Brigade as its first paid staff member, and quickly grew the organization's volunteer pool to 80 people and its budget to $35,000.  AIDS cases were growing rapidly in the Seattle metro area, and CSB expanded to meet the need in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A self-described "loud-mouthed lesbian," Sterling continued to bring in new volunteers, nearly 50% of them women.  According to Washingtonian Nick Rousso of historylink.org, AIDS had claimed 727 lives in King County by 1990, and thousands more were living with HIV. Eventually, AIDS would claim more than 8,000 lives in Washington state.. In 2001, the CSB would merge with another AIDS service organization, the Northwest AIDS Foundation, to form the Lifelong AIDS Alliance (now known simply as Lifelong). - - - - - - - Source:  HistoryLink.org (an online encyclopedia of Washington state history) https://www.historylink.org/file/22555

May 1984

CAL-PEP Founded to Provide HIV/AIDS Services for Bay Area Sex Workers

Gloria Lockett founds California Prostitutes Education Project (Cal-PEP) and begins pioneering HIV/AIDS prevention strategies and testing outreach for sex workers in the San Francisco Bay area. Learn More.

As a Black woman who had been supporting her family as a sex worker for more than 10 years, Lockett was uniquely experienced and positioned to create an effective program that sex workers would respond to.  She was motivated by her awareness of how the public commonly scapegoated gay men for transmitting HIV and the fear that the next group to be villified would be sex workers. Without shame or evasion, Lockett announced that her organization would focus “on prostitutes and their sexual partners including transgender individuals” — making it one of the first organizations in the country to provide HIV education, prevention and street outreach. Housed in a tiny office in Oakland, Cal-PEP survived its first year with a $30,000 state health department grant.  With these funds, Lockett developed HIV education materials feedback on the new AIDS crisis appropriate for sex workers with input from community members.  As she conducted outreach, she collected data while protecting the privacy of her clients and used the data to receive additional funding from the city and state. Under Lockett's leadership, Cal-PEP would go onto provide health education, disease prevention, risk reduction, treatment, and support services to people at high risk for or currently living with HIV/AIDS — using cultural relevance, humility and grace as her guiding principles.  The organization would grow to reach clients in East and West Oakland, and other communities throughout Alamedia and San Francisco counties. Over the years, Cal-PEP would grow to a team of 20, and the organization’s annyal budget would increase to $2.2 million.  The organization’s mission would expland as follows: “To provide tailored health education, disease prevention, risk reduction and support services to people at highest risk for HIV/AIDS in a language that they understand.” After 35 years as CAL-PEP’s executive director, Lockett would retire in 2019.  On the occasion of her retirement, POZ magazine recognized Lockett's achievements. "What if Lockett had not decided in 1984 to respond as she did?" AIDS United asked POZ readers. "Of the Cal-PEP recipients now, 20% are sex workers, 83% are African American, 8% are Latinx and 1% are Asian -Pacific Islander.  For 35 years, they have known that Cal-PEP speaks their languages and can help them. Some people inspire us by living for their cause."

June 4, 1984

Early AIDS Activist Tony Ferrara Dies

Anthony "Tony" Ferrara, who came forward with two other Persons With AIDS in 1983 to testify before Congress at a special hearing, dies at the National Institutes for Health in Bethesda at the age of 30. Learn More.

Ferrara twice testified before Congress to urge the federal government to increase funding for AIDS research and social services for people with AIDS. The focus of Ferrara's activism was often targeted at the critical need for financial support for those needing medical treatment. "I think part of the problem is the drugs involved are so extremely expensive, the experimental drugs," Ferrara told Congress in 1983.  "If any of them work, what my fear is is that, one, it is going to be too expensive to be widely disseminated, and two, the experimental status of the drugs may cause insurance companies to avoid paying for them." He returned to testify again before a Congressional hearing on AIDS in April 1984, just several weeks before he died.  And again, he stressed the need for the government to make healthcare and medication affordable. "I implore you to remember the needs of these people beyond adequate funds for research," Ferrara said.  "Unless you have looked into the tortured face of a person with AIDS and seen the terror, not only at the thought of dying, but at the thought of being tossed out of their home because they haven't the money to pay their rent, or of having their phone service, electricity, or heat terminated because they cannot work ... you cannot fully appreciate the tremendous need that exists with regard to this aspect of the disease." Ferrara was being treated by the NIH and volunteered to be the first person to undergo massive doses of Alpha Interferon as part of his treatment, according to his partner Michael Farrell. So dedicated was he to help the NIH in its research into AIDS treatment, Ferrara also underwent a month-long experimental protocol of plasmapheresis, an exchange of blood plasma that takes five hours per session, and was one of the first recipients  of Gamma Interferon and natural Interluken II. Ferrara's memorial mass was held at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church on Capitol Hill, where hundreds gathered to mourn and pay their respects.

August 15, 1984

Early AIDS/KS Activist Bobbi Campbell Dies

AIDS activist Bobbi Campbell dies of AIDS-related illness in San Francisco at the age of 32. Learn More.

Just one month earlier, Campbell spoke at the National March for Lesbian and Gay Rights at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. Campbell told the crowd that he had hugged his boyfriend on the cover of Newsweek, “to show Middle America that gay love is beautiful.”  He held 15 seconds of silence for the 2,000 who had died of AIDS at that point “and [for] those who will die before this is over.” He then laid-out a series of concerns for politicians to address — including increased funding for both research and support services and a warning of the potential for discrimination with the advent of a test for HTLV-3 (now known as HIV) — and appealing to all candidates in the upcoming elections to meet with people with AIDS. Two weeks after his DNC speech, Campbell appeared on CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. While the rumors and fear of AIDS had reached a mainstream audience, the facts had not, so Campbell was placed in a glass booth, with technicians refusing to come near him to wire up microphones for the interview. At noon on August 15, 1984, exactly a month after his DNC speech and after 2 days on life support in intensive care, Bobbi Campbell died at San Francisco General Hospital.   His parents and his partner Bobby Hilliard were by his side.  Bobbi Campbell was 32 years old and had lived for over 3½ years with what was by then called AIDS. His partner Bobby Hilliard would succumb to the deadly disease not long afterwards. * * * * * * * * Photo of quilt panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt

September 23, 1984

Vulnerable Leather Community Defends SoMa Territory with Street Fair

In a San Francisco neighborhood known as "South of Market" (or SoMa), people from different parts of the community band together to create a street fair to celebrate the distinct flavor of the locale.  The event is the first of what would become to be widely known as the Folsom Street Fair. Learn More.

"Dianne Feinstein was mayor, Mondale’s Democratic Convention had just blown through town, and the 'gay cancer' that had stirred genuine fears of a government conspiracy against the LGBT population had recently been dubbed AIDS and connected to sexual activity," wrote Joe Kukura in SFist.  "It was against this backdrop that Feinstein — who had just refused to march in the Pride parade — was waging an 'urban renewal' campaign intended to evict a large number of SoMa’s bathhouses and gay bars and replace them with high-rises, on the claim that SoMa was a mess of urban blight." The street fair was created by local activists Kathleen Connell and Michael Valerio to create a counter-narrative and demonstrate that the neighborhood was thriving, noteworthy and rich in culture and counter-culture.  While the street fair did not start off as a leather community-focused event -- that would come a few years later -- it was from the start a celebration of all things South of Market, including the area's leather and BDSM culture. Event co-founder Michael Valerio was a SoMa "leatherman" whose day job was as an affordable housing coordinator at the still-existing nonprofit TODCO.  His event partner, Kathleen Connell, also worked at TODCO, but they met at a meeting of the South of Market Alliance, a community advocacy group contesting the decisions being made by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) and the city's Board of Supervisors.  Inspired by the Castro Street Fair, Valerio and Connell worked with Harry Britt, Harvey Milk’s replacement on the Board of Supervisors, to arrange for SoMa streets to be closed from 12th Street to 7th Street between Howard and Harrison, with Folsom at the center. On the day of the street fair, dubbed "Megahood," some attendeees wore leather and other free-spirited outfits, while others wore more typical festival clothing. Valerio and Connell smartly designed the event to promote the neighborhood's small businesses and unique culture.  But they also built in another goal: helping to fight for the survival of the LGBT communities as the AIDS epidemic devasted many of its members. "The fair was to be a healing, celebratory response," Kathleen Connell and Paul Gabriel wrote in their article The Origin and Evolution of the Folsom Street Fair. The leather communities in major cities were hit particularly hard by HIV, and none hit harder than San Francisco's SoMa leather community.  In HIV in the Leather Community: Rates and Risk-Related Behaviors (2011), a study showed that Leathermen were 61% more likely to be HIV-positive than non-Leathermen, and that decreased condom use found in HIV-positive Leathermen (relative to HIV-positive non-Leathermen) was a potential factor contributing to heightened HIV rates. Among its 37 booths were those from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Shanti Project, conducting community outreach to fairgoers.   In recent years, the number of booths at the Folsom Street Fair has grown to 200 and the number of attendees to over 400,000, making it the third largest street event in California.

November 4, 1984

Early AIDS Activist Roger Lyon Dies

Roger Gail Lyon, famous for being among the first three Persons With AIDS to testify before Congress about the epidemic, dies of AIDS-related illness in Los Angeles at the age of 36. Learn More.

Lyon travelled from the Bay Area to the nation's capital to speak before a Congressional hearing on the government's largely non-existent response to the AIDS crisis.  Accompanying him on the panel were activists Michael Callen of New York and Anthony Ferrara of Washington. "I came here today with the hope that this administration would do everything possible, make every resource available — there is no reason this disease cannot be conquered," said Lyon in 1983 in his testimony.  "We do not need in-fighting; this is not a political issue.  This is a health issue.  This is not a gay issue.  This is a human issue." Lyon was born in 1948 in Houston, later moved to Chicago and then San Francisco.  He was a branch manager for the San Francisco Maritime Shipping Company when he was diagnosed with AIDS in early 1983. Little more is known about Lyon, because his health began to decline in the year following his moment in the political spotlight.  However, his early contribution to the fight against AIDS survives at the National Museum of American History.  In 1990, the museum added his section of the AIDS Quilt to its collections. Lyon's ashes were scattered, along with the ashes of many others who died of AIDS, on the White House lawn during an ACT UP protest in 1996. * * * * * * * * Photo of quilt panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt

June 22, 1985

David Goodstein, Publisher of The Advocate, Dies

David Goodstein, former publisher of The Advocate who missed the chance to turn his national publication into a much-needed resource during the early years of the AIDS crisis, dies at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego of colon cancer.  He was 53. Learn More.

Goodstein published The Advocate from 1975 to 1978 and again from 1982 until 1985. He was the owner of Liberation Publications, the parent company of The Advocate that also distributed other magazines.

Because Goodstein was slow to understand the seriousness of the threat posed by AIDS, he missed an opportunity to use his popular national magazine as a clearinghouse of information for a population starved for information about HIV and AIDS, according to the LGBT Archives. In a letter to his readers in 1983, Goodstein wrote: "So far, no one knows with certainty what causes the fatal 'new' diseases. Heterosexuals, one person in a monogamous relationship and not the other, even infants have succumbed. Yet many cases are centered in the gay men's community, especially in New York City. Most of us who know a lot of gay men also know one or more who have died. Living with this situation feels a bit like it must have felt to be alive when the plague was decimating the population of Europe." Born in 1932 into a wealthy Denver family, Goodstein was afflicted with scoliosis and was subjected to a lonely childhood.  He received his undergraduate education at Cornell University and then earned a law degree from Columbia University.  He practiced law as a criminal defense attorney for several years in New York City.

In 1970, he moved to California, and in 1975 he bought The Advocate, which was then a small publication that served the Los Angeles gay and lesbian community. He moved the magazine to San Mateo, near San Francisco, and under his ownership, transformed The Advocate into the most widely-read LGBT news magazine in the country.

Goodstein's tenure as publisher began with the firing of the entire editorial staff, according to Lionel Biron in the literary magazine Gay Sunshine (1976).  Among those who Goodstein fired was columnist Arthur Evans, one of the founders of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in New York.  The GAA would become a frequent critic of The Advocate over the years, accusing Goodstein of making the magazine "a show place of white, middle-class gay America. Goodstein forbid the mention of certain LGBT activists and organizations that he believed had undermined him in some way.  When in 1978, Los Angeles-based activist Morris Kight challenged Goodstein's control of the Committee for Sexual Law Reform, Goodstein assigned Randy Shilts to do an exposé on him, according to the LGBT Archives.  Realizing that there was nothing to warrant a negative story on Kight, Shilts decided to resign from The Advocate, and famously went on to become the first openly gay reporter for the San Francisco Chronical. Goodstein also leveraged his power in positive, constructive ways.  In 1977, he was among the founders of Concerned Voters of California, an organization formed to oppose the Briggs Initiative.  Named after California State Senator John V. Briggs, the Briggs Initiative sought to bar gay men and lesbians from teaching in public schools. In a major victory for the gay rights movement, the Briggs Initiative was defeated in November 1978, thanks largely to the campaign coordination by the Concerned Voters of California. Also, shortly after Anita Bryant's successful 1977 campaign to repeal the gay rights law in Florida's Dade County, Goodstein met Werner Erhard, founder of Erhard Seminars Training (better known as "est"). "The meeting convinced Goodstein that the real problem facing the gay movement was not political but emotional," wrote John Gallagher in The Advocate in 2001. "Goodstein complained that there was 'an awful lot of a syndrome I have defined as toilet mentality -- that is, a willingness to accept second-rate status as human beings, expecting to lose rather than win, and a constant involvement in petty right-wrong games.'" In March 1978, Goodstein launched "The Advocate Experience" with about 100 people at the Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco.  With  psychologist and author Rob Eichberg, Goodstein articulated a vision that by the year 2000, homosexuality would be accepted by everyone in society, and this would happen by raising the self-esteem of gays and lesbians. . Over the next 23 years, about 50,000 people participated in Experience workshops; the program was discontinued in February 2001. The Advocate remains a leading national source of LGBTQ+ news.  Goodstein's legacy also includes the 1988 founding of Cornell University's Human Sexuality Collection, which was funded by a generous gift from Goodstein.  The collection includes Goodstein's personal papers and memorabilia.

August 1985

'From the Pines with Love' Raises $200k for AIDS Medical Foundation

Singer Peter Allen, comedienne Anne Meara, Broadway’s Dorothy Loudon, singer Ellen Foley and musical group Gotham provide the entertainment at "From the Pines with Love," the first major Fire Island event to raise money for AIDS healthcare. Learn More.

Hosted by Gloria and Larry Demann at their Bayfront home, the sold-out event raised more than $200,000 for the AIDS Medical Foundation, the first private organization dedicated to supporting research on AIDS.  AMF, which would become the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), was founded by New York doctors Mathilde Krim  and Joseph Sonnabend. Dr. Krim would appear at “From the Pines with Love," telling attendees that the funds raised that night would go toward creating a facility in New York solely devoted to the treatment of AIDS, according to the Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society.

August 27, 1985

Ryan White Refused Entry to School

Ryan White, an Indiana teenager who contracted AIDS through contaminated blood products used to treat his hemophilia, is refused entry to his middle school. Learn More.

James Smith, the school district superintendent issued a statement saying that 13-year-old Ryan White would not be allowed to join his seventh-grade class because he had AIDS, according to the Kokomo Tribune.  Smith's decision conflicted with a recently released set of guidelines from the state Board of Health that recommended that school-age AIDS patients who felt well enough should be able to attend class. A state health official confirmed to the Tribune that it was White’s case that prompted the state to issue the guidelines.  The boy's mother, Jeanne E. White, accused the school administration of “running around a problem they thought they wouldn’t have to deal with.” The White family’s protracted legal battles to protect a student's right to attend public school brought nationwide attention to the issue of AIDS and public schools.  In the years that ensued, the teenager became an AIDS activist, speaking out publicly on the need for AIDS awareness among education officials and employees.

September 9, 1985

Chicago House Formed to Provide Shelter to PWAs

Chicago House is founded as a nonprofit organization to provide housing for Chicagoans living with AIDS. Learn More.

Long before there was a solid understanding of HIV/AIDS, an effective form of treatment, or widespread social service support for individuals living with AIDS, Chicago House formed to fulfill a fundamental need: a place to live and die with dignity, according to Chicago House's website.

Earlier in 1985, nearly 100 community activists gathered at the Baton Show Lounge to address the need for housing for people with AIDS.  The AIDS crisis had begun to hit Chicago hard, and individuals diagnosed with AIDS lost much more than their health.  They commonly found themselves without a home, a job, or the support of loved ones as symptoms progressed, often rapidly.

“The one thing we all had was that we had one thing in mind. We had friends who were dying, and to see their families and their lovers turn away from them — it was like they had the plague, and of course they didn’t. It was shattering,” said Arlene Halko, a Chicago House founder who was among the group gathered at the Baton Lounge.

While the services and mission at Chicago House have expanded considerably since 1985, the organization continues to focus on housing the most vulnerable.

January 6, 1986

AIDS Hospice Founder & Publisher Charles Lee Morris Dies

Charles "Chuck" Lee Morris, former owner and publisher of the San Francisco Sentinel, dies of AIDS-related illness in Denver at the age of 42.  Morris is also the co-founder of two AIDS hospice programs in California. Learn More.

Believed to be one of the longest-living victims of AIDS, Morris reportedly had been seriously ill since April 1978, but he wasn’t diagnosed with AIDS until 1982 Morris was a confidant of Dianne Feinstein, often advising the then-Mayor of San Francisco on issues affecting the city's gay community.  Elected officials such as Senator Edward M. Kennedy, President Jimmy Carter, and Vice President Walter F. Mondale sought out Morris' political endorsements. In the early 1980s, Morris helped found two hospice programs in California for those dying of AIDS. Morris and his partner moved to Denver in the spring of 1984.  Dr. Charles Kirkpatrick, Morris’ physician and an AIDS researcher at National Jewish Hospital, said Morris survived four to five times longer than most AIDS patients. He said at the time that the average survival time of someone with full-blown AIDS was 12-18 months. * * * * * * * * Photo of quilt panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt

January 18, 1986

Dionne Warwick 'and Friends' Sing for amFAR

"That's What Friends Are For" -- recorded by Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Gladys Knight -- becomes #1 on the Billboard charts, eventually raising about $3 million for the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Learn More.

How Warwick was able to get three superstars to join her in the recording studio was the result of having a collection of creative geniuses for friends, the audacity to just ask, and serendipity. When Warwick first heard "That's What Friends Are For," she envisioned singing it as a duet with Stevie Wonder, according to Song Facts.  The song's composers, Burt Bacharach and his then-wife, Carole Bayer Sager, agreed to produce the recording, happy to see their song have another chance to reach an audience.  They originally wrote the song for the 1982 movie Night Shift, where it was recorded by Rod Stewart and played over the closing credits. Warwick put down her tracks, and then invited Wonder to do his part.  On the day Wonder was scheduled to record, Elizabeth Taylor and Neil Simon came to the studio to hear him sing. Knowing of Taylor's commitment to AIDS research, Bayer Sager suggested to Warwick that they arrange for the song royalties to benefit HIV/AIDS research.  Everyone agreed it was a great idea, Warwick told People magazine in 2019. They decided there was room for another singer, so Gladys Knight was invited.  But then Warwick ran into Elton John in the grocery store. “I said, ‘I’m recording tomorrow and I need you.’ That’s how simple it was,” Warwick told People. The group became a quartet, aka "Dionne Warwick and Friends." The next day, Warwick, Knight and John arrived at the recording studio, and were joined by Bacharach and Bayer Sager -- and Elizabeth Taylor, who was determined to see the project through. Knight and John each recorded their parts, and Bacharach and Bayer Sager then went to work to assemble the four vocal tracks into a final recording, according to Song Facts. Later, the singers would perform together for a music video of "That's What Friends Are For." "It was a very emotional evening in which a lot of tears were shed," Bayer Sager told The New York Times. In January 1986, "That's What Friends Are For" rose to number one on the Billboard charts and remained there for four weeks.  The song would win a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Performance by A Duo Or Group With Vocal" and another for "Song Of The Year."  It was Warwick's fifth Grammy Award, and Elton John's first, according to Song Facts. In February 2011, Warwick, Wonder, Knight and John would reunite at amfAR's kickoff event for New York Fashion Week and give a live performance of "That's What Friends Are For."

February 23, 1986

Chicago House Opens Its First Residence for PWAs

Chicago House welcomes the first residents to its new two-flat housing facility in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. Learn More.

Two months later, the facility would reach capacity with all eight places filled. Residents were provided with access to volunteers trained in providing emotional support. Chicago House continued to plan for additional facilities and support services to meet the growing need.  Later in 1986, the agency acquired administrative office space and began to transition from volunteer support to paid program staff.

July 18, 1986

Black Community Mobilizes for Action

At the National Conference on AIDS in the Black Community, minority leaders meet with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop to discuss concerns about HIV/AIDS in communities of color. National Minority AIDS Council is founded at the conference. Learn More.

The conference was organized by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, with co-sponsors the National Minority AIDS Council, and the National Conference of Black Mayors, and was funded by a U.S. Public Health Service grant. Other conference topics include:

• the disproportionate impact of HIV and AIDS on African Americans,
• the role of IV drug use and heterosexual transmission in the AIDS epidemic within black communities,
• the need for culturally competent AIDS education for black communities,
• the lack of representation in gay and black media outlets of the epidemic among African Americans, and
• a plea to black churches to respond to the epidemic.

Frederick Garnett, a black man living with AIDS, addresses the conference, bringing public awareness to the racial disparities in how the AIDS epidemic is addressed in Washington, DC, where he lives. A staff psychologist at St. Elizabeths Hospital and the founder of a support group for Persons Living With AIDS, Garnett says that although African Americans make up half of the people with AIDS in Washington, DC, they are largely absent from clinics and support groups. Born in Chicago and a graduate of Northwestern University, Garnett had studied for a doctorate in psychology at Adelphi University, completing all but his dissertation before moving to Washington in 1983. Fifteen months after the 1986 National Conference on AIDS in the Black Community, Garnett would die at the Hospice of Northern Virginia on Oct. 22, 1987, of complications resulting from AIDS, at the age of 32. Three weeks before his death, Garnett would receive an "American Who Cares" award from the National AIDS Network for his dedication to AIDS education in minority communities.  Garnett served as a board member of the National Association of People With AIDS, the National Minority AIDS Council, and the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington.  

October 6, 1986

APLA Founder Nancy Cole Sawaya Dies

Nancy Cole Sawaya, co-founder of AIDS Project Los Angeles, dies in Sherman Oaks Community Hospital from AIDS-related illness at the age of 40. Learn More.

Two months before, on August 4, Sawaya publicly disclosed that she had contracted AIDS, apparently from sexual encounters with men prior to her marriage, at least one of whom later died of AIDS complications. “I just wish people would realize that it could happen to anybody,” Sawaya would tell the Los Angeles Times.  “I do this couple support group on Monday nights, and all these people are a group of well-educated, down-to-earth, loving, successful people.  It’s not the image like when you see on TV -- they immediately shoot to Santa Monica Boulevard, somebody in leather, groping the other person, and it’s not like that." Sawaya began her HIV/AIDS advocacy work in 1982, when she helped to create the first hotline in Los Angeles to share verified medical information about the disease.  In December 1982, she hosted a Christmas party to raise $8,000 for a new organization -- AIDS Project Los Angeles.  In early 1983, APLA would open its doors on Cole Avenue, with herself, Max Drew, Matt Redman, and Ervin Munro as Founders. In the beginning, APLA had five clients, which would grow to 100 by the end of the year, and by the middle of 1984, APLA would serve 200 clients -- and the numbers kept growing.  Sawaya was the first to manage APLA's client services operation, often working 60 hours a week. Sawaya would leave behind her husband Louis and a daughter. * * * * * * * * Photo of quilt panel from the AIDS Memorial Quilt

November 4, 1986

Activists Defeat California Prop 64, Attempt to Expose PWAs

LGBT activists organize voters to overwhelmingly defeat Prop 64, a Lyndon LaRouch-backed initiative on the California ballot requiring "carriers of the AIDS virus" to be reported to government authorities. Learn More.

Proposition 64 would have declared that HIV/AIDS and the "condition of being a carrier" of the virus  are communicable diseases and, therefore, subject to the reporting requirement to the State Department of Health Services. Proposition 64's supporters, led by the LaRouchian group PANIC (Prevent AIDS NOW Initiative Committee), say it would require any individual who carries the AIDS virus, even without the disease's symptoms, to be reported to state authorities and barred from schools or jobs in restaurants.  State officials could quarantine such carriers, they contended. LGBT activists in California argue that the initiative would lend an air of legitimacy to job discrimination against homosexuals, and public health authorities say it would deter people with HIV/AIDS from seeking treatment if there were a requirement to report them.  This, they say, would further the spread of the disease undetected. Proposition 64 is opposed by the 34,000-member California Medical Association and most statewide elected officials, including members of both political parties.  Nearly every major newspaper has recommended a "no" vote. Torie Osborn, the southern California coordinator of the No On 64/Stop LaRouche campaign, told the Washington Post that campaign leaders had considered focusing on LaRouche's bizarre politics -- based on conspiracy theories, economic doom, anti-Semitism, homophobia and racism. But polling data suggested that to many voters, "it really doesn't matter who is behind the initiative," Osborn said. LaRouche's PANIC team operated their campaign out of a Los Feliz headquarters, which became besieged by death threats and vandalism.

December 1986

Starcross Monastery Begins to Adopt AIDS Babies

Starcross Monastery in Sonoma County becomes guardian to Michelle, a five-month-old baby born with the AIDS virus who was abandoned at a hospital.  Many other infants and children would follow Michelle to Starcross and be cared for by Catholic monks. Learn More.

Brother Tolbert "Toby" McCarroll, Sister Marti Aggeler and Sister Julie DeRossi used the proceeds of the 1976 sale of a building near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury to buy a ramshackle farmhouse on 115 acres of meadows and forest, where they opened the Starcross Monastic Community. Their idea was to grow and sell Christmas trees, provide a wholesome country home for children in the foster care system, and pursue a monastic lifestyle in a secluded part of northern California, according to the Los Angeles Times. Then the AIDS crisis hit, and the monks began to reach out to nearby hospitals who were housing orphaned infants and children infected with the virus.  They found that many did not need to be hospitalized, but there was no one else for them to go. Starcross began to assume guardianship of infants and young children with HIV, and provided them with a home and medical care.  The monks developed a home care program that resembled a family farm more than a hospice. "We had no medical training, but we did know how to take care of kids, having raised many foster children over the years," states Starcross' paper on the history on the monastery's work during the AIDS crisis.  "At the time, medicine had nothing to offer. The local AIDS doctor encouraged us saying that these little children whose mothers were too sick to care for them, needed to be in regular homes, not hospitals. We joyfully welcomed six HIV positive babies into our family." Before long, word spread and Starcross received a generous donation from Frank Sinatra. Then Parents magazine named Brother Toby, a celibate monk from an unheard-of town in California, its Parent of the Month.  In his 1994 book Last Watch of the Night, author Paul Monette -- famous for publicly tearing up a photo of the Pope -- cited Brother Toby as one of the few men of the cloth he admired. In 1988-89, San Francisco filmmaker Bob Elfstrom followed the Starcross Monastic Community for two years and produced the documentary Christmas at Starcross, which premiered in 1990 on PBS station WGBH in Boston. The media exposure also brought negative attention to the monastery.  Some of Starcross' country neighbors recoiled at the news that the AIDS virus was among them. Shortly before Christmas 1997, one of the Starcross children, an HIV-infected baby named Aaron, had difficulty breathing.  The monks phoned for help, but the volunteer Annapolis firefighters would not respond to the call. Some of the first residents, like Aaron, Michelle and Josh, died at the farmhouse within years of their arrival.  But as HIV treatment options grew, children began to survive.  Nicole, who arrived at Starcross as an HIV-positive infant with a variety of special medical needs, would grow up to enjoy learning at the local schools, according to a 2001 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Starcross remains today, and so do the homes for AIDS orphans that Starcross created in Uganda and Romania. Both now operate independently of Starcross and Brother Toby told the LA Times that he expects that will continue indefinitely, as they must because the global AIDS crisis shows no signs of going away.