Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

New book sets the record straight on Act Up New York
by Melissa Wasserman
2021-06-10

This article shared 2357 times since Thu Jun 10, 2021
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


Novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, journalist, screenwriter, LGBTQ+-rights activist and AIDS historian Sarah Schuman preserves the power of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) while laying everything out about the in her new book, Let the Record Show: A Political History of Act UP New York, 1987-1993.

Schulman, a native New Yorker, started writing at a young age and said it is something that comes naturally.

"I'm really like a natural," said Schulman. "I started when I was 6 years old and maybe because I read the diary of Anne Frank, which was very common in my generation and a lot of girls started writing diaries at that time, like diaries became very common as a result of that book."

Schulman, said it is hard to say when her first taste of activism actually happened.

"I grew up in a Holocaust family and I was raised at a time where children were not protected from information and I was raised with the knowledge that other people had stood by and allowed those events to occur," said Schulman. "I think that had a big impact on me from the beginning."

Schulman was active in the Women's Union when she was a student at University of Chicago from 1976 to 1978. She dropped out and ultimately got a Bachelor of Arts degree from Empire State College.

Her vast activism efforts include being a member of The Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA) from 1979 to 1982; participating in an early direct action protest in which she and five others, called The Women's Liberation Zap Action Brigade, disrupted an anti-abortion hearing in Congress; being an active member of ACT UP from 1987 to 1992; attending actions at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Stop the Church; and even being arrested when ACT UP occupied Grand Central Station protesting the First Gulf War. Schulman, along with five other women, co-founded the direct action organization Lesbian Avengers in 1992.

At age 24, she first started observing and writing about AIDS in the early 1980s, working as a city hall reporter for the New York Native, a newspaper whose primary audience was gay men.

Having been writing about AIDS for about four years before joining the newly formed ACT UP in July 1987, Schulman was a rank-and-file member of ACT UP until 1992.

Schulman and filmmaker Jim Hubbard co-founded the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival, now called MIX NYC in 1987. Since 2001, the pair have been creating the ACT UP Oral History Project, interviewing 188 surviving members of ACT UP over a span of about 18 years about their experiences and what it meant to be in ACT UP.

In her 20th book Let the Record Show, Schulman wrote, "In recent years the representations of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) and AIDS activism in popular culture have narrowed, almost to the level of caricature."

"We knew from the beginning somebody had to do it, we being Jim Hubbard and I; he's my collaborator, and we tried for years to find someone else to do it," said Schulman of writing Let the Record Show. "As time passed, a lot of misrepresentations are getting encased and it just became a desperate situation like somebody had to do it."

While ultimately there were 148 chapters of ACT UP around the world, each acted autonomously. Let the Record Show is a look at the individuals who created ACT UP New York, which Schulman said in the book was the "mothership." The study, she wrote, focused exclusively on that community, covering the years 1987 to 1993.

ACT UP New York, she explained in the book, is much larger than its Monday night meetings: "It is a political and emotional history of liaisons, associations, relationships, coalitions, and influences that cumulatively create a crucial reality of successfully transformative struggle under the most dire of circumstances."

Let the Record Show is made up of those interviews and gives readers an honest look at that period of time in history through the eyes of people who lived through it. Schulman said she conducted 188 interviews and tried to use as many as she could, emphasizing the history of ACT UP is the history of a group.

"Movements are actually made up of the people that are in them, not of the leaders," Schulman said. "It's a mistake to tell the history of the movement through individuals because that's not how they work. The purpose of this book is not nostalgia. It's to help activists today be effective and it's very important that people understand that despite the way that information has been misconstrued, the truth is the way you make change in America is through coalition. So I really wanted to get away from this false myth of the hero because it's not helpful for people who are actually trying to accomplish something."

While the book does not read in chronological order, Schulman does provide a timeline at the end of the book, so if people are want to find out more about a particular action or a person they read about, they can refer to the timeline and see what else was happening at the time of the thing that they are focusing on and have more surrounding context.

Schuman described the opening of the book as a type of handbook for today's activists, giving them a sense of history and a push to think about some important strategies.

"Every movement has mistakes and errors as well as its victories and it doesn't help to cover them up because making mistakes is human," said Schulman. "It doesn't mean what you did was wrong or bad. So, if we get used to understanding that successful movements, heroic people make mistakes and that doesn't detract from who they are or what they've done. If we can accept the more mature and nuanced view of that, we're more likely to build movements that are successful."

Schulman names direct action as one of these important strategies. ACT UP, she said, was a "radical democracy and the only principle of unity was one sentence, which was 'direct action to end the AIDS crisis.'"

"So if what you were doing was direct action to end the AIDS crisis you could pretty much do anything, but if other people didn't agree with you, they couldn't try to stop you from doing it," Schulman explained. "They just wouldn't do it. That's why there was so much simultaneity of different kinds of approaches going on at the same time. Today we have a tendency toward movements that try to control. They want everyone to have the same strategy or have the same analysis or there's even a culture move for everybody to use the same words. This does not work. Historically these types of movements have never worked, but real leadership allows people to recognize where they're at because people can only be where they're at and try to facilitate them having some kind of authentic and effective response."

Let the Record Show holds many sub-topics within four sections: Political Foundations, Art in the Service of Change, Creating the World You Need to Survive and Desperation. Effective action, members of different races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, leadership, battling and beating the Catholic Church and the pharmaceutical industry, art as expression, community, money, poverty, division, mass death among others are covered.

Serving as an example for today's activists and providing an accurate history, Schulman said ACT UP won such fundamental changes, which are covered in the text.

"Most importantly was changing the government's official definition of AIDS to include symptoms that only women had," said Schulman. "This has had incredibly long lasting impacts because at the time women manifested different symptoms than men. The symptoms that women manifested were not listed in the official diagnosis. So, women got AIDS and died and they never got an AIDS diagnosis. So, they couldn't get benefits, they couldn't get health care, they couldn't get anything they needed. They also couldn't get experimental drugs. Keeping women out of experimental drug trials meant that not only did those women die, but drugs were not tested on women, so changing the definition meant that drugs would be tested on women. So today any woman in the world with HIV who takes an HIV medication benefits from that win by ACT UP because they're now taking the medication that was tested on women. So that's really like the farthest reaching victory,."

Schulman also listed needle exchange in New York City as an important win—and it is featured in the book.

"ACT UP changed the focus," said Schulman. "It forced the government and pharmaceutical companies to change the way they research.

"We all have an enduring relationship to AIDS," Schulman said. "AIDS is with us forever and it changed us in so many different ways and the ways that we view death and the ways that we view illness and the ways we view health. All of that was impacted by aids. There's an afterlife."

The audience for this book, Schulman said, is people who are interested in how change is made, people interested in history, people who are looking at the parallels between the current health crisis and the patterns of the past and people who are interested in a deep story about regular people who changed the world.

"I just want them to understand that one of the interesting things about ACT UP— because there were so many different kinds of people— is that different kinds of people had to use different strategies to create change because they had different levels of access," Schulman explained. So, white men who went to Harvard, sit down at a table with white men in a pharmaceutical company and work out something, but women of color who needed to get the definition changes, it took them two years to even get a meeting. Drug users had to get arrested and have a test case to get their issue across…You have to use different social strategies based on who you are and what your access to power is, but anybody can make change. For some people it's harder and it takes longer and it's messier because you're really going against the system, but you can still make change. We had drug addicts and homeless people and prisoners who made a tremendous change working in the AIDS coalition. That's the message."

For more information about Let the Record Show: A Political History of Act UP New York, 1987-1993, visit macmillan.com/books/9780374719951 .


This article shared 2357 times since Thu Jun 10, 2021
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

RuPaul finds 'Hidden Meanings' in new memoir
2024-03-18
RuPaul Andre Charles made a rare Chicago appearance for a book tour on March 12 at The Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave. Presented by National Public Radio station WBEZ 91.5 FM, the talk coincided with ...


Gay News

Longtime LGBTQ+-rights activist David Mixner dies at 77
2024-03-12
On March 11, longtime LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activist David Mixner—known for working on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign but then splitting from him over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT)—died at age 77, The Advocate reported. ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Altercation, mpox research, Univ. of Fla., George Santos, tech battle
2024-03-08
Video footage uploaded to Facebook showed an altercation between a state trooper and two prominent Philadelphia LGBTQ+ leaders, the Washington Blade reported, republishing an article from Philadelphia Gay News. Celena ...


Gay News

Without compromise: Holly Baggett explores lives of iconoclasts Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap
2024-03-04
Jane Heap (1883-1964) and Margaret Anderson (1886-1973), each of them a native Midwesterner, woman of letters and iconoclast, had a profound influence on literary culture in both America and Europe in the early 20th Century. Heap ...


Gay News

There she goes again: Author Alison Cochrun discusses writing journey
2024-02-27
By Carrie Maxwell When Alison Cochrun began writing her first queer romance novel in 2019, she had no idea it would change the course of her entire life. Cochrun, who spent 11 years as a high ...


Gay News

HIV criminal laws disproportionately impact Black men in Mississippi
2024-02-21
--From a press release - A new report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law finds that at least 43 people in Mississippi were arrested for HIV-related crimes between 2004 and 2021. Half of all arrests in the state ...


Gay News

Theater Review: Billy Elliot, The Musical
2024-02-19
Book and Lyrics: Lee Hall; Music: Elton John. At: Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora Tickets: 630-896-6666 or Paramountaurora.com; $28-$79. Runs through March 24 Billy Elliot: The Musical may nearly be two decades old, but ...


Gay News

'West Side Story' gets a sex-positive spin with new burlesque show
2024-02-19
In partial observance of National Condom Day, which was Feb. 14, Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) presented A West Side Story Burlesque at the Harris Theater for two hour-long performances on Feb. 17. The show, ...


Gay News

$200,000+ raised at AIDS Foundation Chicago's World of Chocolate Fundraiser to fight HIV/AIDS
2024-02-13
--From a press release - (Chicago, IL) More than 950 guests gathered at Chicago's famed Union Station (500 W. Jackson) for Chicago's Sweetest Fundraiser, AIDS Foundation Chicago's (AFC), World of Chocolate on Friday, February 9. ...


Gay News

Munar prepares to step away from Howard Brown leadership
2024-02-11
After 10 years of leadership at Howard Brown Health, President and CEO David Ernesto Munar has decided to step down from his post on Feb. 29. Munar, who'd previously been president and CEO of AIDS Foundation ...


Gay News

Chicagoans indulge in a World of Chocolate
2024-02-11
AIDS Foundation of Chicago hosted its 2024 World of Chocolate celebration the evening of Feb. 9 at Union Station. Top chocolatiers from across the city allowed guests to sample numerous confections, hors d'oevres and libations for ...


Gay News

National Black Justice Coalition commemorates National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
2024-02-07
--From a press release - WASHINGTON — Today, Feb. 7, marks National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD). In commemoration, Dr. David J. Johns, CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), a leading Black LGBTQ+/same-gender ...


Gay News

SAVOR Chocolatier Uzma Sharif on being part of World of Chocolate
2024-02-03
AIDS Foundation Chicago will hold its annual World of Chocolate event on Friday, Feb. 9, at 6 p.m. at Union Station, 500 W. Jackson Blvd. Attendees will embark on a global tour of chocolate—but there will ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Wis. report, gender dysphoria, HIV research, Stonewall exhibit, gay CEOs
2024-01-19
A new annual report from Wisconsin's Office of Children's Mental Health shows that the state's minors—especially girls, children of color and LGBTQ+ youth—continue to struggle with anxiety, depression and thoughts ...


Gay News

WORLD Activist honored, marriages in Estonia, Madrid law, trans sports item
2024-01-05
Video below - The National AIDS Commission (NAC) recently honored Caleb Orozco—a leading figure in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights in Belize—for his instrumental contributions to the national HIV response, BNN reported. According ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.