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the AIDS activist project, a book of portraits of AIDS activists from 1989-1998. Now available on Amazon - link in profile.

Ann Northrop, ACT UP New York, NYC, 1992. I have t

Ann Northrop, ACT UP New York, NYC, 1992. I have the fondest memories of Ann facilitating the meetings of ACT UP New York. I always considered her the "Den Mother" of ACT UP.
She is a force to be reckoned with, a wonderful person and dedicated activist.

We just made more copies of the book, "the AIDS ac

We just made more copies of the book, "the AIDS activist project" available on Amazon for $24.96. Go to - https://amzn.to/2M0yvFc - to pick up a copy. And as always, thank you for the support!! ~ Bill

I met Jay Blotcher at an ACT UP New York meeting i

I met Jay Blotcher at an ACT UP New York meeting in 1988, he was head of the Media Committee at the time. I was new to ACT UP and a bit intimidated by the meetings. I thought joining this committee and contributing my photography to the cause was a good start in getting to know people in the group. Jay put me to work photographing committees, meetings and demonstrations.

One thing that I will always remember Jay for is a flyer he made for the project. There was literature table in the back of the room for people to get information out to the group. I hoped to have people volunteer to be part of the project, so Jay made a flyer that read - "Donate your face to AIDS Activism Her/History”.

Jay has a way including humor and fact for impact. I’ll always be grateful for his help with this project.

We were able to use the original fax of his statement for the book, it reads:
When I joined ACT UP, I was a nice Jewish boy from the suburbs, and I was forced to unlearn the pretty lies that society drills into us to keep us in check: That the policeman is our friend, that the government will take care of us and that good people don’t lie down in the middle of the street and get arrested.

“the AIDS activists project” is available from amazon here: https://theaidsactivistproject.org/purchase/

I am sorry to report the death of Larry Kramer tod

I am sorry to report the death of Larry Kramer today. Larry lived his life out loud, with purpose and conviction. Without his early leadership and activism to fight AIDS, the Crisis would have been much worse.

I am honored to have Larry included in the AIDS activist project. He came to the studio in 1990 accompanied by his dog, Molly. I always had the utmost respect for this man. I remember Larry telling me he thought the photos from the shoot we did together were some of the best photographs anyone had taken. Coming from him, that meant a lot. I have many incredible memories of his activism and speeches.

Larry, thank you for the inspiration, conviction and activism. We will carry on the fight!

From the New York Times today: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/us/larry-kramer-dead.html?referringSource=articleShare

I had the opportunity to photograph Rebecca while

I had the opportunity to photograph Rebecca while I was in St. Louis working on
the book "the AIDS activist project" in 1992. Many thanks to Rebecca for adding her voice to the project.
The book is available on Amazon - https://amzn.to/2M0yvFc

I am in San Francisco for work at the moment. I ha

I am in San Francisco for work at the moment. I had some time, thought I'd check out Golden Gate Park. Saw a random spot to park, pulled in and in front of me was the entrance to the National AIDS Memorial. I wasn't aware where the memorial was, but think it was a twist of fate that brought me there.
It was a beautiful, tranquil,and moving experience for me. I felt the calm, the spirits and the love of everyone we lost. I spent some time there and will go back to remember again.

Robert Farber ACT UP New York Photographed in NYC

Robert Farber
ACT UP New York
Photographed in NYC, 1990. "I have AIDS. I take a lot of medicine to buy time.
But there is really nothing anyone can do to change my situation.
I know how this story will end.
The only content on my life os my dog, Virgil.
He brings me comfort and joy every day.
He is my ray of light." Robert was an artist known for his installations and paintings dealing with AIDS. He was also an actor, having appeared in Off Broadway and repertory productions, in addition to having been a theater instructor at the State University of New York at Purchase. In “I Thought I Had Time”, a one-man show exhibited at Artist’s Space in 1992, Robert created
an installation that used historical texts and interviews with People with AIDS to draw comparisons between AIDS and the bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in the 14th century. The installation included nine paintings from his “Western Blot Series,” named for one of the tests used to detect HIV. In his review, Holland Cotter of The New York Times called it a work of “immense restraint and poise.” Robert Farber died in December 1995 at the age of 47 of complications from AIDS.

The book, "the AIDS activist project" is now available on Amazon. https://amzn.to/2M0yvFc

Peter Staley ACT UP New York Photographed in NYC 1

Peter Staley
ACT UP New York
Photographed in NYC 1990

Peter Staley has quite an extensive history of activism. He's quite an outspoken gentleman and has contributed much to the goal of conquering AIDS over the years.
He's a staunch AIDS & LGBT Rights activist, one of the early ACT UP members, founded the Treatment Action Group and was a prominent figure in the documentary - "How to Survive a Plague".

Mona Bennett ACT UP Atlanta Photographed in Atlant

Mona Bennett
ACT UP Atlanta
Photographed in Atlanta 1992

I met Mona in 1992, she was the office administrator of ACT UP Atlanta, she was instrumental in helping me get in touch with so many activists in the Atlanta area.
The banner hanging in the background “Welcome to Georgia, Sodomites” welcomed fellow activists at the Atlanta airport as they arrived for the 1990 demonstrations to protest the CDC’s definition of AIDS.
Mona lives in the Atlanta area, she is the Co-founder and ambassador of the Atlanta Harm Reduction Center. Still Involved in stopping the spread of AIDS, you can not keep a great activist down!

Moises Agosto ACT UP New York Photographed in NYC

Moises Agosto
ACT UP New York
Photographed in NYC, 1990

When I first learned about AIDS, they were talking about a Gay Cancer. I was living in Puerto Rico and starting to come out of the closet. That Gay Cancer scared me a little bit, but that was something happening in Gringoland and not my enchanted island.

My reaction was to keep going because nothing was going to touch me. I was 19.

When I came out, I was such a naive boy, I got involved with a man who was a doctor, but never talked to me about safe sex. I was 20, he was 30. When we broke up I saw freedom and had sex like crazy. My lover used to tell me, ‘Be careful, protect yourself.” But he never told me how.

A few months later I got an infection that never went away. I got scared and decided to get tested for the AIDS virus. I went to get tested and waited for two weeks. I went to get the results by myself and when I got to the office, the guy who had my test results asked me if knew I had been HIV+. I said yes, and he said that I was HIV+, and they didn’t have a cure but he recommended vitamins and exercise, and that was it.

I played the role of a mature man, you know, the superman syndrome, and I left the office so confused.

On the way home I started to cry in the middle of the highway. My life was destroyed.

I came to ACT UP and immediately started to work translating information into Spanish. The concept of direct action, being among other people fighting for their lives, the commitment and dedication in that place got my heart.

My Latino community in New York and Puerto Rico needs information and access to health care. This government doesn’t care and we have to change that.
ACT-ing UP is my agenda, direct action and and information is my way of fighting and no matter that I don’t know how long I will be around, my words and actions will keep the fight long after I am dead.

ACT UP CONTRAATACA EN LA MUCH CONTRA EL SIDA - Moises Agosto,Homosexual Puerto Rican living with HIV

Michael Wiggins ACT UP New York Photographed n NYC

Michael Wiggins
ACT UP New York
Photographed n NYC 1990

Words are like the shell of a fruit that has been peeled away and discarded. I ate the sweet part and left the rind for you so suck on.

My father is the oldest of 12 children. He grew up without electricity or running water in a West Virginia coal town that does not exist anymore. Both he and my mother started picking cotton before they reached the age of 10. They were married in 1960. My mother was 16 years old. that same year my father joined the Air Force and did 2 tours in Vietnam. In 1963 my mother spent her last few dollars to take the bus from Cleveland to the Military Base in Sacramento to join my father. She says she couldn’t live without him. My brother was born that year. I arrived in 1968, just before Martin was shot. How could they have expected such a cataclysm.

I have no moral convictions beyond the few that convince me that I and people like me have aright to live.

Phil Zwickler Photographed in NYC, 1990 I photogr

Phil Zwickler
Photographed in NYC, 1990

I photographed Phil in my studio on East 14th Street. He was an intense man and a noted filmmaker. Among the films he is noted for are: “Positive” and “Silence Equals Death”, in which he collaborated with German filmmaker Rosa van Praunheim. The last film he made was “Needle Nightmare” in which he dealt with his fear of the treatment and clinical issues dealing with AIDS.
For several years, Mr. Zwickler was the editor of People With AIDS Coalition Newsline, an international publication written by and for people with AIDS and HIV infection.
A Foundation was set up in his name, The Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Trust, website: http://www.pzfoundation.org/philzwickler/
Phil died at home on May 7, 1991. He was 36 years old.

I think that the AIDS fight is a fight which is at

I think that the AIDS fight is a fight which is attacking the basic elements of sickness , life - death - medical matter - sexuality - homosexuality.

Subject that are still not open to talk about.

We have to fight AIDS by supporting each other, HIV infected or not.

I want to use my microphone as a strong but very peaceful weapon to break open all subjects that are essential in life.

To bring us to a better world full of help and responsibility for each other,

Please enjoy the fight!

ACT UP!

Meindert
ACT UP Amsterdam
Rai Center, Amsterdam, 1992

When people talk our write about “women with HIV

When people talk our write about “women with HIV/AIDS”, they usually mean ‘heterosexual women. When they talk or write about ‘AIDS activists’. they usually mean ‘gay men’. Lesbians are people with HIV/AIDS and we are AIDS activists.

Lesbians have been involved in AIDS activism since the beginning of this epidemic - in
ACT UP as well as other organizations in the lesbian and gay community and in other communities. WE have ‘seized control of the FDA’. We have ‘stormed the NIH’. We have fought to change the CDC definition of AIDS to include symptoms women and injection drug users get. We have pressured to get women into clinical research trials. We do needle exchange and condom distributional schools. We have ‘put our bodies on the line’ along with our gay brothers to bring about and end to this crisis.

Maxine Wolfe
ACT UP New York
Photographed in NYC, 1990

It makes no difference where I was born, nor in wh

It makes no difference where
I was born, nor in which
town I grew up.
My life at present
is broken down
into minutes and t-cells.
And each one cancels out
the other.

Not where I’m from
but what I am about,
how I use my voice
and even more importantly
what I stand up for.
I’m about backbone and conviction.

Madrid St. Angelo
ACT UP Chicago
Photographed in St. Louis, 1993

Luke Sissyfag ACT UP Seattle Photographed in NYC 1

Luke Sissyfag
ACT UP Seattle
Photographed in NYC 1993

Luke Montgomery legally changed his name to Luke Sissyfag in 1993 and kept it for 2 years. During that time he became a vocal supporter on the LGBT movement. He said he chose the name “Sissyfag” because he was called a “sissy” and a “fag” on the playground in school. When he was 15, he was severely beaten and left unconscious in ditch while walking home form a part time job. Several kids jumped out of a car after calling him “faggot” and beat him with a baseball bat. He has said that this incident was what inspired him to become an activist. His activist response to finding a cure for AIDS was because almost a dozen of his friends had died of AIDS already and he knew too many people who were infected.
He moved to Haiti in 2006 and founded an orphanage for children with AIDS. He returned to Haiti in 2010 to help with earthquake relief efforts, he raised funds and volunteered in Haiti with earthquake relief efforts along with his ex-partner Nathan Guidas.
On top of all that he became an advocate for animal rights. He helped create the website “http://Adopt-a-Pet.com, a non-profit online animal adoption service.
Several years after I met and photographed Luke, I received a call from him. I believe he was starting the pet adoption service and had enlisted the help of Rue McClanahan. He asked her to sit for a photo-shoot with her adopted dog to help publicize the adoption service. We met at her apartment on the Upper East side of Manhattan and spent about an hour chatting and taking photographs of Rue and her dog.

Lizet Vlasveld ACT UP Amsterdam Photographed in A

Lizet Vlasveld ACT UP Amsterdam Photographed in Amsterdam 1992

Larry Kramer and Molly, ACT UP New York, Photograp

Larry Kramer and Molly, ACT UP New York, Photographed in NYC 1990

In March of 1987, in an impassioned speech at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, in New York City, Larry Kramer started the AIDS activist group, ACT UP. Larry helped co-found the Gay Mens Health Crisis, but soon grew frustrated with the apathetic response to AIDS. He wanted to do more than provide services, he wanted to stop what he saw as a plague affecting gay men, AIDS. ACT UP was born. The direct action tactics of ACT UP have been credited with changing the way AIDS was represented and and how it was treated. ACT UP gave power to the group of individuals who were affected by AIDS. There was strength in numbers, ACT UP demanded a cure and fought for the rights of PWA’s. For many of us who came of age during the AIDS crisis, we know we would be in a much different place now if it wasn’t for the rallying cry of Larry Kramer and the formation of ACT UP.

Juan Mendez - ACT UP New York - Photographed in Ne

Juan Mendez - ACT UP New York - Photographed in New York City ,1991

Juan Mendez was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He, along with other Latinos in ACT UP, formed the Spanish Communications Group and the Latino Caucus. They brought the Latino community to the AIDS Crisis and provided vital translations and information for the Latino community. Juan, along with others, took the fight back to their homeland of Puerto Rico where they staged demonstrations against the Government and the Catholic Church. Juan was also on the boards of the Gay and Lesbian Dominican Empowerment Organization (GALDE) and the Puerto Rican Initiative to Develop Empowerment (PRIDE). When he came to the studio to be photographed, he brought some religious artifacts with him. We put them on a small table and he sat with his back facing the artifacts. He wanted to do some sort of image that would indicate he was turning his back to the Catholic Church because of their failure to respond to the AIDS Crisis and its stance on homosexuality.
Juan lived for many years with HIV, he died of heart failure at the age of 41 in New York City.

James “Uncle Jimmy” Hulse ACT UP Los Angeles P

James “Uncle Jimmy” Hulse
ACT UP Los Angeles
Photographed in Los Angeles 1997

I am now spending time with the child of ACT UP Los Angeles. CNN - Clean Needles Now - an extreme example of the tail wagging the dog. I was with ACT UP LA from the very beginning and am still fervently devoted to fighting back, stopping AIDS and Universal Healthcare. - Photographers note: For some people I photographed, I cannot find any follow up information. The only thing I could find out about James Hulse was the he was still working in the Los Angeles area with needle exchange and had the nickname of “Uncle Jimmy”.
Also early on when I started this project in 1989, I had the title “Untied in Anger” I changed the title to “the AIDS activist project” when I began the publishing process.

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