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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight's show features Asian Refugees United and Lavender Phoenix in conversation about art, culture, and organizing, and how artists help us imagine and build liberation. Important Links: Lavender Phoenix: Website | Instagram Asian Refugees United: Website | Instagram | QTViệt Cafe Collective Transcript: Cheryl: Hey everyone. Good evening. You tuned in to APEX Express. I'm your host, Cheryl, and tonight is an AACRE Night. AACRE, which is short for Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality is a network made up of 11 Asian American social justice organizations who work together to build long-term movements for justice. Across the AACRE network, our groups are organizing against deportations, confronting anti-blackness, xenophobia, advancing language justice, developing trans and queer leaders, and imagine new systems of safety and care. It's all very good, very important stuff. And all of this from the campaigns to the Organizing to Movement building raises a question that I keep coming back to, which is, where does art live In all of this, Acts of resistance do not only take place in courtrooms or city halls. It takes place wherever people are still able to imagine. It is part of how movements survive and and grow. Art is not adjacent to revolution, but rather it is one of its most enduring forms, and tonight's show sits in that very spirit, and I hope that by the end of this episode, maybe you'll see what I mean. I;d like to bring in my friends from Lavender Phoenix, a trans queer API organization, building people power in the Bay Area, who are also a part of the AACRE Network. This summer, Lavender Phoenix held a workshop that got right to the heart of this very question that we're sitting with tonight, which is what is the role of the artist in social movements? As they were planning the workshop, they were really inspired by a quote from Toni Cade Bambara, who in an interview from 1982 said, as a cultural worker who belongs to an oppressed people, my job is to make the revolution irresistible. So that raises a few questions worth slowing down for, which are, who was Toni Cade Bambara? What does it mean to be a cultural organizer and why does that matter? Especially in this political moment? Lavender Phoenix has been grappling with these questions in practice, and I think they have some powerful answers to share. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to angel who is a member of Lavender Phoenix. Angel: My name is Angel. I use he and she pronouns, and I'm part of the communications committee at LavNix. So, let's explore what exactly is the meaning of cultural work.  Cultural workers are the creators of narratives through various forms of artistic expression, and we literally drive the production of culture. Cultural work reflects the perspectives and attitudes of artists and therefore the people and communities that they belong to. Art does not exist in a vacuum. You may have heard the phrase before. Art is always political. It serves a purpose to tell a story, to document the times to perpetuate and give longevity to ideas. It may conform to the status quo or choose to resist it. I wanted to share a little bit about one cultural worker who's made a really big impact and paved the way for how we think about cultural work and this framework. Toni Cade Bambara was a black feminist, cultural worker, writer, and organizer whose literary work celebrated black art, culture and life, and radically supported a movement for collective liberation. She believed that it's the artist's role to serve the community they belong to, and that an artist is of no higher status than a factory worker, social worker, or teacher. Is the idea of even reframing art making as cultural work. Reclaimed the arts from the elite capitalist class and made clear that it is work, it does not have more value than or take precedence over any other type of movement work. This is a quote from an interview from 1982 when Toni Cade Bambara said, as a cultural worker who belongs to an oppressed people, my job is to make revolution irresistible. But in this country, we're not encouraged and equipped at any particular time to view things that way. And so the artwork or the art practice that sells that capitalist ideology is considered art. And anything that deviates from that is considered political, propagandist, polemical, or didactic, strange, weird, subversive or ugly. Cheryl: After reading that quote, angel then invited the workshop participants to think about what that means for them. What does it mean to make the revolution irresistible? After giving people a bit of time to reflect, angel then reads some of the things that were shared in the chat. Angel: I want my art to point out the inconsistencies within our society to surprised, enraged, elicit a strong enough reaction that they feel they must do something. Cheryl: Another person said, Angel: I love that art can be a way of bridging relationships. Connecting people together, building community. Cheryl: And someone else said. Angel: I want people to feel connected to my art, find themselves in it, and have it make them think and realize that they have the ability to do something themselves. Cheryl: I think what is rather striking in these responses that Angel has read aloud to what it means to make art that makes the revolution irresistible isn't just aesthetics alone, but rather its ability to help us connect and communicate and find one another to enact feelings and responses in each other. It's about the way it makes people feel implicated and connected and also capable of acting. Tony Cade Bambara when she poses that the role of cultural workers is to make the revolution irresistible is posing to us a challenge to tap into our creativity and create art that makes people unable to return comfortably to the world as is, and it makes revolution necessary, desirable not as an abstract idea, but as something people can want and move towards  now I'm going to invite Jenica, who is the cultural organizer at Lavender Phoenix to break down for us why we need cultural work in this political moment. . Speaker: Jenica: So many of us as artists have really internalized the power of art and are really eager to connect it to the movement.  This section is about answering this question of why is cultural work important.  Cultural work plays a really vital role in organizing and achieving our political goals, right? So if our goal is to advance radical solutions to everyday people, we also have to ask ourselves how are we going to reach those peoples? Ideas of revolution and liberation are majorly inaccessible to the masses, to everyday people. Families are being separated. Attacks on the working class are getting worse and worse. How are we really propping up these ideas of revolution, especially right in America, where propaganda for the state, for policing, for a corrupt government runs really high. Therefore our messaging in political organizing works to combat that propaganda. So in a sense we have to make our own propaganda. So let's look at this term together. Propaganda is art that we make that accurately reflects and makes people aware of the true nature of the conditions of their oppression and inspires them to take control of transforming this condition. We really want to make art that seeks to make the broader society aware of its implications in the daily violences, facilitated in the name of capitalism, imperialism, and shows that error of maintaining or ignoring the status quo. So it's really our goal to arm people with the tools to better struggle against their own points of views, their ways of thinking, because not everyone is already aligned with like revolution already, right? No one's born an organizer. No one's born 100% willing to be in this cause. So, we really focus on the creative and cultural processes, as artists build that revolutionary culture. Propaganda is really a means of liberation. It's an instrument to help clarify information education and a way to mobilize our people. And not only that, our cultural work can really model to others what it's like to envision a better world for ourselves, right? Our imagination can be so expansive when it comes to creating art. As organizers and activists when we create communication, zines, et cetera, we're also asking ourselves, how does this bring us one step closer to revolution? How are we challenging the status quo? So this is exactly what our role as artists is in this movement. It's to create propaganda that serves two different purposes. One, subvert the enemy and cultivate a culture that constantly challenges the status quo. And also awaken and mobilize the people. How can we, through our art, really uplift the genuine interests of the most exploited of people of the working class, of everyday people who are targets of the state and really empower those whose stories are often kept outside of this master narrative. Because when they are talked about, people in power will often misrepresent marginalized communities. An example of this, Lavender Phoenix, a couple years ago took up this campaign called Justice for Jaxon Sales. Trigger warning here, hate crime, violence against queer people and death. Um, so Jaxon Sales was a young, queer, Korean adoptee living in the Bay Area who went on a blind like dating app date and was found dead the next morning in a high-rise apartment in San Francisco. Lavender Phoenix worked really closely and is still connected really closely with Jaxon's parents, Jim and Angie Solas to really fight, and organize for justice for Jaxon and demand investigation into what happened to him and his death, and have answers for his family. I bring that up, this campaign because when his parents spoke to the chief medical examiner in San Francisco, they had told his family Jaxon died of an accidental overdose he was gay. Like gay people just these kinds of drugs. So that was the narrative that was being presented to us from the state. Like literally, their own words: he's dead because he's gay. And our narrative, as we continue to organize and support his family, was to really address the stigma surrounding drug use. Also reiterating the fact that justice was deserved for Jaxon, and that no one should ever have to go through this. We all deserve to be safe, that a better world is possible. So that's an example of combating the status quo and then uplifting the genuine interest of our people and his family. One of our key values at Lavender Phoenix is honoring our histories, because the propaganda against our own people is so intense. I just think about the everyday people, the working class, our immigrant communities and ancestors, other queer and trans people of color that really fought so hard to have their story told. So when we do this work and think about honoring our histories, let's also ask ourselves what will we do to keep those stories alive? Cheryl: We're going to take a quick music break and listen to some music by Namgar, an international ethno music collective that fuses traditional Buryat and Mongolian music with pop, jazz, funk, ambient soundscapes, and art- pop. We'll be back in just a moment with more after we listen to “part two” by Namgar.    Cheryl: Welcome back.  You are tuned in to APEX express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB B in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.  That song you just heard was “part two” by Namgar, an incredible four- piece Buryat- Mongolian ensemble that is revitalizing and preserving the Buryat language and culture through music. For those just tuning in tonight's episode of APEX Express is all about the role of the artist in social movements. We're joined by members of Lavender Phoenix, often referred to as LavNix, which is a grassroots organization in the Bay Area building Trans and queer API Power. You can learn more about their work in our show notes. We talked about why cultural work is a core part of organizing. We grounded that conversation in the words of Toni Cade Bambara, who said in a 1982 interview, as a cultural worker who belongs to an oppressed people, my job is to make revolution irresistible. We unpacked what that looks like in practice and lifted up Lavender Phoenix's Justice for Jaxon Sales campaign as a powerful example of cultural organizing, which really demonstrates how art and narrative work and cultural work are essential to building power Now Jenica from Levner Phoenix is going to walk us through some powerful examples of cultural organizing that have occurred in social movements across time and across the world. Speaker: Jenica: Now we're going to look at some really specific examples of powerful cultural work in our movements. For our framework today, we'll start with an international example, then a national one, a local example, and then finally one from LavNix. As we go through them, we ask that you take notes on what makes these examples, impactful forms of cultural work. How does it subvert the status quo? How is it uplifting the genuine interest of the people? Our international example is actually from the Philippines. Every year, the Corrupt Philippines president delivers a state of the nation address to share the current conditions of the country. However, on a day that the people are meant to hear about the genuine concrete needs of the Filipino masses, they're met instead with lies and deceit that's broadcasted and also built upon like years of disinformation and really just feeds the selfish interests of the ruling class and the imperialist powers. In response to this, every year, BAYAN, which is an alliance in the Philippines with overseas chapters here in the US as well. Their purpose is to fight for the national sovereignty and genuine democracy in the Philippines, they hold a Peoples' State of the Nation Address , or PSONA, to protest and deliver the genuine concerns and demands of the masses. So part of PSONA are effigies. Effigies have been regular fixtures in protest rallies, including PSONA. So for those of you who don't know, an effigy is a sculptural representation, often life size of a hated person or group. These makeshift dummies are used for symbolic punishment in political protests, and the figures are often burned. In the case of PSONA, these effigies are set on fire by protestors criticizing government neglect, especially of the poor. Lisa Ito, who is a progressive artists explained that the effigy is constructed not only as a mockery of the person represented, but also of the larger system that his or her likeness embodies. Ito pointed out that effigies have evolved considerably as a form of popular protest art in the Philippines, used by progressive people's movements, not only to entertain, but also to agitate, mobilize and capture the sentiments of the people. This year, organizers created this effigy that they titled ‘ZomBBM,' ‘Sara-nanggal' . This is a play on words calling the corrupt president of the Philippines, Bongbong Marcos, or BBM, a zombie. And the vice president Sara Duterte a Manananggal, which is a, Filipino vampire to put it in short, brief words. Organizers burnt this effigy as a symbol of DK and preservation of the current ruling class. I love this effigy so much. You can see BBM who's depicted like his head is taken off and inside of his head is Trump because he's considered like a puppet president of the Philippines just serving US interests. Awesome. I'm gonna pass it to Angel for our national perspective. Angel: Our next piece is from the national perspective and it was in response to the AIDS crisis. The global pandemic of HIV AIDS began in 1981 and continues today. AIDS is the late stage of HIV infection, human immunodeficiency virus, and this crisis has been marked largely by government indifference, widespread stigma against gay people, and virtually no federal funding towards research or services for everyday people impacted. There was a really devastating lack of public attention about the seriousness of HIV. The Ronald Reagan administration treated the crisis as a joke because of its association with gay men, and Reagan didn't even publicly acknowledge AIDS until 19 85, 4 years into the pandemic. Thousands of HIV positive people across backgrounds and their supporters organize one of the most influential patient advocacy groups in history. They called themselves the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power or ACT up. They ultimately organize and force the government and the scientific community to fundamentally change the way medical research is conducted. Paving the way for the discovery of a treatment that today keeps alive, an estimated half million HIV positive Americans and millions more worldwide. Sarah Schulman, a writer and former member of ACT Up, wrote a list of ACT UPS achievements, including changing the CDC C'S definition of aids to include women legalizing needle exchange in New York City and establishing housing services for HIV positive unhoused people. To highlight some cultural work within ACT Up, the AIDS activist artist Collective Grand Fury formed out of ACT Up and CR and created works for the public sphere that drew attention to the medical, moral and public issues related to the AIDS crisis. Essentially, the government was fine with the mass deaths and had a large role in the active killing off of people who are not just queer, but people who are poor working class and of color. We still see parallels in these roadblocks. Today, Trump is cutting public healthcare ongoing, and in recent memory, the COVID crisis, the political situation of LGBTQ people then and now is not divorced from this class analysis. So in response, we have the AIDS Memorial Quilt, this collective installation memorializes people who died in the US from the AIDS crisis and from government neglect. Each panel is dedicated to a life lost and created by hand by their friends, family, loved ones, and community. This artwork was originally conceived by Cleve Jones in SF for the 1985 candlelight March, and later it was expanded upon and displayed in Washington DC in 1987. Its enormity demonstrated the sheer number at which queer folk were killed in the hiv aids crisis, as well as created a space in the public for dialogue about the health disparities that harm and silence our community. Today, it's returned home to San Francisco and can be accessed through an interactive online archive. 50,000 individual panels and around a hundred thousand names make up the patchwork quilt, which is insane, and it's one of the largest pieces of grassroots community art in the world. Moving on to a more local perspective. In the Bay Area, we're talking about the Black Panther Party. So in October of 1966 in Oakland, California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for self-defense. The Panthers practiced militant self-defense of black communities against the US government and fought to establish socialism through organizing and community-based programs. The Black Panthers began by organizing arm patrols of black people to monitor the Oakland Police Department and challenge rampant rampant police brutality. At its peak, the party had offices in 68 cities and thousands of members. The party's 10 point program was a set of demands, guidelines, and values, calling for self-determination, full employment of black people, and the end of exploitation of black workers housing for all black people, and so much more. The party's money programs directly addressed their platform as they instituted a free B Breakfast for Children program to address food scarcity Founded community health clinics to address the lack of adequate, adequate healthcare for black people and treat sickle cell anemia, tuberculosis, and HIV aids and more. The cultural work created by the Black Panther Party included the Black Panther Party newspaper known as the Black Panther. It was a four page newsletter in Oakland, California in 1967. It was the main publication of the party and was soon sold in several large cities across the US as well as having an international readership. The Black Panther issue number two. The newspaper, distributed information about the party's activities and expressed through articles, the ideology of the Black Panther Party, focusing on both international revolutions as inspiration and contemporary racial struggles of African Americans across the United States. Solidarity with other resistance movements was a major draw for readers. The paper's international section reported on liberation struggles across the world. Under Editor-in-Chief, David Du Bois, the stepson of WEB Du Bois, the section deepened party support for revolutionary efforts in South Africa and Cuba. Copies of the paper traveled abroad with students and activists and were tra translated into Hebrew and Japanese. It reflected that the idea of resistance to police oppression had spread like wildfire. Judy Juanita, a former editor in Chief Ads, it shows that this pattern of oppression was systemic. End quote. Paper regularly featured fiery rhetoric called out racist organizations and was unabashed in its disdain for the existing political system. Its first cover story reported on the police killing of Denzel Doel, a 22-year-old black man in Richmond, California. In all caps, the paper stated, brothers and sisters, these racist murders are happening every day. They could happen to any one of us. And it became well known for its bold cover art, woodcut style images of protestors, armed panthers, and police depicted as bloodied pigs. Speaker: Jenica: I'm gonna go into the LavNix example of cultural work that we've done. For some context, we had mentioned that we are taking up this campaign called Care Not Cops. Just to give some brief background to LavNix, as systems have continued to fail us, lavender Phoenix's work has always been about the safety of our communities. We've trained people in deescalation crisis intervention set up counseling networks, right? Then in 2022, we had joined the Sales family to fight for justice for Jaxon Sales. And with them we demanded answers for untimely death from the sheriff's department and the medical examiner. Something we noticed during that campaign is that every year we watch as people in power vote on another city budget that funds the same institutions that hurt our people and steal money from our communities. Do people know what the budget is for the San Francisco Police Department? Every year, we see that city services and programs are gutted. Meanwhile, this year, SFPD has $849 million, and the sheriff has $345 million. So, honestly, policing in general in the city is over $1 billion. And they will not experience any cuts. Their bloated budgets will remain largely intact. We've really been watching, Mayor Lurie , his first months and like, honestly like first more than half a year, with a lot of concern. We've seen him declare the unlawful fentanyl state of emergency, which he can't really do, and continue to increase police presence downtown. Ultimately we know that mayor Lurie and our supervisors need to hear from us everyday people who demand care, not cops. So that leads me into our cultural work. In March of this year, lavender Phoenix had collaborated with youth organizations across the city, youth groups from Chinese Progressive Association, PODER, CYC, to host a bilingual care, not cops, zine making workshop for youth. Our organizers engaged with the youth with agitating statistics on the egregious SFPD budget, and facilitated a space for them to warm up their brains and hearts to imagine a world without prisons and policing. And to really further envision one that centers on care healing for our people, all through art. What I really learned is that working class San Francisco youth are the ones who really know the city's fascist conditions the most intimately. It's clear through their zine contributions that they've really internalized these intense forms of policing in the schools on the streets with the unhoused, witnessing ice raids and fearing for their families. The zine was really a collective practice with working class youth where they connected their own personal experiences to the material facts of policing in the city, the budget, and put those experiences to paper.   Cheryl: Hey everyone. Cheryl here. So we've heard about Effigies in the Philippines, the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the Black Panther Party's newspaper, the Black Panther and Lavender Phoenix's Care Cop zine. Through these examples, we've learned about cultural work and art and narrative work on different scales internationally, nationally, locally and organizationally. With lavender Phoenix. What we're seeing is across movements across time. Cultural work has always been central to organizing. We're going to take another music break, but when we return, I'll introduce you to our next speaker. Hai, from Asian Refugees United, who will walk us through, their creative practice, which is food, as a form of cultural resistance, and we'll learn about how food ways can function as acts of survival, resistance, and also decolonization. So stay with us more soon when we return.   Cheryl: And we're back!!. You're listening to APEX express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. 88.1. KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org. That was “Juniper” by Minjoona, a project led by Korean American musician, Jackson Wright.  huge thanks to Jackson and the whole crew behind that track.  I am here with Hai from Asian Refugees United, who is a member QTViet Cafe Collective. A project under Asian Refugees United. QTViet Viet Cafe is a creative cultural hub that is dedicated to queer and trans viet Liberation through ancestral practices, the arts and intergenerational connection. This is a clip from what was a much longer conversation. This episode is all about the role of the artist in social movements and I think Hai brings a very interesting take to the conversation. Hai (ARU): I think that what is helping me is one, just building the muscle. So when we're so true to our vision and heart meets mind and body. So much of what QTViet Cafe is, and by extension Asian refugees and like, we're really using our cultural arts and in many ways, whether that's movement or poetry or written word or song or dance. And in many ways I've had a lot of experience in our food ways, and reclaiming those food ways. That's a very embodied experience. We're really trying to restore wholeness and health and healing in our communities, in our bodies and our minds and our families and our communities that have been displaced because of colonization, imperialism, capitalism. And so how do we restore, how do we have a different relationship and how do we restore? I think that from moving from hurt to healing is life and art. And so we need to take risk and trying to define life through art and whatever means that we can to make meaning and purpose and intention. I feel like so much of what art is, is trying to make meaning of the hurt in order to bring in more healing in our lives. For so long, I think I've been wanting a different relationship to food. For example, because I grew up section eight, food stamps, food bank. My mom and my parents doing the best they could, but also, yeah, grew up with Viet food, grew up with ingredients for my parents making food, mostly my mom that weren't necessarily all the best. And I think compared to Vietnam, where it's easier access. And there's a different kind of system around, needs around food and just easier access, more people are involved around the food system in Vietnam I think growing up in Turtle Island and seeing my parents struggle not just with food, but just with money and jobs it's just all connected. And I think that impacted my journey and. My own imbalance around health and I became a byproduct of diabetes and high cholesterol and noticed that in my family. So when I noticed, when I had type two diabetes when I was 18, made the conscious choice to, I knew I needed to have some type of, uh, I need to have a different relationship to my life and food included and just like cut soda, started kind of what I knew at the time, exercising as ways to take care of my body. And then it's honestly been now a 20 year journey of having a different relationship to not just food, but health and connection to mind, body, spirit. For me, choosing to have a different relationship in my life, like that is a risk. Choosing to eat something different like that is both a risk and an opportunity. For me that's like part of movement building like you have to. Be so in tune with my body to notice and the changes that are needed in order to live again. When I noticed, you know, , hearing other Viet folks experiencing diet related stuff and I think knowing what I know also, like politically around what's happening around our food system, both for the vie community here and also in Vietnam, how do we, how can this regular act of nourishing ourselves both be not just in art, something that should actually just honestly be an everyday need and an everyday symbol of caregiving and caretaking and care that can just be part of our everyday lives. I want a world where, it's not just one night where we're tasting the best and eating the best and being nourished, just in one Saturday night, but that it's just happening all the time because we're in right relationship with ourselves and each other and the earth that everything is beauty and we don't have to take so many risks because things are already in its natural divine. I think it takes being very conscious of our circumstances and our surroundings and our relationships with each other for that to happen. I remember reading in my early twenties, reading the role of, bring Coke basically to Vietnam during the war. I was always fascinated like, why are, why is Coke like on Viet altars all the time? And I always see them in different places. Whenever I would go back to Vietnam, I remember when I was seven and 12. Going to a family party and the classic shiny vinyl plastic, floral like sheet on a round table and the stools, and then these beautiful platters of food. But I'm always like, why are we drinking soda or coke and whatever else? My dad and the men and then my family, like drinking beer. And I was like, why? I've had periods in my life when I've gotten sick, physically and mentally sick. Those moments open up doors to take the risk and then also the opportunity to try different truth or different path. When I was 23 and I had just like crazy eczema and psoriasis and went back home to my parents for a while and I just started to learn about nourishing traditions, movement. I was Very critical of the us traditional nutrition ideas of what good nutrition is and very adamantly like opposing the food pyramid. And then in that kind of research, I was one thinking well, they're talking about the science of broths and like soups and talking about hard boiling and straining the broth and getting the gunk on the top. And I'm like, wait, my mom did that. And I was starting to connect what has my mom known culturally that now like science is catching up, you know? And then I started just reading, you know, like I think that my mom didn't know the sign mom. I was like, asked my mom like, did you know about this? And she's like, I mean, I just, this is, is like what ba ngoai said, you know? And so I'm like, okay, so culturally this, this is happening scientifically. This is what's being shared. And then I started reading about the politics of US-centric upheaval of monocultural agriculture essentially. When the US started to do the industrial Revolution and started to basically grow wheat and soy and just basically make sugar to feed lots of cows and create sugar to be put in products like Coke was one of them. And, and then, yeah, that was basically a way for the US government to make money from Vietnam to bring that over, to Vietnam. And that was introduced to our culture. It's just another wave of imperialism and colonization. And sadly, we know what, overprocessed, like refined sugars can do to our health. And sadly, I can't help but make the connections with what happened. In many ways, food and sugar are introduced through these systems of colonization and imperialism are so far removed from what we ate pre colonization. And so, so much of my journey around food has been, you know, it's not even art, it's just like trying to understand, how do we survive and we thrive even before so many. And you know, in some ways it is art. 'cause I making 40 pounds of cha ga for event, , the fish cake, like, that's something that, that our people have been doing for a long time and hand making all that. And people love the dish and I'm really glad that people enjoyed it and mm, it's like, oh yeah, it's art. But it's what people have been doing to survive and thrive for long, for so long, you know? , We have the right to be able to practice our traditional food ways and we have the right for food sovereignty and food justice. And we have the right to, by extension, like have clean waters and hospitable places to live and for our animal kin to live and for our plant kin to be able to thrive. bun cha ga, I think like it's an artful hopeful symbol of what is seasonal and relevant and culturally symbolic of our time. I think that, yes, the imminent, violent, traumatic war that are happening between people, in Vietnam and Palestine and Sudan. Honestly, like here in America. That is important. And I think we need to show, honestly, not just to a direct violence, but also very indirect violence on our bodies through the food that we're eating. Our land and waters are living through indirect violence with just like everyday pollutants and top soil being removed and industrialization. And so I think I'm just very cognizant of the kind of everyday art ways, life ways, ways of being that I think that are important to be aware of and both practice as resistance against the forces that are trying to strip away our livelihood every day. Cheryl: We just heard from Hai of Asian refugees United who shared about how food ways function as an embodied form of cultural work that is rooted in memory and also survival and healing. Hai talked about food as a practice and art that is lived in the body and is also shaped by displacement and colonization and capitalism and imperialism. I shared that through their journey with QTV at Cafe and Asian Refugees United. High was able to reflect on reclaiming traditional food ways as a way to restore health and wholeness and relationship to our bodies and to our families, to our communities, and to the earth. High. Also, traced out illness and imbalance as deeply connected to political systems that have disrupted ancestral knowledge and instead introduced extractive food systems and normalized everyday forms of soft violence through what we consume and the impact it has on our land. And I think the most important thing I got from our conversation was that high reminded us that nourishing ourselves can be both an act of care, an art form, and an act of resistance. And what we call art is often what people have always done to survive and thrive Food. For them is a practice of memory, and it's also a refusal of erasure and also a very radical vision of food sovereignty and healing and collective life outside of colonial violence and harm. As we close out tonight's episode, I want to return to the question that has guided us from the beginning, which is, what is the role of the artist in social movements? What we've heard tonight from Tony Cade Bambara call to make revolution irresistible to lavender Phoenix's cultural organizing here, internationally to Hai, reflections on food ways, and nourishing ourselves as resistance. It is Really clear to me. Art is not separate from struggle. It is how people make sense of systems of violence and carry memory and also practice healing and reimagining new worlds in the middle of ongoing violence. Cultural work helps our movements. Endure and gives us language when words fail, or ritual when grief is heavy, and practices that connect us, that reconnect us to our bodies and our histories and to each other. So whether that's through zines, or songs or murals, newspapers, or shared meals, art is a way of liberation again and again. I wanna thank all of our speakers today, Jenica, Angel. From Lavender Phoenix. Hi, from QTV Cafe, Asian Refugees United, And I also wanna thank you, our listeners for staying with us. You've been listening to Apex Express on KPFA. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and keep imagining the world that we're trying to build. That's important stuff. Cheryl Truong (she/they): Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong  Cheryl Truong: Tonight's show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!  The post APEX Express – January 1, 2026 – The Role of the Artist in Social Movements appeared first on KPFA.

Pastor Rebecca's sermon centers the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, which was organized in 1987 with an absolutely singular mission: direct action to end the AIDS crisis. In the face of neglect, negligence, indifference, they behaved badly to save lives — a move that may sound familiar from stories about Jesus.

Peter Hujar, Gregg Bordowitz and Rotimi Fani-Kayode are three artists whose work reflects in different ways on the Aids crisis that has devastated communities across the world since the 1980s. Hujar, who died from Aids-related pneumonia in 1987, is the subject of a new show at Raven Row in London, the largest to date at a UK gallery. Host Ben Luke takes a tour of the show with its curators, the writer John Douglas Millar, and the artist, master printer and model for some of Hujar's photographs, Gary Schneider. The artist Gregg Bordowitz was a member of The Aids Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, founded in New York in the 1980s. Bordowitz has lived with HIV since the late 1980s, and it has fuelled his art and activism ever since, as a new show at Camden Art Centre in London demonstrates. We spoke to him about his life and work. And this episode's Work of the Week is Rotimi Fani-Kayode's Abiku (Born to Die) (1988), a photograph in The 80s: Photographing Britain, a show at Tate Britain in London. Fani-Kayode was a key figure in the UK's burgeoning avant-garde photography scene in the late 1980s, but died in his early 30s in 1989 from complications relating to Aids. We talk to Jasmine Kaur Chohan, co-curator of the Tate Britain show, about the work.Peter Hujar—Eyes Open in the Dark, Raven Row, London, 30 January-6 AprilGregg Bordowitz—There: a Feeling, Camden Art Centre, London, until 23 MarchThe 80s: Photographing Britain, Tate Britain, until 5 MayThe Art Newspaper's book The Year Ahead 2025, an authoritative guide to the year's unmissable art exhibitions, museum openings and significant art events, is still available to buy at theartnewspaper.com for £14.99 or the equivalent in your currency. Buy it here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Indonesia AIDS Coalition (IAC) is a community-based organization that contributes to efforts to enhance transparency, accountability, and public participation in AIDS programs through collaboration with various stakeholders, both governmental and non-governmental. This episode is sponsored by the Indonesian AIDS Coalition https://iac.or.id/id/ Timestamps: 0:00 — Controversial HIV clip of Indah G & Boy William. The fight against mentalitas orang Indonesia 17:02 — Contracted HIV vs. Born with HIV, mortality rate, why HIV is so common amongst housewives/IRT, the problem with how we gather data on HIV 32:10 — Employment, Schooling, Indonesian government involvement why HIV rates in West Papua is so high 43:43 — The problem with Indonesian culture and our sex education 48:57 — Sponsorship 50:16 — ARV & Prep + Pregnant HIV+ women breastfeeding 52:41 — How to get HIV and how to NOT get HIV. 01:12:50 — Risky activities, TKW & Expats with HIV, Indah G's creative ways of normalizing HIV

Helen Eisenbach is a novelist, satirist, playwright, theatre director, screenwriter, journalist and editor. Her books include the novel Loonglow and the how-to/cry for help Lesbianism Made Easy, both published shamelessly ahead of their time and now available as ebooks with Open Road Media. Her plays have been produced in NYC, San Francisco, Chicago, and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As a book editor, she founded the Plume line of LGBTQ fiction and nonfiction, where she published the subject of today's podcast, Larry Kramer, among others (mostly now dead!); she was also Editorial Director at Arbor House, where she founded a line of trade paperbacks, and Editor in Chief of Alyson Publications on its transition to a mainstream publisher under the Advocate magazine's rule. She was Executive Editor of the late beloved queer weekly magazine QW (where she published Rosanne's first ever queer interview); literary editor of the L.A. magazine Dot 429; an editor at the copy desk of Entertainment Weekly and Time Magazine. In theatre, she assisted writer/director Dick Scanlan, director Michael Mayer and Sherie Rene Scott on the play Whorl Inside a Loop as script editorial supervisor, seeing it from workshop to Off Broadway production for 2ND Stage Theatre; she was also researcher for Scanlan and composer Carmel Dean on their Edna St. Vincent Millay musical Renascence. Helen's reviews, profiles and interviews have appeared in New York magazine, LitHub, the Village Voice, Time Out NY, Newsday, Writer's Digest, The New York Times, Interview, the Daily News, HuffPost, Salon and other tasteful publications. Larry Kramer was a playwright, author, film producer, public health advocate, and gay rights activist. In 1978, Kramer introduced a controversial and confrontational style in his novel FAGGOTS, which earned mixed reviews and emphatic denunciations from elements within the gay community for Kramer's portrayal of what he characterized as shallow, promiscuous gay relationships in the 1970s. Kramer witnessed the spread of the disease known as  Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) among his friends in 1980. He co-founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis  (GMHC), which has become the world's largest private organization assisting people living with AIDS. His political activism continued with the founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power   (ACT UP) in 1987, an influential direct action protest organization with the aim of gaining more public action to fight the AIDS crisis. ACT UP has been widely credited with changing public health policy and the perception of people living with AIDS , and with raising awareness of HIV and AIDS-related diseases.His play The Normal Heart was produced by Joseph Papp at The Public Theater in New York City in 1985. He died from pneumonia on May 27,2020  

The AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia is hosting an event to celebrate its work to support people living with HIV/AIDS over the last three decades. Hear why it's a pivotal turning point in that work, as the group begins to expand its services to support the broader 2SLGBTQ+ community. 

Chris Aucoin, the executive director of the AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia, says more than 150 red scarfs will be tied to the black iron fencing around the Halifax Public Gardens on Dec. 1 in honour of World AIDS Day. He joins host Jeff Douglas to talk about how AIDS awareness and access to health care has changed over the years.

Earl "Trey" Singleton III arrives in New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. Born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family, at 17, he is ready to leave his overbearing parents and their expectations behind. In the city, Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients, and after being put to the test by gay rights activists, becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships--all while seeking the meaning of life amid so much death. Vibrant, humorous, and fraught with entanglements, Rasheed Newson's My Government Means to Kill Me (Flatiron Books, 2023) is an exhilarating, fast-paced coming-of-age story that lends itself to a larger discussion about what it means for a young gay Black man in the mid-1980s to come to terms with his role in the midst of a political and social reckoning. Rasheed Newson is a writer and producer of Bel-Air, The Chi, and Narcos. He currently resides in Pasadena, California with his husband and two children. My Government Means to Kill Me is his debut novel. Recommended Books: Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming Richard Mirabella, Brother and Sister Enter the Forest Jeffrey Escoffery, If I Survive You Prince Shakur, When They Tell You to Be Good Rasheed's Socials! Twitter: @rasheednewson TikTok: @rasheednewson Instagram: rasheed.newson.author Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earl "Trey" Singleton III arrives in New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. Born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family, at 17, he is ready to leave his overbearing parents and their expectations behind. In the city, Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients, and after being put to the test by gay rights activists, becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships--all while seeking the meaning of life amid so much death. Vibrant, humorous, and fraught with entanglements, Rasheed Newson's My Government Means to Kill Me (Flatiron Books, 2023) is an exhilarating, fast-paced coming-of-age story that lends itself to a larger discussion about what it means for a young gay Black man in the mid-1980s to come to terms with his role in the midst of a political and social reckoning. Rasheed Newson is a writer and producer of Bel-Air, The Chi, and Narcos. He currently resides in Pasadena, California with his husband and two children. My Government Means to Kill Me is his debut novel. Recommended Books: Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming Richard Mirabella, Brother and Sister Enter the Forest Jeffrey Escoffery, If I Survive You Prince Shakur, When They Tell You to Be Good Rasheed's Socials! Twitter: @rasheednewson TikTok: @rasheednewson Instagram: rasheed.newson.author Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Earl "Trey" Singleton III arrives in New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. Born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family, at 17, he is ready to leave his overbearing parents and their expectations behind. In the city, Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients, and after being put to the test by gay rights activists, becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships--all while seeking the meaning of life amid so much death. Vibrant, humorous, and fraught with entanglements, Rasheed Newson's My Government Means to Kill Me (Flatiron Books, 2023) is an exhilarating, fast-paced coming-of-age story that lends itself to a larger discussion about what it means for a young gay Black man in the mid-1980s to come to terms with his role in the midst of a political and social reckoning. Rasheed Newson is a writer and producer of Bel-Air, The Chi, and Narcos. He currently resides in Pasadena, California with his husband and two children. My Government Means to Kill Me is his debut novel. Recommended Books: Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming Richard Mirabella, Brother and Sister Enter the Forest Jeffrey Escoffery, If I Survive You Prince Shakur, When They Tell You to Be Good Rasheed's Socials! Twitter: @rasheednewson TikTok: @rasheednewson Instagram: rasheed.newson.author Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

 Commons Conversations was a summer series of interviews in which campaigners shared their experiences and insights into activism, learning in movements, radical history and more. The program was broadcast by Community Radio 3CR and produced by the Commons Social Change Library, a website containing over 1000 resources for campaigners, which can be accessed for free at commonslibrary.orgThis episode features an interview by Commons Librarian Holly Hammond with novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and historian Sarah Schulman. They discuss the nature of effective coalitions, the challenges of accurately documenting social movements, and lessons from campaigns led by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) during the 1980s and 1990s. A participant in the campaigns, Schulman's book, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993, is based on over 200 interviews with those involved in the fight for healthcare and justice for people living with AIDS and HIV.

December 1st is World AIDS day, and executive director of the AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia, Chris Aucoin, lays out planned events and what the future of HIV testing could look like in the province.

Guests featured on this episode:Craig Calhoun, University Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State University and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has written on the struggle by students for democracy in China, a book titled "Neither Gods nor Emperors." He has co-authored the volume, "Does Capitalism Have a Future?" with Immanuel Wallerstein and others. His latest book, "Degenerations of Democracy," written with Charles Taylor and Dilip Gaonkar, notes the signs that  U.S. American democracy exhibits symptoms of decline or even of degeneration, and inspires our conversation in this episode. Glossary Who is Peter Thiel?(14:55 or p.4 in the transcript)Peter Thiel is a German American entrepreneur and business executive who helped found PayPal, an e-commerce company, and Palantir Technologies, a software firm involved in data analysis. He also invested in several notable ventures, including Facebook. Critics questioned involvement of Palantir Technologies with the CIA and other government agencies, especially given Thiel's libertarianism. However, he argued that Palantir's technology allowed for focused data retrieval, preventing overreaching searches and more draconian measures. The company was also used by banks to detect fraud and handle other cybersecurity efforts. In 2005 Thiel established Founders Fund, a venture capital firm. It invested in such companies as Airbnb, Lyft, and SpaceX. Thiel garnered attention in 2016 when he became a vocal supporter of Republican presidential nominee—and eventual winner of the election—Donald Trump, donating money and even speaking at the party's convention: source What is Silicon Valley?(15:07 or p.4 in the transcript)Silicon Valley is an industrial region around the southern shores of San Francisco Bay, California, U.S., with its intellectual center at Palo Alto, home of Stanford University. Its name is derived from the dense concentration of electronics and computer companies that sprang up there since the mid-20th century, silicon being the base material of the semiconductors employed in computer circuits. The economic emphasis in Silicon Valley has now partly switched from computer manufacturing to research, development, and marketing of computer products and software: source What is the ‘Roe v. Wade' case?(25:36 or p.6 in the transcript)Roe v. Wade is a legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, ruled (7–2) that unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the Court held that a set of Texas statutes criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman's constitutional right of privacy, which it found to be implicit in the liberty guarantee of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”). Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022: source What is the ACT UP movement?(30:50 or p.7 in the transcript)ACT UP, in full AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, is an international organization founded in the United States in 1987 to bring attention to the AIDS epidemic. It was the first group officially created to do so. ACT UP has dozens of chapters in the United States and around the world whose purpose is to find a cure for AIDS, while at the same time providing accurate information, help, and awareness about the disease by means of education and radical, nonviolent protest. The organization was founded in March 1987 at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in Manhattan, New York, in response to what was seen as the U.S. government's lack of action on the growing number of deaths from HIV infection and AIDS: source Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:• Central European University: CEU• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD• The Podcast Company: Novel Follow us on social media!• Central European University: @CEU• Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentreSubscribe to the show. If you enjoyed what you listened to, you can support us by leaving a review and sharing our podcast in your networks! 

Efemia Chela asks Mark Gevisser and Sarah Schulman about their books The Pink Line and Let the Record Show, respectively. They share lessons from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), debate visibility politics, the idea of a queer utopia, the relationship between legal reform and social change as well as how to avoid burnout. Efemia Chela is a Zambian-Ghanaian editor living in Johannesburg. She has an MA in Development Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. Mark Gevisser is the award-winning author of Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir and The Pink Line: Journeys across the World's Queer Frontiers (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2020). Sarah Schulman is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer and AIDS historian. She is the author of 20 books, most recently Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP, New York 1987-1993 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). In this episode we stand in solidarity with the 15 journalists and one media worker currently held in pre-trial detention in Diyarbakır, Turkey. Their names are: Lezgin Akdeniz, Safiye Alagaş, Serdar Altan, Zeynel Abidin Bulut, Ömer Çelik, Suat Doğuhan, Mehmet Ali Ertaş, Ramazan Geciken, Mazlum Doğan Güler, İbrahim Koyuncu, Abdurrahman Öncü, Aziz Oruç, Mehmet Şahin, Remziye Temel, Neşe Toprak and Elif Üngür. You can read more about their case here: https://pen-international.org/news/turkey-journalists-held-in-diyarbakir-must-be-released This is the final episode of season five. We're taking a break and will be back with season six. Thank you so much for listening! This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa.

As HIV/AIDS ravaged the gay community in the 1980s, the federal government was slow to respond owing to anti-LGBTQ stigma. ACT UP–the “AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power”–sprang up to hold government officials, pharmaceutical companies, and society at large accountable. One offshoot of that movement was Gran Fury, which weaponized art and graphic design in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Abdul speaks with Jack Lowery, author of the “It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful,” about Gran Fury and its legacy.

ACT UP was a landmark organization that took LGBTQ rights activism to a new level of in-your-face activism. Do we need to return to that kind of strategy abainst the new wave of homo- and trans-phobia? We talk to author Ron Goldberg today to get his input. We will be discussing the history of ACT UP New York and his upcoming book Boy With The Bullhorn . Boy With The Bullhorn:A Memoir and History of ACT UP New York is Goldberg's immersive and chronological history of the New York chapter of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, and a memoir of his coming of age during the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic, told with great energy and surprising humor with an intimate look into ACT UP's structure, processes, tactics and strategies. The book provides lessons and insights for new generations of activists, highlighting key demonstrations and lesser-known actions as the group successfully battles politicians, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, religious leaders, the media, and an often-uncaring public to change the course of the AIDS epidemic. Ron is a writer and activist. His articles have appeared in OutWeekand POZ magazines, Central Park, and The Visual AIDS Blog. Ron served as a research associate for filmmaker and journalist David France on his award-winning book, How to Survive a Plague, and enjoys speaking at high schools and colleges about the history of AIDS and the lessons and legacy of ACT UP.  With Co-host Brody Levesque

ACT UP was a landmark organization that took LGBTQ rights activism to a new level of in-your-face activism. Do we need to return to that kind of strategy abainst the new wave of homo- and trans-phobia? We talk to author Ron Goldberg today to get his input. We will be discussing the history of ACT UP New York and his upcoming book Boy With The Bullhorn . Boy With The Bullhorn:A Memoir and History of ACT UP New York is Goldberg's immersive and chronological history of the New York chapter of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, and a memoir of his coming of age during the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic, told with great energy and surprising humor with an intimate look into ACT UP's structure, processes, tactics and strategies. The book provides lessons and insights for new generations of activists, highlighting key demonstrations and lesser-known actions as the group successfully battles politicians, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, religious leaders, the media, and an often-uncaring public to change the course of the AIDS epidemic. Ron is a writer and activist. His articles have appeared in OutWeekand POZ magazines, Central Park, and The Visual AIDS Blog. Ron served as a research associate for filmmaker and journalist David France on his award-winning book, How to Survive a Plague, and enjoys speaking at high schools and colleges about the history of AIDS and the lessons and legacy of ACT UP.  With Co-host Brody Levesque

My name is Scott Gabriel Knowles, I am a historian of disasters and since March 16, 2020 the host of COVIDCalls, a daily discussion of the pandemic with a diverse collection of disaster experts. Gregg Gonsalves is an expert in policy modeling on infectious disease and substance use, as well as the intersection of public policy and health equity. For more than 30 years, he worked on HIV/AIDS and other global health issues with several organizations, including the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the Treatment Action Group, Gay Men's Health Crisis, and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. He is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.

Content Warning: The following episode contains discussions surrounding death, HIV and AIDS which may be a difficult topic for some listeners.December 1st marks International World AIDS Day and on this episode of Hey, Cis!, 'Sparking Passion from Pain with Deva Station', we commemorate the day with a very special guest, Deva Station.Seven feet tall in hair and heels, and an attitude through the roof, Deva is an Elder of the Halifax Drag Community and loves to recognize and help new and upcoming talent as the Ultimate Drag Auntie.Deva is also HIV positive and shares with us the dark moments after she was diagnosed as HIV positive; and how it was the best thing to ever happen to her. She advocates frequently to stop the stigma, encourage testing and says more education in schools is needed. Thanks for your support:Hey, Cis! is a volunteer podcast and we'd love your support in producing sustainably high-calibre content. Consider supporting with a ko-fi - it's easy and every sip counts. Show notes:AIDS Coalition of NShttps://www.worldaidsday.org/ Deva has her own production company StationDRG Media Productions she is currently producing two shows Queens Ranting and now Apocalyptic Kitchen.Produced and edited in-house.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/simply-good-form/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/SimplyGoodForm 

What makes an activist group, how do they come together, and how are they most effective? This episode traces the rise and impact of ACT UP, or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, how it grew from other queer activist groups while engendering more, and how its influence remains with us today. Show Notes and Transcript available at www.aaa.si.edu/articulated

Today I welcome pioneering HIV/AIDS & global health researcher/activist Gregg Gonsalves. My guest today! Gregg Gonsalves is an expert in policy modeling on infectious disease and substance use, as well as the intersection of public policy and health equity. His research focuses on the use of quantitative models for improving the response to epidemic diseases. For more than 30 years, he worked on HIV/AIDS and other global health issues with several organizations, including the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the Treatment Action Group, Gay Men's Health Crisis, and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. He was also a fellow at the Open Society Foundations and in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2011-2012. He is a 2011 graduate of Yale College and received his PhD from Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences/School of Public Health in 2017. He is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.

It began in March of 1987, when the playwright Larry Kramer gave a speech at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York's West Village, telling half the room to stand up. He bluntly informed those in attendance, that many people would be dead from Aids in just a few years, if they didn't fight back. The US government's response to the HIV-Aids crisis had been slow, with President Reagan reticent to offend the conservative morals of the Christian Coalition who helped secure his election. In response, the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power - Act Up - took to the streets to demand politicians and public health agencies do more.

In this segment of The Reality Dysfunction, Juan Carlos Vega and Alex Lozada take over the mic to talk with Memory Activist, Julián de Mayo about his incredible work documenting the AIDS crisis in the late 80s and early 90s, and specifically the work and stories of the Latina/o Caucus of ACT-UP New York. Julián explains the history of a not so inclusive movement and the efforts to record what has been mostly until now a forgotten chapter of the fight against AIDS. ACT-UP stands for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power and in order to have Spanish-speaking, Latinx, Latin American, trans, and other non-white voices, the ACT-UP Latina/o Caucus of New York emerged. We explore the relevance and importance that organizing and personal narratives from over 40 years ago bring to not just the current and persistent AIDS crisis among people of color in inner cities across the country but to the discussion on how to reduce health disparities among Latinx and other vulnerable populations.     Related Resources & Articles: [ES]tatus: the Latino/a Caucus of ACT UP New York Exhibit video     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5RnPIKGs5o&ab_channel=JuliandeMayo Latinos ACT UP: Transnational AIDS Activism in the 1990s: https://nacla.org/article/latinos-act-transnational-aids-activism-1990s  Article with photos: https://www.latinxproject.nyu.edu/intervenxions/silenciomuerte-an-interview-with-julian-de-mayo-on-the-legacy-of-act-ups-latina/o-caucus Conversation between Latina/o Caucus member Alfredo Gonzalez and Dr. Jorge Pérez Ávila on Cuba's HIV sanatoriums for NACLA: https://nacla.org/news/2017/11/29/cuba%E2%80%99s-hiv-sanatoriums-prisons-or-public-health-tool  Julián's Soundcloud with some interviews: https://soundcloud.com/julian-de-mayo  For more information, contact: demayo.j@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter: @j_deMayo 

Sarah Schulman is a novelist and playwright as well as a well-known activist and documentarian. She was an early member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, and, for twenty years, she and the filmmaker Jim Hubbard have run the ACT UP Oral History Project, interviewing surviving members of the group. Out of that work comes a new history of ACT UP in its early days, “Let the Record Show: A Political History of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York, 1987-93.” Schulman talks with David Remnick about the group's successes, its lessons for young activists, and also its greatest failing. “We were able to defeat H.I.V.,” she said. “But we couldn't defeat capitalism. And we still don't have a workable health-care system in this country.”

The staff writer Patricia Marx checks out the new vaccinated sections at New York’s Major League Baseball parks. The author and activist Sarah Schulman talks with David Remnick about her new book on the early years of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. The group’s radical tactics forced changes in government policy and transformed how America saw gay people and AIDS patients.

Writer Sarah Schulman joins Kate and Eric to discuss her new book Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York 1987-1993. A longtime activist, Sarah was a participant in the history she writes about. Back in 1987 Sarah joined The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, known as ACT UP, in New York City.  Let the Record Show is a focused, exceedingly thorough look at ACT UP's organizational tactics, its diverse range of members and intersecting causes, and its profound impact in fighting for access to treatment and more national attention for people with AIDS at a time when the US government was barely addressing the crisis. The book builds on over 200 oral histories Sarah and her collaborator and fellow ACT-Upper Jim Hubbard conducted with former members. In an ecstatic review, the New York Times wrote that "it's not reverent, definitive history. This is a tactician's bible." Also, Helen Oyeyemi, author of Peaces, returns to recommend James Robertson's To Be Continued, or, Conversations with a Toad.

Writer Sarah Schulman joins Kate and Eric to discuss her new book Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York 1987-1993. A longtime activist, Sarah was a participant in the history she writes about. Back in 1987 Sarah joined The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, known as ACT UP, in New York City.  Let the Record Show is a focused, exceedingly thorough look at ACT UP’s organizational tactics, its diverse range of members and intersecting causes, and its profound impact in fighting for access to treatment and more national attention for people with AIDS at a time when the US government was barely addressing the crisis. The book builds on over 200 oral histories Sarah and her collaborator and fellow ACT-Upper Jim Hubbard conducted with former members. In an ecstatic review, the New York Times wrote that "it’s not reverent, definitive history. This is a tactician’s bible." Also, Helen Oyeyemi, author of Peaces, returns to recommend James Robertson's To Be Continued, or, Conversations with a Toad.

In this podcast, Henry spoke with Sam Joslyn, the president of the Pediatric AIDS Coalition at UCLA, the largest nonprofit organization on the West Coast, about the misconceptions regarding HIV and AIDS, the power that stigma can have, and what one can do to support those affected with HIV and AIDS.

Lizy criticizes a musical. Joseph scolds a dead man. We can all agree that 2020 was 525,600 minutes too long, but we've made it to 2021! As we enter the new year, we put on our bifocals to take a look at RENT, its portrayal of queer characters, and the realities of the AIDS epidemic.HIV/AIDS Resources: https://www.publichealth.org/resources/hiv-aids/Support the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power in the fight to end AIDS: https://actupny.com/Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/bifocalscast?fan_landing=true

On World AIDS Day, Chris Aucoin with the AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia explains why he wants the province to update the way health professionals test for the virus.

Host Sammy Ross and guest Heather Quick continue the conversation on Immigration, by focusing on ICE.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement has come under much scrutiny over the past several years.  On this episode we will unpack what ICE is, why it was founded, and how it is enforcing current policies, today. *Disclaimer, this episode does discuss some heavy topics, such as sexual assault.  Please proceed with caution, and please reach out to a health care professional if needed.   For Bonus content where Heather Quick discusses how she became an activist, as well as how Sammy protested Amazon's involvement with ICE, please visit: https://www.patreon.com/ThisisNotaHandout For more information about the show, please visit: https://www.thisisnotahandout.com   Resources: For more on how the immigration court system works: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/access-counsel-immigration-court For more on the immigration process for migrant children crossing the border: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/children-immigration-court/567490/  For more the definitions of asylum seekers and refugees: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/asylum-united-states  For a look into bus drivers refusing to take protesters to jail: https://time.com/5845451/bus-drivers-protesters-police-george-floyd/  For an in-depth timeline on the Trump administration's Family Separation Policy: https://www.splcenter.org/news/2020/06/17/family-separation-under-trump-administration-timeline  For an in-depth analysis on the lack of adequate technology that led to long periods of migrant family separation: https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2019-11/OIG-20-06-Nov19.pdf  For a look into the youngest child to be separated at the border: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/us/baby-constantine-romania-migrants.html  For an in-depth story on how ICE came to be: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/trump-ice/565772/  For more on the death count in the ICE detention centers: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/24-immigrants-have-died-ice-custody-during-trump-administration-n1015291  For more on the ICE detention centers and Covid-19: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/covid-19-outbreak-in-adelanto-ice-detention-center/2430005/ For more on sexual assault in the ICE detention centers: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/15/ice-deport-witness-sexual-assault/?utm_campaign=trib-social&utm_content=1600194817&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter For more on the alleged hysterectomies being performed at ICE detention centers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/ice-detainee-hysterectomies-hospital/2020/09/22/aaf2ca7e-fcfd-11ea-830c-a160b331ca62_story.html For an opinion piece on for-profit detention centers: https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/457067-for-profit-immigration-detention-centers-are-a-national-scandal  For more on Amazon and other Tech companies' facial recognition softwares: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/technology/amazon-facial-technology-study.html  For more on Amazon's one year moratorium in providing their facial recognition software to police forces: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/10/874418013/amazon-halts-police-use-of-its-facial-recognition-technology For more on the foster families and the adoption process for children who are separated at the border: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/deported-parents-may-lose-kids-adoption-investigation-finds-n918261  For more on extended family separation at the border: https://apnews.com/article/08d9f07b1bc54c5b982825bc1381b8d5  For Jeff Sessions, and the Department of Justice's role in the separation of families: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/politics/family-separation-border-immigration-jeff-sessions-rod-rosenstein.html    For a list of Movements mentioned in this Episode: For more on the direct action group Rise and Resist: https://www.riseandresist.org/about  For more on the Act Up, or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power: https://actupny.com/  For more on the Close the Camps movement: https://www.closethecampsnyc.com/  To learn more about Cosecha: https://www.lahuelga.com  For more on New Sanctuary Coalition: https://www.newsanctuarynyc.org  For more on RAICES: https://www.raicestexas.org/?ms=actionnetwork

Joining Mission today is John Grauwiler, teacher and founder of activism group Gays Against Guns. Before forming GAG, Grauwiler was an English teacher in New York City who was rocked by the news of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting, prompting him to form a coalition that is “committed to nonviolently breaking the gun industry’s chain of death.” Also a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, Grauwiler is a tried and true activist and community leader who continues to stand up for what he believes. Following his feature in Mission’s fourth issue, Grauwiler sits down with Mission to talk about the effect gun violence has had on his life, what motivates him in his day to day, and educating the public on the need for gun regulation. FIND JOHN & GAYS AGAINST GUNS Instagram: @gaysagainstgunsny Facebook: GaysAgainstGunsNYC Website: gaysagainstguns.net FIND MISSION HOSTS Karina: @missionmagazine Website: missionmag.org --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mission-magazine/support

In this episode, we discuss the reason we have Pride, and why it’s important that our work is intersectional. We need to show up for Black Lives, on the streets, in our communities, in our families. This is a conversation about the ways we can tackle anti-blackness in the Latinx community but also how to start doing the inner and outer work for justice. Below are two national directories to Bail funds across the country, and local orgs doing work on the ground: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CjZMORRVuv-I-qo4B0YfmOTqIOa3GUS207t5iuLZmyA/mobilebasic https://www.papermag.com/where-to-donate-protests-minneapolis-2646128317.html?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6 Also in the Bay Area, The Black Earth Farms Collective is an agroecological lighthouse organization composed of skilled Pan-African and Pan-Indigenous farmers, builders, and educators who spread ancestral knowledge and train community members to build collectivized, autonomous, and chemical-free food systems. They are providing food for those affected by the recent protests, Venmo: @blackearthfarms We referenced this article in Teen Vogue by Angie Jaime https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-latinx-people-can-fight-anti-black-racism-in-our-own-culture Recommended Reading “So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo”: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/articles/so-you-want-to-talk-about-race-by-ijeoma-oluo/' Our title references a famous poster made in 1987, by Avram Finkelstein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Socarrás who founded the SILENCE=DEATH Project to support one another during the AIDS crisis. Inspired by the posters of the Art Workers Coalition and the Guerrilla Girls (both of whose work is on view nearby), they mobilized to spread the word about the epidemic and created the now-iconic Silence=Death poster featuring the pink triangle as a reference to Nazi persecution of LGBTQ people in the 1930s and 1940s. It became the central visual symbol of AIDS activism after it was adopted by the direct-action advocacy group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP).

In this episode, we discuss the reason we have Pride, and why it’s important that our work is intersectional. We need to show up for Black Lives, on the streets, in our communities, in our families. This is a conversation about the ways we can tackle anti-blackness in the Latinx community but also how to start doing the inner and outer work for justice. Below are two national directories to Bail funds across the country, and local orgs doing work on the ground: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CjZMORRVuv-I-qo4B0YfmOTqIOa3GUS207t5iuLZmyA/mobilebasic https://www.papermag.com/where-to-donate-protests-minneapolis-2646128317.html?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6 Also in the Bay Area, The Black Earth Farms Collective is an agroecological lighthouse organization composed of skilled Pan-African and Pan-Indigenous farmers, builders, and educators who spread ancestral knowledge and train community members to build collectivized, autonomous, and chemical-free food systems. They are providing food for those affected by the recent protests, Venmo: @blackearthfarms We referenced this article in Teen Vogue by Angie Jaime https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-latinx-people-can-fight-anti-black-racism-in-our-own-culture Recommended Reading “So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo”: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/articles/so-you-want-to-talk-about-race-by-ijeoma-oluo/' Our title references a famous poster made in 1987, by Avram Finkelstein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Socarrás who founded the SILENCE=DEATH Project to support one another during the AIDS crisis. Inspired by the posters of the Art Workers Coalition and the Guerrilla Girls (both of whose work is on view nearby), they mobilized to spread the word about the epidemic and created the now-iconic Silence=Death poster featuring the pink triangle as a reference to Nazi persecution of LGBTQ people in the 1930s and 1940s. It became the central visual symbol of AIDS activism after it was adopted by the direct-action advocacy group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP).

In the 1980s America's health infrastructure failed to adequately respond to an epidemic, which showed in greater contrast failures across society. This week, Grant is teaching us about one group's commitment to correct that failure through civil disobedience. By prioritizing disruption over image, and relentlessly claiming the moral high ground, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power drastically improved the lives of people living with HIV and reduced its spread. Links! ACT UP NY The ACT UP Historical Archive June 5, 1981 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Pneumocystis Pneumonia, the first published report on what would be named AIDS Larry Kramer 1982 Interview On AIDS with NBC News Don Francis' Frontline interview 1,112 and Counting Gran Fury Six Feats Under's Monsterhearts 2 campaign Please help our show succeed by sharing it. Send a link to someone you know and tell them what you enjoy about History Honeys. Rate and review us on iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever other platform you use to hear us. It helps so very much and we do appreciate it. You can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or by emailing us at historyhoneyspodcast at gmail. The episode 99 prompt is: Share a recipe!   Logo by Marah Music by Thylacinus Censor beep by Frank West of The FPlus

Our guests on this episode of Queering Left are long-time activists, Mary Patten and Jeff Edwards, both of who have many years of experience in movements for racial, social, and economic justice. Our focus with them is on their work in ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). Mary Patten is a visual artist and a professor at the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently involved with the Chicago Torture Justice Memorial project. Mary’s activism goes back decades and includes work in solidarity with South Africa, Puerto Rico, Back liberation and other anti-imperialist struggles. As a result of an anti-apartheid direct action at Kennedy airport in 1981, Mary served one year in Riker’s Island Jail in New York. Jeff Edwards is the staff organizer at UIC United Faculty. Jeff began his activist work in Minneapolis where he too was involved with anti-imperialist struggles such as ending US intervention in Central America during the 1980’s. He began working on AIDS activism while still in Minneapolis and moved to Chicago in 1986. ACT UP Chicago, like many chapters around the country, was formed in 1987. It emerged in Chicago from other AIDS activist work like Chicago for AIDS Rights and DAGMAR. Mary Patten was one of the founders of ACT UP Chicago and she and Jeff met in ACT UP Chicago. Jeff and Mary will discuss how they came to AIDS activism and some of the ways that AIDS activism was informed by their earlier solidarity work.

In the 1980s, Gregg Gonsalves had a key role in one of the first examples of patient empowerment movement worldwide. When the information around HIV/AIDS was scarce, Gregg joined Act Up, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, spawning a career of patient advocacy in public health research and achieving breakthroughs in funding of research that … Continue reading The Dawn of the Patient Revolution (with Gregg Gonsalves) →

Let’s Do It is a podcast focusing on the practical aspects of sex education and sexual health. In this episode Liz and Alex are talking with health promotion specialist Teddy Cook about HIV, the AIDS2018 conference in Amsterdam and what the global HIV research landscape looks like. We’re looking forward to talking about the history of HIV in the future, but this time we’re focusing on the present and the future! For more information, sexual health links or to submit anonymous questions, visit our website. You can also follow the podcast on Twitter, as well as both Liz and Alex.   References and links: AIDS2018 Conference linkThe Institute of Many - Australia’s largest grassroots movement for people living with HIVPrep Access NowGrunt Campaign HIV history links: ACT UP Oral History Project - an extraordinary resource of transcribed interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York.Lessons from the history of HIV/AIDS in Australia – how activism changed the image of an illness - Jennifer Power, The ConversationSilence = Death: It’s Time To Teach AIDS History - Dan Royles, historians.org, also with a bibliography that’s worth working your way through. A lot of great texts, documentaries and books listed.The fears of Australia's HIV crisis have faded. The laws of that time should too - Nic Holas, The GuardianStaying Positive: Condoms, stigma and HIV advocacy in the age of PrEP - Dean Beck, Archer Magazine

Let’s Do It is a podcast focusing on the practical aspects of sex education and sexual health. In this episode Liz and Alex are talking with health promotion specialist Teddy Cook about HIV, the AIDS2018 conference in Amsterdam and what the global HIV research landscape looks like. We’re looking forward to talking about the history of HIV in the future, but this time we’re focusing on the present and the future! For more information, sexual health links or to submit anonymous questions, visit our website. You can also follow the podcast on Twitter, as well as both Liz and Alex.   References and links: AIDS2018 Conference linkThe Institute of Many - Australia’s largest grassroots movement for people living with HIVPrep Access NowGrunt Campaign HIV history links: ACT UP Oral History Project - an extraordinary resource of transcribed interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York.Lessons from the history of HIV/AIDS in Australia – how activism changed the image of an illness - Jennifer Power, The ConversationSilence = Death: It’s Time To Teach AIDS History - Dan Royles, historians.org, also with a bibliography that’s worth working your way through. A lot of great texts, documentaries and books listed.The fears of Australia's HIV crisis have faded. The laws of that time should too - Nic Holas, The GuardianStaying Positive: Condoms, stigma and HIV advocacy in the age of PrEP - Dean Beck, Archer Magazine

ACT UP's D-Day protest at Flinders Street Station on 6 June 1991. Photo by John Willis. As Victoria started to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, the advocacy and activism of the Victorian AIDS Council (VAC) was complemented by the rise of groups like the AZT taskforce and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power - ACT UP. In this second episode of the VAC Legacy Series on Well, Well, Well, Cal Hawk talks with longstanding HIV/AIDS and LGBTIQ activists Jamie Gardiner, Chris Gill, Phil Carswell, Colin Batrouney, and Alison Thorne to take a closer look at the community action of the time. They share their experiences as well as pay tribute to some of those people who played a vital role in mobilising our community but are sadly no longer with us - such as Keith Harbour. For more from the VAC legacy series , continue to listening to Well, Well, Well as we’ll air additional episodes in the lead up to VAC's 35th birthday later in the year.   Subscribe to Well, Well, Well podcasts on iTunes! Head to www.vac.org.au for more informaiton about VAC's LGBTI health and wellbeing services This show, Episode #618 originally aired Thursday 3rd May, 2018. .

2018 Official Oscar® Entry – FRANCE Best Foreign Language Film BPM tells the story of how a passionate group of Parisian activists goes to battle for those stricken with HIV/AIDS, taking on sluggish government agencies and major pharmaceutical companies in with bold, invasive actions. The organization is ACT UP – the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power – and its members embrace their task as a literal life-or-death mission. With more than 6,000 new diagnoses made each year in France, there is no time to waste. And yet, the officials and the corporations are not moving fast enough. “BPM” tells the story of that fight from the inside-out. Amid the rallies, fierce debates and ecstatic dance parties, intimate connections are made and vibrant life rages against death. As the activists scramble from boisterous street demonstrations and boardroom face-offs to dance floors pulsing with light and rhythm, Nathan and Sean’s relationship deepens. They confess individual memories of sexual initiation that are profoundly tied, in different ways, to the emerging AIDS crisis, and sexual intimacy itself becomes a kind of resistance. As Sean gets sicker, their passion sparks against the shadow of mortality, and the activist community of activists plots its most dramatic protest yet. Director and writer Robin Campillo joins us for a conversation on his intimate and thoughtful tale of activism and struggle in the face of intractable indifference and antipathy. For news and updates fo to: bpm.film

Tamar Carroll is an Assistant Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Program Director for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Her book, Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), focuses on three intertwined case studies of grassroots activism in New York from the 1950s through 1990s. She begins by examining low-income women's anti-poverty activism in the 1950s and 1960s, then turns to neighborhood-based working-class feminist organizing in the 1970s, and concludes by exploring AIDS and women's health activism in the 1980s and 1990s. By examining organizational records, newspaper articles, oral histories, films and photos, Carroll reconstructs how ordinary people created change through coalitions that crossed lines of gender, race and class. Her work profiles previously understudied organizations including Mobilization for Youth, the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). Carroll challenges previous historians who “view political movements based on difference–a core value of identity politics — as a hindrance to social movements seeking to expand social justice,” by showing the methods groups used to build coalitions that could address differences of experience and ultimately had more of an impact as a result (x). Carroll recently curated a complimentary exhibit called “Whose Streets? Our Streets!: New York City, 1980-2000” about activism in New York from 1980-2000, currently on display at the Bronx Documentary Center and digitally. Listeners will find her examination of activism during decades of conservative political power particularly relevant to current events. Isabell Moore is a PhD Student in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on social movements in the 20th century and she is involved in activism for racial, gender, economic and queer justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tamar Carroll is an Assistant Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Program Director for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Her book, Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), focuses on three intertwined case studies of grassroots activism in New York from the 1950s through 1990s. She begins by examining low-income women's anti-poverty activism in the 1950s and 1960s, then turns to neighborhood-based working-class feminist organizing in the 1970s, and concludes by exploring AIDS and women's health activism in the 1980s and 1990s. By examining organizational records, newspaper articles, oral histories, films and photos, Carroll reconstructs how ordinary people created change through coalitions that crossed lines of gender, race and class. Her work profiles previously understudied organizations including Mobilization for Youth, the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). Carroll challenges previous historians who “view political movements based on difference–a core value of identity politics — as a hindrance to social movements seeking to expand social justice,” by showing the methods groups used to build coalitions that could address differences of experience and ultimately had more of an impact as a result (x). Carroll recently curated a complimentary exhibit called “Whose Streets? Our Streets!: New York City, 1980-2000” about activism in New York from 1980-2000, currently on display at the Bronx Documentary Center and digitally. Listeners will find her examination of activism during decades of conservative political power particularly relevant to current events. Isabell Moore is a PhD Student in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on social movements in the 20th century and she is involved in activism for racial, gender, economic and queer justice.

Tamar Carroll is an Assistant Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Program Director for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Her book, Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), focuses on three intertwined case studies of grassroots activism in New York from the 1950s through 1990s. She begins by examining low-income women’s anti-poverty activism in the 1950s and 1960s, then turns to neighborhood-based working-class feminist organizing in the 1970s, and concludes by exploring AIDS and women’s health activism in the 1980s and 1990s. By examining organizational records, newspaper articles, oral histories, films and photos, Carroll reconstructs how ordinary people created change through coalitions that crossed lines of gender, race and class. Her work profiles previously understudied organizations including Mobilization for Youth, the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Women’s Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). Carroll challenges previous historians who “view political movements based on difference–a core value of identity politics — as a hindrance to social movements seeking to expand social justice,” by showing the methods groups used to build coalitions that could address differences of experience and ultimately had more of an impact as a result (x). Carroll recently curated a complimentary exhibit called “Whose Streets? Our Streets!: New York City, 1980-2000” about activism in New York from 1980-2000, currently on display at the Bronx Documentary Center and digitally. Listeners will find her examination of activism during decades of conservative political power particularly relevant to current events. Isabell Moore is a PhD Student in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on social movements in the 20th century and she is involved in activism for racial, gender, economic and queer justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tamar Carroll is an Assistant Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Program Director for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Her book, Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), focuses on three intertwined case studies of grassroots activism in New York from the 1950s through 1990s. She begins by examining low-income women’s anti-poverty activism in the 1950s and 1960s, then turns to neighborhood-based working-class feminist organizing in the 1970s, and concludes by exploring AIDS and women’s health activism in the 1980s and 1990s. By examining organizational records, newspaper articles, oral histories, films and photos, Carroll reconstructs how ordinary people created change through coalitions that crossed lines of gender, race and class. Her work profiles previously understudied organizations including Mobilization for Youth, the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Women’s Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). Carroll challenges previous historians who “view political movements based on difference–a core value of identity politics — as a hindrance to social movements seeking to expand social justice,” by showing the methods groups used to build coalitions that could address differences of experience and ultimately had more of an impact as a result (x). Carroll recently curated a complimentary exhibit called “Whose Streets? Our Streets!: New York City, 1980-2000” about activism in New York from 1980-2000, currently on display at the Bronx Documentary Center and digitally. Listeners will find her examination of activism during decades of conservative political power particularly relevant to current events. Isabell Moore is a PhD Student in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on social movements in the 20th century and she is involved in activism for racial, gender, economic and queer justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tamar Carroll is an Assistant Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Program Director for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Her book, Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), focuses on three intertwined case studies of grassroots activism in New York from the 1950s through 1990s. She begins by examining low-income women’s anti-poverty activism in the 1950s and 1960s, then turns to neighborhood-based working-class feminist organizing in the 1970s, and concludes by exploring AIDS and women’s health activism in the 1980s and 1990s. By examining organizational records, newspaper articles, oral histories, films and photos, Carroll reconstructs how ordinary people created change through coalitions that crossed lines of gender, race and class. Her work profiles previously understudied organizations including Mobilization for Youth, the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Women’s Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). Carroll challenges previous historians who “view political movements based on difference–a core value of identity politics — as a hindrance to social movements seeking to expand social justice,” by showing the methods groups used to build coalitions that could address differences of experience and ultimately had more of an impact as a result (x). Carroll recently curated a complimentary exhibit called “Whose Streets? Our Streets!: New York City, 1980-2000” about activism in New York from 1980-2000, currently on display at the Bronx Documentary Center and digitally. Listeners will find her examination of activism during decades of conservative political power particularly relevant to current events. Isabell Moore is a PhD Student in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on social movements in the 20th century and she is involved in activism for racial, gender, economic and queer justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tamar Carroll is an Assistant Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Program Director for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Her book, Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), focuses on three intertwined case studies of grassroots activism in New York from the 1950s through 1990s. She begins by examining low-income women’s anti-poverty activism in the 1950s and 1960s, then turns to neighborhood-based working-class feminist organizing in the 1970s, and concludes by exploring AIDS and women’s health activism in the 1980s and 1990s. By examining organizational records, newspaper articles, oral histories, films and photos, Carroll reconstructs how ordinary people created change through coalitions that crossed lines of gender, race and class. Her work profiles previously understudied organizations including Mobilization for Youth, the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Women’s Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). Carroll challenges previous historians who “view political movements based on difference–a core value of identity politics — as a hindrance to social movements seeking to expand social justice,” by showing the methods groups used to build coalitions that could address differences of experience and ultimately had more of an impact as a result (x). Carroll recently curated a complimentary exhibit called “Whose Streets? Our Streets!: New York City, 1980-2000” about activism in New York from 1980-2000, currently on display at the Bronx Documentary Center and digitally. Listeners will find her examination of activism during decades of conservative political power particularly relevant to current events. Isabell Moore is a PhD Student in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on social movements in the 20th century and she is involved in activism for racial, gender, economic and queer justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tamar Carroll is an Assistant Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Program Director for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. Her book, Mobilizing New York: AIDS, Antipoverty and Feminist Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), focuses on three intertwined case studies of grassroots activism in New York from the 1950s through 1990s. She begins by examining low-income women’s anti-poverty activism in the 1950s and 1960s, then turns to neighborhood-based working-class feminist organizing in the 1970s, and concludes by exploring AIDS and women’s health activism in the 1980s and 1990s. By examining organizational records, newspaper articles, oral histories, films and photos, Carroll reconstructs how ordinary people created change through coalitions that crossed lines of gender, race and class. Her work profiles previously understudied organizations including Mobilization for Youth, the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Women’s Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). Carroll challenges previous historians who “view political movements based on difference–a core value of identity politics — as a hindrance to social movements seeking to expand social justice,” by showing the methods groups used to build coalitions that could address differences of experience and ultimately had more of an impact as a result (x). Carroll recently curated a complimentary exhibit called “Whose Streets? Our Streets!: New York City, 1980-2000” about activism in New York from 1980-2000, currently on display at the Bronx Documentary Center and digitally. Listeners will find her examination of activism during decades of conservative political power particularly relevant to current events. Isabell Moore is a PhD Student in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on social movements in the 20th century and she is involved in activism for racial, gender, economic and queer justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We listen to part of the extraordinary documentary United in Anger, which tells the story of of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Producer and author Sarah Schulman calls ACT UP the last successful social movement in U.S. history. The filmmakers, both AIDS activists themselves, conducted hundreds of interviews with AIDS activists and distilled over 1000 hours of archival footage to produce this front-line account by the people who made it happen. We'll also be talking to Schulman in this once-only fund drive special. The post Women's Magazine: Fund Drive Special – History of ACT UP appeared first on KPFA.

"United In Anger: Historicizing ACT UP," November, 8, 2011 The ACT UP Oral History Project is an archive of more than 80 interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, a group that was formed in 1987 to raise public consciousness around the evolving epidemic. The project co-directors Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman to discuss the archive, the historicization of the AIDS crisis and AIDS activism, and their interviews with surviving members of ACT UP. Columbia Center for Oral History