David Robinson

Background: David is a 24 year old, white, Jewish gay man. He grew up in suburban Livingston, New Jersey and started experimenting with sex with boys at 9 or 10 at summer camp. He went to Princeton, and his parents sent him to a psychiatrist who worked with him on directing his romantic attention to women. He had a girlfriend, but it didn’t stick. He moved to Hoboken in 1986, started taking classes to be a dancer, and got into a company (Senta Driver). He saw a flyer in the subway for the ACT UP Wall Street demonstration in March 1987, went to the demonstration, went to his first meeting, and kept going after that while he was in graduate school for dance.

Role in ACT UP:  In March of 1989, David is one of the 4 facilitators, who switch off leading the Monday night meetings in pairs. David oftentimes dresses in drag when he is facilitating (though usually not full drag). He gives a good explanation of it at the beginning of this interview (https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/082-david-robinson). David goes into great detail about being a facilitator starting at the 41:20 minute mark of this interview … I highly recommend that anyone who is facilitating, and certainly anyone facilitating as David, listen to at least this section.

Groups/friends at the meeting: Outreach Committee; Facilitators; Maria Maggenti, David Gips, Maxine Wolfe, Avram Finkelstein, Lee Schy, Joe Ferrari, Karl Soehnlein, Alan Klein, Ray Navarro, Gerry Wells, Debra Levine 

Specific tasks at the March 13, 1989 meeting: Though he is not scheduled to facilitate tonight's meeting, David is one of ACT UP's current facilitators and should be on standby to facilitate in case one of the other facilitators can't make it at the last minute. 

He is also on the agenda to announce the death of Griffin Gold. Griffin Gold died on March 7 at the age of 33. He was a founding member and past president of the People with AIDS Coalition, often came to ACT UP meetings, and was a good friend of David’s. This excerpt from Peter Staley's book gives a description of what Griffin was like. David will remind people that when an ACT UP member dies, we chant three times, “Act up, fight back, fight AIDS” and then have a moment of silence. Then he will lead the group in that chant. 

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