Lee Raines

Background: Lee is a 34 year old white, gay man. He grew up in suburban Maryland outside of Washington D.C. He grew up in the American Baptist Church. He went to college at the University of Maryland and Montgomery College, then moved to New York in 1977 and began a career as a chorus boy in Broadway musicals. He was out in his social life but not to his family, even as he had a lover, Ricky Veretta, dying of AIDS. He eventually came out to his family and they slowly accepted him and his current lover, fellow ACT UPer Jeff Griglak. Lee and Jeff met on a plane trip from NYC to St Louis where they'd been cast as Jets in a production of West Side Story. An intra-Jet showmance turned into a romance and they became inseparable, except when one or the other was out of town working. They live at 13th Street and First Avenue. They joined ACT UP about six months or so after it started. Jeff and Lee worked together managing the offices and rehearsal space for American Ballet Theater, and were very active in ACT UP, so they spent pretty much all of their time together.  Their affinity group, Seeing Red, sometimes uses the ABT conference room to meet. Lee and Jeff do not know their HIV statuses (though they suspect they are negative since they have been together for eight years and neither has had any health issues), but plan to get tested together this week. Lee is planning to do civil disobedience and get arrested for the first time at Target City Hall, while Jeff is planning to do support.

Role in ACT UP: Lee is in the affinity group Seeing Red. He also does a lot of wheat pasting.

Groups/friends at the meeting: In a relationship with Jeff Griglak; affinity group Seeing Red

Specific tasks at the March 13, 1989 meeting: Seeing Red is on the agenda, during the Target City Hall report, to ask the Floor for approval to use the ACT UP logo on their posters for Target City Hall. 

Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/137-lee-raines

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