Personas
About a week before Fight Back your persona will be listed on the following page:
Once you know your persona assignment, come back to this page and read your persona's biographical information below. Remember that even though there is more biographical information about some people than others, everyone is a full participant in the meeting and you should add in details to make your persona a fully-realized person.
If you have additional information about any of these people, or think anyone should or should not be included, please contact me.
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A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P Q R S T V W Y Z
A
Cindy Acosta
No information
Gary Adler
Gary was born in Brooklyn, went to Samuel J. Tilden High School, and CUNY Brooklyn graduating in 1968. He is Jewish. Gary lives in the Willowbook section of Staten Island. He is on the Actions Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Actions Committee
Jamie Adner
Jamie lives in Manhattan. Jamie helped coordinate transportation to the FDA action in the fall of 1988.
Macky Alston
Background: Macky is a 22 year old white gay man who grew up in Durham, North Carolina. Macky's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all progressive Presbyterian ministers in the South. Macky had boyfriends on the down low in high school and started a long-term relationship with a man in college. Macky graduated from Columbia in 1987 to pursue art history. Macky's contemporary art professor took Macky another student to their first ACT UP meeting in May of 1987. Macky is currently considering going to seminary to combat the anti-gay mindset of the church.
Role in ACT UP: Macky comes to most meetings and actions, and has participated in civil disobedience, but tends to not take leadership roles.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Macky is in the affinity group The Box Tops.
Additional information: https://www.aidshistories.org/interviews/macky-alston
https://podbay.fm/p/everyday-changemakers-696948/e/1531189555
Michael Aquilone
Background: Michael is a 26 year old gay white man who grew up in a Catholic family in Brooklyn. He has worked at The Break and The Saint, the spectacular gay members-only nightclub that closed in 1988. Michael has a 1968 Camaro, and he and boyfriend Matt Ebert (who he met at ACT UP) ride around in it to local gay bars gathering booze to sell at ACT UP fundraisers. Michael is HIV positive.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Matt Ebert (boyfriend); Fundraising Committee
Steve Albert
Steve does administrative support for ACT UP.
Alex Alexsavich
No information
Walter Armstrong
Walter was born in Philadelphia and went to Westtown Friends, a Quaker boarding school outside of Philadelphia. He then went to Haverford College. He lives in Brooklyn, and comes to (and has been arrested at) many ACT UP actions. He is involved with the Lesbian and Gay Activist History Project, a group of ACT UP members with an interest in queer past. Walter lives at 29 Clinton Street in Manhattan.
Additional information: Photo of Walter (on the left)
Lee Arsenault
Background: Lee is a 41 year old white, gay man. He lives on Long Island with his lover.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Affinity group: Candelabras; Powertools; Has dinner before ACT UP meetings with Hal Bramson (interview with Hal with a section about Lee: https://www.halbramson.com/interview.html). Friends with Peter Staley.
Mark Aurigemma
Background: Mark is a 27 year old white gay man who grew up in New Jersey. He started coming out in his early teens. He went to college in Boston, worked as a bartender in Provincetown for three years, and then moved to West 46th Street in Hell’s Kitchen in 1986. He bartended at a restaurant on West 43rd Street and worked at a Longshoreman’s Union office. He heard that Larry Kramer would be speaking at the Center and dragged his then-boyfriend, Doug Montgomery. Mark has been deeply involved with ACT UP since. Mark’s relationship with Doug ended, and Mark has been in a relationship with fellow ACT UPer Stephen Gendin since the summer of 1987. Mark started working for Gay Men’s Health Crisis in April of 1988, first as a receptionist and then as the assistant coordinator of intake.
Role in ACT UP: Mark was the original head of the Communications Committee when ACT UP started in 1987, and has previously been an at-large member of the Coordinating Committee. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Stephen Gendin (boyfriend); Tom Keane, Candelabras
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/169-mark-aurigemma
B
Raffi Babakanian
Raffi is a 26 year old man. He graduated from Columbia University in 1984. He previously lived in Minneapolis, where he worked with Lobby 83, the Minnesota state lesbian/gay lobby organization, to pass a statewide gay rights bill. He is on the Actions Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Actions Committee
Bill Bahlman
Dan Baker
Background: Dan is a writer and editor with a B.A. in History from the University of Texas, 1968. He also attended Dartmouth College and has an M.A. in Pacific Studies from the University of Hawaii and completed graduate studies in French Canadian literature and history at the Unversite de Moncton in 1982. He was Director of Publications for the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris from 1977 to 1982, was an editor with University of Hawaii Press, and was an account manager with Byrd Press in Springfield, VA and New York from 1984 to 1988. He is a founding member and was president of Gay Liberation Hawaii and an organizer of the first Gay Pride Parade in Hawaii in 1975. Dan is divorced and has a daughter.
Role in ACT UP: Dan has been the treasurer of ACT UP since November 1988 and is on the Coordinating Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Coordinating Committee, Andy Velez, Powertools
Marion Banzhaf
Background: Marion is a 35 year old white lesbian who grew up in Winter Park, Florida. Her parents were divorced and then her mother died when she was a baby, and Marion was raised by her maternal grandmother until Marion was 12 and her grandmother died. She went to live with her father and stepmother in Sarasota for high school, then went to the University of Florida in Gainsville, paying for part of college with typing work. A boyfriend got her pregnant, and she raised money to travel to New York for an abortion as part of a group of friends organizing to make abortion legal in Florida. She switched to Florida State University in Tallahassee and started working at the Feminist Women’s Health Center and came out as a lesbian. She then got into solidarity work, moved to Washington D.C., got involved in the D.C. Area Feminist Alliance, and started doing typesetting for and working with activist leftist groups. Marion continued this work when she moved to New York in 1983, while also typesetting at a corporate job. Her activist work led her to ACT UP in the summer of 1987 (she saw ACT UP meeting when she went to other meetings at the Center, and told herself she would join when there were at least 10 other women in the room). She is roommates with Risa Denenberg, who she knows from the Feminist Women’s Health Center.
Role in ACT UP: Marion comes to most meetings and actions. Marion is on the Women’s Caucus. She also does typesetting of leaflets, stickers, posters, etc. for ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Women’s Caucus; Risa Denenberg (roommate)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/070-marion-banzhaf
Charles Barber
Charles is a 31 year old man who lives in Brooklyn. Charles has been involved with ACT UP since 1987 and has served as a facilitator and an at-large member on the Coordinating Committee. He is a poet. He was diagnosed with HIV in 1986 and fought off a bout of pneumocystis carinii, a lung infection that is one of the leading causes of death from AIDS. He is on the committee helping to plan the City Hall action.
David Barr
Michael Barr
No information
Micky Barron
Micky lives at 155 East 23rd Street in Manhattan.
Amy Bauer
Vincent Beckley
Vincent lives at 560 West 43rd Street in Manhattan and is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Enis Bengul
Enis lives in New Jersey.
Jack Ben-Levi
Jack went with ACT UP to protest at the Republican National Convention in the summer of 1988. He recently led a contingent of ACT UPers to the AIDS Unit on Riker’s Island. He is also involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. Jack lives in Manhattan at 60 Warren Street in a loft with other ACT UPers included Catherine Saalfield and Robert Garcia.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Garance Franke-Ruta, Vincent Gagliostro, Kate Horsfield, Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now
Kevin Black
Kevin volunteers to provide administrative support.
Tom Blewitt
Tom lives in Manhattan. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Jay Blotcher
Background: Jay is a 29 year old white, Jewish gay man. Jay’s page on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Blotcher) gives a good summary of his early life and career.
Role in ACT UP: Jay joined the Media Committee a few months ago, and was active in helping with the Media Committee's work on Seize Control of the FDA. He has been somewhat less active recently as he has been grieving the death of his mother in October 1988.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Vito Russo (Jay’s mentor), Media Committee, Powertools
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/054-jay-blotcher
Bill Blum
Bill is involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. In the summer of 1988 he traveled with fellow ACT UPers to the Republican National Convention to protest the Reagan/Bush inaction on AIDS. Bill does outreach work to homeless gay youth on behalf of the Hetrick-Martin Institute for the Protection of Gay and Lesbian Youth.
John Bohne
John has AIDS and was in the original phase 2 study of AZT. He’d been on a placebo and knew it. He’d been taken off PCP prophylaxis (preventative treatment). He was consistently threatened that the methadone that he was taking for pain might result in his being dropped from the trial. Although he’d been promised he’d receive AZT once the trial was over, the promise was broken. John has been in ACT UP since 1987, and was an active member of the Issues Committee and works with the Treatment and Data Committee. If the Floor approves, John will attend the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Health Conference from April 5th to 7th.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Treatment and Data Committee
Steve Bohrer
Steve is a social worker who has been coming to ACT UP since it started. He is the person who suggested the name ACT UP for the organization. In 1987 Steve created the Prison Issues Subcommittee. Steve lives in New Jersey. He is in the affinity group La Cocina.
Additional information: Steve discussing ACT UP on page 2 in the center column
Peter Boles
Peter is in the affinity group The Candelabras, with whom he went to the FDA action in October 1988. Peter is a graphic artist, and does some graphic art work for ACT UP.
Gregg Bordowitz
Peter Bowen
Groups/friends at the meeting: Tom Kalin
Hal Bramson
Hal is a 57 year old gay white man. He is a lifelong New Yorker. He served two years in the Army. He was at the initial meeting of ACT UP in 1987 and has been coming ever since. Hal has been a volunteer at the Gay Switchboard going back to the early 1980s when AIDS was emerging, and fought to provide callers with more urgent health information than the switchboard was providing. Hal has dinner before ACT UP meetings with Lee Arsenault.
Additional information: https://www.halbramson.com/interview.html
Gedalia Braverman
Background: Gedalia is a 29 year old white, Jewish, gay man who grew up in America in an Israeli family. He went to Georgetown, then moved to the Upper West Side and went into business with his brother. In 1982 he started doing outreach work with the people who would form the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. He volunteered with Gay Men’s Health Crisis for about a year, and then met his lover, Roy. Roy was diagnosed with karposi sarcoma a year after they met, and Gedalia spent a lot of time in the hospital caring for him over the next seven months until Roy died in December 1985. He spent the next few years recovering from the experience, then saw ACT UP at Gay Pride and decided to get involved.
Role in ACT UP: Gedalia is involved in housing issues (Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now), trying to get New York City to provide funding and buildings to house people with AIDS.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/019-gedalia-braverman
Darren Britton
Darren lives at 337 East 10th Street in Manhattan. He is 25 and HIV positive.
Neil Broome
Background: Neil is a 30 year old white, Jewish gay man who grew up in Forest Hills. He was out in high school, and bullied for it. He continued to face homophobia when he went to a school in Florida that was part of Florida State and at New York City Tech where he went for hotel and restaurant management. He volunteered at the New York City Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project for years. He enjoyed clubbing at Danceteria, Ninth Circle Hurrah, and Club 57. He saw a notice about Larry Kramer speaking at the Community Center and got involved in ACT UP for the beginning. He tested positive for HIV in 1987.
Role in ACT UP: Neil has attended most meetings and actions, including the four-person “Freedom Ride” through the south in 1988 with Gerri Wells, Frank Smithson, and Heidi Dorrow. He is also part of the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Gerri Wells, Frank Smithson, Michael Petrelis, Heidi Dorrow, Jay Blotcher, Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/055-neil-broome
Leonard Bruno
Leonard is a member of the Columbia local. He previously worked with Gran Fury.
John Buscarello
John lives in Woodside, Queens.
Willie Butler
Willie is a 39 year old gay man. He was involved in the Stonewall riots, and has been involved in antiwar protesting. For five years, he squatted with 24 families at an abandoned building at 319 East 8th Street in Manhattan. In March 1989, they were displaced by a fire that Willie suspected was set by a developer. He is now living with a friend in Little Italy. Willie tested HIV positive in 1988.
C
Aner Candelario
Background: Ander is a 26 year old Latino gay man who was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in the Bronx and Queens. He graduated from Bronx Science in 1977, came out, and moved in with his boyfriend Cliff. When he was 16 he called the Gay Switchboard and found out about a youth group for gay teenagers that met under MCC Church and then moved to the Center. Aner ran that group for five years. He also got involved with the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights and Gay Activist Alliance, and was secretary of the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee. He worked at Bank of Tokyo at 5 World Trade Center and later worked at Conde Nast at 45th and Madison for eight years as a Vogue cost analyst. He left that to work as a go-go dancer at gay clubs.
Role in ACT UP: Aner comes to most meetings and actions, though he does not speak up at meetings and is not on any committees.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Swim Team
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/179-aner-candelario
Tony Cannatero
Tony lives at 549 West 52nd Street in Manhattan.
Joe Cofrancesco
Joe lives at 170 East 2nd Street in Manhattan.
Jean Carlomusto
Background: Jean is a 30 year old, white lesbian in Queens. She got a BFA in Fine Arts at Long Island University and a masters degree in interactive telecommunications at NYU. As part of a course she was teaching at NYU, Joey Lianti from Gay Men’s Health Crisis spoke to her class, which led her to volunteer at Gay Men’s Health Crisis. She soon took a job coordinating audio-visual for Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and started a cable access show “Living with AIDS” on which she worked with Gregg Bordowitz among others. She took her video camera to the first ACT UP demonstration on Wall Street in 1987. Jean devoted most of her time over the next two years on her work at GMHC and her video activism work documenting ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Jean is one of the main people producing videos of ACT UP actions, through Testing the Limits and through the just-now-forming DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists).
Groups/friends at the meeting: Gregg Bordowitz; DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists); Women’s Caucus
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/005-jean-carlomusto
Cesar Carrasco
Background: Cesar is a 34 year old Latino gay man who grew up in Chile. He was 18 when the fascists came to power, which was around the time he came out to his family. Though Pinochet’s rule was highly oppressive, Cesar felt it was not particularly restrictive toward gay men, and Cesar would go to gay bars in Santiago. When he was 27, he was finishing college and in a relationship with an older Argentinian chemistry professor. This man had family in the United States, so Cesar pursued and finally got a student visa to study English as a second language at a university in St. Louis. After that relationship ended, Cesar moved to San Francisco and then New York in the early 1980s. In 1984 he was living in Brooklyn and became a buddy with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, which he did until 1988. He had been working in commercial art and advertising. Then in 1988, after testing HIV-positive, he wanted to get involved in more direct action, so he came to ACT UP. He has also transitioned to working at the Lower East Side Family Union, an organization providing services to families of children at risk.
Role in ACT UP: Cesar comes to most meetings and actions, but does not have a social group within ACT UP. But he has recently started getting involved with the Media Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Media Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/166-cesar-carrasco
Mark Carson
James Cascaito
James has been arrested for civil disobedience with ACT UP before, including at an action on Wall Street in March of 1988. He read a scathing statement about government inaction at a court hearing related to that arrest. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Joe Cavallaro
Joe is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Peter Cherone
Peter is a 33 year old white man who was born in Paterson, New Jersey. He graduated with an MFA from Pratt Institute with an MFA in Painting. He is an artist and he has volunteered for Gay Men’s Health Crisis. He joined ACT UP in 1988.
Lei Chou
Background: Lei is a 22 year old gay Asian man who was born in Taiwan and went to high school in Ohio. He came to New York in 1984 to go to Cooper Union for art. He came out to his family when he went to college. After Douglas Crimp came to Cooper Union to do a presentation on the posters, artwork, and video from ACT UP’s FDA action, Lei joined ACT UP toward the end of 1988. He lives at 508 Pavonia Avenue in Jersey City.
Role in ACT UP: Lei is involved in the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. Target City Hall will be his first big action.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now; Rod Sorge
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/025-lei-chou
Cynthia Chris
Background: Cynthia is a 27 year old white lesbian who grew up in Richmond, a small town in Indiana. Her father was the police chief. Cynthia got into art in high school, and went to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. She came out and got involved in the Chicago lesbian scene. She ran the visiting artists program at the Art Institute. There she met future ACT UPer Tom Kalin. Cynthia moved to New York in 1987 and became the personal assistant to Lyn Blumenthal, working on publicity for a feminist video art series, and then at Printed Matter, a nonprofit artists’ bookstore. She is in a relationship and lives with Bea Hanson. Her friend Tom encouraged her to come to ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Cynthia comes to meetings and actions, but stayed somewhat on the periphery until recently when she got involved in the Women’s Caucus.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Tom Kalin, Women’s Caucus
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/159-cynthia-chris
Kim Christenson
Background: Kim is a 34 year old white bisexual woman who grew up in rural southern Ohio in the evangelical wing of Lutheranism. By high school she was involved in anti-racist, antiwar, and feminist activism. She went to Earlham College, a Quaker school in Indiana, on a scholarship. After college she did a bunch of odd jobs to pay off her debt, and eventually got accepted to UMass Amherst in 1977 with a TAship that covered her tuition. She started exploring relationships with women there. She has a rare connective tissue disease, which was misdiagnosed until her 20s, which is sometimes debilitating. She continued to be involved in an array of leftist activism. Kim moved to New York in 1985. She knew ACT UPer Mike Spiegel, who encouraged Kim to get involved in ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: La Cocina, Ray Navarro, Women’s Caucus, Mike Spiegel
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/122-kim-christenson
Evan Cohen
Evan lives on Long Island.
John Consigli
John lives in Manhattan.
Steven Cordova
Background: Steven is a 25 year old gay Latino man who grew up in San Antonio, Texas. He joined the speech and drama team in high school, and started coming out to his friends at 15 (he came out to his family after college). He went to college at UT Austin and moved to New York in 1986 to get a masters degree in American Studies at NYU. To pay for this he worked at NYU’s Center for War, Peace and the News Media. He eventually dropped out of the masters degree program but continued working at the center.
Role in ACT UP: Steve attends most meetings and actions, and is on the Actions Committee. He is also a civil disobedience trainer. He is in the affinity group MHA/Surrender Dorothy.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Actions Committee; Civil disobedience trainers; MHA; Surrender Dorothy; SPREE (Timmy Vance); Bill Monaghan
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/125-steven-cordova
Philippa Cortese
No information
Michael Cowing
Michael has been involved in the Treatment and Data Committee, but he is transitioning out of ACT UP to the AIDS Treatment Registry.
Spencer Cox
Background: Spencer is a 21 year old white gay man from Atlanta. His father left when he was 5, so Spencer grew up with his mother, an accountant, and his younger brother Nick. He was involved in local theater and came out in high school. He studied theater and literature at Bennington College for three years, then moved to New York recently to become an actor.
Role in ACT UP: Spencer is new to ACT UP, but has already joined the Actions Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Actions Committee
David Crane
David is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Douglas Crimp
Background: Douglas is a 44 year old white gay man who grew up in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. His Wikipedia page gives a good summary of his background (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crimp).
Role in ACT UP: Douglas goes to most meetings, but is not on any committees.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Gregg Bordowitz, Adam Rolston
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/074-douglas-crimp
Robin Crutchfield
Robin is on the Newsletter info subcommittee of the Outreach Committee. He lives in Manhattan.
Tom Cunningham
Tom grew up in Merrick, Long Island and received a degree in Speech from Northwestern University. Tom’s journalism, letters, fiction, and poetry have appeared in The New York Native, The Village Voice, The James White Review, and Newsweek. Tom has also done sign language interpreting for theater, lectures, and political events. Tom tested HIV positive a number of years ago.
D
David Dalrymple
No information
John Davis
John lives in Manhattan and is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
David Douglas
David lives and works in Manhattan, is on ACT UP’s Gay and Lesbian Teach-In Committee and Lesbian and Gay Activist History Project, and is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Anne-christine d'Adesky
Background: Anne is 31 year old lesbian. She grew up mostly in central Florida, but spent summers and vacations in her father's native Haiti. French was the primary language in her household growing up. She played tennis as a teenager, and considered becoming a professional but instead moved to New York, graduated from Barnard College in 1979, and received a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia in 1982. She started having relationships with women, but was not out to her family. She got involved with the Peace Movement and women’s/reproductive rights movements. She started doing work for progressive newspapers and magazines, like In These Times, the Village Voice, The Nation, and the San Francisco Examiner. She reported a lot on Haiti, particularly the AIDS crisis as it emerged there, including for the New York Native. She came to ACT UP as part of that work, and balances being involved in ACT UP as an activist and reporting on ACT UP/AIDS.
Groups/friends at the meeting:: Aldyn McKean
Brian Damage
Background: Brian (original name Brian Allen) is an East Village artist. He was involved with Shox Lumania, a high concept, big costume, total performance band in the East Village. He is also working on a comic strip about the HIV virus, vampires, and secrets of the pyramids. Brian has AIDS, and is not in close contact with his family.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Wave 3
Additional information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNVI4TrK4g0
Alexis Danzig
Role in ACT UP: Alexis is a 28 year old white lesbian who grew up in New York City. She went to Music and Art High School, then City College, the School of Visual Arts, and somewhere in there lived in Anchorage and Paris for a while. She came out when she was 21, and eventually found that she wanted to leave straight academia. Alexis’s father came out as gay when Alexis was 13 and died of AIDS in February of 1988. This led her to come to ACT UP in March of 1988.
Role in ACT UP: Alexis is involved with civil disobedience and marshal training.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Bored of Ed; Civil disobedience trainers; Brent Nicholson Earle (who dated Alexis' father before he died)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/117-alexis-danzig
Tony Davis
Tony lives in Manhattan and is on the Actions Committee. Tony is in the affinity group Dada.
Jim D’Eramo
No information
Richard Deagle
Background: Richard is a 36 year old white gay man who grew up as an Army brat; he went to a different school every year or so, including in Germany. He went to college in Norfolk, Virginia getting a Fine Art degree and working in a darkroom there. He was out in Norfolk. He moved to New York to go to Pratt in 1980. He does printmaking and screen printing. Richard started going to ACT UP in early 1988.
Role in ACT UP: Richard goes to most meetings and actions, and is in the affinity group Wave 3. Richard creates posters and graphics for ACT UP, and has been involved with Gran Fury, but prefers to work on his own artworks rather than with a collective he feels might be too concentrated on their careers as artists.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Wave 3; Hunter Reynolds
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/028-richard-deagle
David Deitcher
David is a white man who was born in Montreal, Canada. He writes about art for publications like the Village Voice and Artforum. He is involved with the Lesbian and Gay Activist History Project, a group of ACT UP members with an interest in queer past. He lives in Manhattan.
Risa Denenberg
Background: Risa is a 39 year old white Jewish lesbian who grew up in Lamont in Northeast Washington D.C. Her family moved to the D.C. suburbs when Risa started high school. She had trouble at that school, dropped out, and had a complicated illegal abortion with pressure from her boyfriend Roger. She then had a baby (Misha) when she was 19 with David, a guy she was living with. They had traveled to Denmark, and overland to Nepal, and ended up in Miami. Risa went to junior college (with baby on hip), took a break from school, then left David (who was violent and alcoholic), moved to Tallahassee, and went to Florida State University, majoring in dance. She then started working at the Feminist Women’s Health Center, got her bachelors in nursing, and her license as an R.N. She started having relationships with women. She stayed at the Feminist Women’s Health Center for 14 years. She moved to New York in 1988 for a nurse practitioner program at Columbia. She is roommates with Marion Banzhaf, who she knows from the Feminist Women’s Health Center. Marion brought her to ACT UP. Risa also walked into Community Health Project at the Center and started seeing women, which CHP had not been doing. She is also working as a nurse in the Beth Israel ER.
Role in ACT UP: Risa comes to most meetings and actions.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Marion Banzhaf (roommate), close to women on the Women’s Caucus
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/093-risa-denenberg
Michael Dixon
No information
Bill Dobbs
Background: Bill is a white gay man in his mid-30s. He grew up in suburban Detroit, went to a liberal boarding school in the Berkshires for high school, and then went to college and law school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There he came out and got involved in gay activism on campus and in town with the Gay Liberation Front. He moved to New York, passed the New York bar exam, and had a series of jobs, some law-related and some not. Pre-AIDS, he would go to NY bars and bathhouses.
Role in ACT UP: Bill comes to ACT UP regularly, and occasionally does legal work (like arraignments) for ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Legal observers
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/065-bill-dobbs
Heidi Dorow
Background: Heidi is a 24 year old white lesbian who was born in Lansing, Michigan, and grew up in Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota. Her father died when she was very young and both sets of grandparents had a big role in raising her. She went to Webster University’s theater conservatory in St. Louis for two years, was kicked out (not necessarily because she was sleeping with a teacher, who became Heidi’s first lover even though she wasn’t out yet), and moved to Chicago for four years, joining a theater company with some friends. Then she went to Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where she more fully came out, went with a group to the March on Washington, took part in and got arrested at a civil disobedience action at the Supreme Court. At Hampshire, Heidi met Maxine Wolfe’s daughter Karen, who told Heidi about Maxine’s activism work. Heidi proposed a summer internship with ACT UP in spring and summer of 1988. She is currently in a relationship with fellow ACT UPer Maria Maggenti.
Role in ACT UP: Since coming to ACT UP, Heidi has been to most meetings/actions, including the four-person “Freedom Ride” through the south in 1988 with Gerri Wells, Frank Smithson, and Neil Broome.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Maria Maggenti (Heidi’s lover); Delta Queens; Women's Caucus
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/069-heidi-dorow
Chip Duckett
Background: Chip is a 26 year old white gay man who grew up in Dalton, Georgia about 90 miles north of Atlanta. Chip refused to go to church at a young age, and even in high school would stop by the Atlanta Gay Center. He went to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida (with a semester in London). He came to New York in 1985 after he graduated and got very involved in the nightlife scene. He currently works as a nightclub promoter.
Role in ACT UP: Chip was heavily involved with the strategy of the Media Committee for the FDA action in fall of 1988. He still assists with the Media Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Media Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/182-chip-duckett
Bru Dye
Bru is a poet who lives in Brooklyn, is involved with the Radical Faeries, and is on ACT UP’s Gay and Lesbian Teach-In Committee.
E
Jerry Eaderesto
Jerry is a photographer. He lives in Manhattan.
Pam Earing
Pam is a 40 year old white woman. She is an associate research editor at Conde Nast. Her brother died of AIDS, and she started coming to ACT UP two weeks after he died. She is in the affinity group Wave 3. Pam is planning to get arrested at an action for the first time at Target City Hall.
Additional information: Photo of Pam
Brent Nicholson Earle
Background: Brent is a 38 year old white gay man who grew up in Lockport, New York near Niagra Falls. His last year of high school was at Interlochen Arts Academy, then went to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York, left and studied with Uta Hagen for six years. He started having relationships with men in his late teens. Brent has worked as an actor, writer, and in various other theater roles. After a break-up and with the death of many friends and acquaintances, Brent felt compelled to get more politically engaged in gay/AIDS activism. In 1986, he created the American Run for the End of AIDS (AREA), an organization to raise AIDS awareness by Brent running 9,000 miles around the perimeter of the United States. The run took 20 months. After Brent returned to New York he got involved with ACT UP. He has lived at 2350 Broadway near 86th Street since 1974.
Role in ACT UP: Brent attends most meetings and actions. At the FDA demonstration in October 1988 he was in the affinity group Wave 3 (with Alexis Danzig, whose father Brent dated before his death from AIDS). For Target City Hall Brent (and Alexis) will be part of the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Bored of Ed
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/150-brent-nicholson-earle-nathaniel-siegel
Matt Ebert
Background: Matt is a 24 year old white, gay man who grew up on a farm in Cornwall, New York, the youngest of 12 children. After a Catholic education through high school, he studied film at SUNY Purchase. He moved to New York hoping to get involved with making gay arthouse films, and ended up living with a bunch of porn stars in Chelsea. He worked at the Saint, the spectacular gay members-only nightclub that closed in 1988, and Uncle Charlie’s Uptown, a gay bar. He met Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon at SUNY Purchase, which led him to ACT UP. Matt is not out to his family.
Role in ACT UP: Matt is involved in planning zaps, goes to most meetings and actions, and is starting to get involved with DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists). He is also on the Swim Team.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Swim Team; Michael Aquilone (boyfriend, on the fundraising committee); DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/081-matt-ebert
Garron Edmund
Garron grew up in Springfield, Vermont. Garron studied Special Ed. and English at Castleton University. In 1979, Garron helped found the first order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in San Francisco.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Mickey Wheatley, Gabriel Quirk
Additional information: https://www.tllittphotography.com/image/I0000gQZB0H30_WM
David Ehrlich
David is in the affinity group Dada.
Jim Eigo
Gilbert Elbaz
Gilbert is a doctoral student at the City University of New York and an ACT UP member who is writing his thesis about the group.
Jon Engbretson
Jon lives in Manhattan. Jon helped plan the FDA action in the fall of 1988 and is starting to get involved with the Treatment and Data Committee.
Jeff Engel
Jeff is a 29 year old man. Formerly an investment banker on Wall Street, Jeff is currently in a one-year pre-medical program at Columbia, planning to pursue a career in community health. He lives on the Upper West Side. He has been arrested at ACT UP actions for civil disobedience. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras. He is friends with David Leavitt.
Charles Eppler
Charles lives in Manhattan.
Sandra Elgear
Sandra is a 32 year old white straight woman who grew up outside of Ottawa, Canada. She studied art and art history at Trent University and then the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. She then began the Whitney program where she met her Testing the Limits collaborators David Meieran and Gregg Bordowitz. They, together with Robyn Hutt (who Sandra met at art school in Canada and with whom she went to the Whitney program as collaborators), Hilary Kipnis, and Jean Carlomusto, formed Testing the Limits, a video collective that pre-dates ACT UP with the specific aim of documenting AIDS activism. Testing the Limits’s first major footage is from ACT UP’s first demonstration in 1987 at Wall Street. All decisions within Testing the Limits, including the editing, are done by consensus. Testing the Limits released a video in 1988 focusing mainly on ACT UP that played at festivals and is distributed among educators. There has been a split in Testing the Limits of late with Robyn, David, and Sandra wanting to focus more on feature length documentary than short videos. That is what they are working on now as they prepare to shoot footage at Target City Hall. Robyn is married to a man who is currently in architecture school.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Testing the Limits
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/095-sandra-elgear
Richard Elovich
F
Eugene Fedorko
Background: Gene is a 46 year old white gay man. He spent much of his time in the artistic community in Provincetown. He now works as a graphic art designer. He started a group with Jim Fouratt called Wipe Out AIDS that became HEAL, which focuses on alternative diets, holistic practices, massage, Reiki, etc. Gene lives in a loft on 17th Street in Chelsea with his partner, John.
Role in ACT UP: Alternative Treatments and Holistics Subcommittee
Groups/friends at the meeting: Alternative Treatments and Holistics Subcommittee (Bob Lederer, Jim Fouratt, Eugene Fedorko)
Andrei Fabricant
Andrei is involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now.
David Falcone
David is 29, is from Newburgh, New York, and lives in New York City. He is HIV positive.
Joe Ferrari
Jose Fidelino
Background: Jose is a 22 year old Filipino gay man who was born in Toronto but grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. He went to Catholic school, came out in high school, then went to Wesleyan University in Connecticut (where he was in the gay group), dropped out after two years, and moved to the West Village in 1986. He works in retail. He has a penchant for older, skinny men; many of the men he has dated have had AIDS and some have died. Fellow ACT UPer Howard Pope at his job encouraged him to come to ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Jose goes to most meetings and actions and is on the Majority Action Committee. He is usually a marshal at actions.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Majority Action Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/057-jose-fidelino
Avram Finkelstein
Background: Avram is a 37 year old white, Jewish gay man who grew up in Jericho, Long Island. He was a self-described “hippie fag artist” in high school (though he didn’t come out until college), and got involved in leftist politics at an early age. He went to the Museum School and trained as a graphic artist. He began working as an artist and, to make money, got into hairdressing and then became art director for Vidal Sassoon. Avram’s partner Don died of AIDS in 1984. Avram was one of the original people who formed the Silence=Death Project, which created the famous poster that was adopted by ACT UP. That collective merged into ACT UP. Avram’s boyfriend Steven Webb, a fellow ACT UPer, died by suicide in 1988.
Role in ACT UP: Avram has been part of ACT UP from the beginning in 1987, and first got involved on the Logistics Committee. He is now a member of Gran Fury, which is the main activist artist collective of ACT UP members. Gran Fury started as an open group, but became a closed, invitation-only group when having so many members proved unwieldy.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Avram is a prominent ACT UP member and knows most people. But at this meeting he is closest to Vincent Gagliostro and the core group of Gran Fury.
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/108-avram-finkelstein
Mark Fisher
Mark is a 35 year old white gay man who lives in Manhattan. He is an architect in private practice.
Julie Fishman
Julie is a white woman who lives in Manhattan. She received her B.A. from Columbia University. She works with the Treatment and Data Committee, and is helping to start the AIDS Treatment Registry.
Bill Flanagan
Bill lives in Manhattan.
Lola Flash
Background: Lola is a 30 year old black lesbian who grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. Lola’s Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_Flash) gives a good summary of her early life and education.
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/091-lola-flash
Peter Fleming
Peter is a member of the affinity group the Candelabras and is involved with the Lesbian and Gay Activist History Project, a group of ACT UP members with an interest in queer past.
Felix Fletcher
Felix lives at 262 East 2nd Street in Manhattan.
Mark Fotopoulos
Mark is a 32 year old white gay man who grew up in Wilmette, Illinois on the North Shore outside of Chicago. He went to New Trier East High School and then became a Broadway performer, appearing in A Chorus Line, Cats, Rags, West Side Story, Harrigan n Hart, The Loves of Antanol and a tour of Sophisticated Ladies. He played Aggie in the film version of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. He is living with AIDS, has been involved with ACT UP since 1987, and is well-known for carrying a sign at ACT UP actions saying “"LIVING WITH AIDS – [3 YEARS 11 MONTHS] AND COUNTING! NO THANKS TO YOU MR REAGAN”. His mother, Anne Beckmann, has attended actions with him when she has visited from Chicago. Mark lives in Manhattan.
Additional information: Photo of Mark with his sign at the top of an article
Jim Fouratt
Background: Jim is a 48 year old white gay man who grew up in Rhode Island. He went to private Catholic school and then went to a seminary but was kicked out for coming out as gay. He moved to New York and got involved in the burgeoning experimental theater scene (Living Theater, Caffe Cino, Joseph Chaikin). In the mid-1960s he became a hippie and got involved in the anti-war movement. After the Stonewall uprising, Jim was involved in helping to organize the protesters, and through the 1970s he was involved with gay political groups, co-founding Gay Liberation Front and then as a member of Gay Activists Alliance. He worked as an assistant to the pop music producer Clive Davis, became the manager of Club Hurrah and then opened Danceteria. Jim is in the minority of people at ACT UP who do not believe that HIV is the cause of AIDS. He started a group with Eugene Fedorko called Wipe Out AIDS that became HEAL, with focuses on alternative diets, holistic practices, massage, Reiki, etc.
Role in ACT UP: Media Committee; Alternative Treatments and Holistics Subcommittee
Groups/friends at the meeting: Media Committee; Alternative Treatments and Holistics Subcommittee (Bob Lederer, Jim Fouratt, Eugene Fedorko)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/066-jim-fouratt
Charlie Franchino
Background: Charlie is a 31 year old white gay man who grew up in West Nyack, New York. He went to Catholic school. After graduating from chiropractic school, we started volunteering in New York in 1981 at the Gay and Lesbian Task Force (stuffing envelopes and such). An appearance on the local television news show Midday Live with Bill Boggs, where Charlie denounced Jerry Falwell’s stance on gay people, outed Charlie to his family. He started volunteering at St. Mark’s Clinic, where he saw early cases of AIDS. He then started seeing patients in his own practice with AIDS symptoms. He was a buddy with Gay Men’s Health Crisis. As more people he knew were dying, he came to ACT UP as a place to process his anger. He lives in the West Village and his chiropractic office is at 5th Avenue and 10th Street. Charlie took an HIV test despite having no symptoms (even though most people at the time were not getting tested if they had no symptoms), and tested negative.
Role in ACT UP: Charlie chaired the Outreach Committee in 1988. He attends most meetings and actions. Charlie is starting to attend Treatment and Data Committee meetings.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Treatment and Data Committee; Mark Harrington
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/105-charlie-franchino
Garance Franke-Ruta
Background: Garance is a 17-year-old white, Jewish woman. She grew up in the West Village, went to P.S. 41, went to high school in New Mexico, dropped out, lived on her own at 16 in New Mexico, got her GED, then moved back to New York with her parents. She has been going to meetings for teenagers at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, and ACT UPer Neil Broome came to their group to recruit people for the FDA demonstration in the fall of 1988. After going to that demonstration, Garance has continued to come to ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Garance is on the Actions Committee.
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/080-garance-franke-ruta
Ira Frazin
Ira is involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. In the summer of 1988 he traveled with fellow ACT UPers to the Democratic National Convention to protest the government inaction on AIDS. Ira lives at 83 Horatio Street in Manhattan.
Mike Frisch
Eric Fretz
Eric went to Hunter College. He lives in New Jersey.
G
Suzanne Gaasche
No information
Vincent Gagliostro
Background: Vincent is a 34 year old white gay man who grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey. He went to Catholic school and then Hackensack High School, where he was out and relatively popular. He went to art school and became a graphic designer. He was involved with Gay Activist Alliance in the 1970s. He has been in a relationship with his partner Richard since the late 1970s.
Role in ACT UP: Vincent is on the Outreach Committee and helps design much of the graphics and posters for ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Outreach Committee; Avram Finkelstein; Victor Mendolia
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/064-vincent-gagliostro
Selwyn Gallaway
Selwyn has attended Majority Action Committee meetings and lives at 344 East 9th Street in Manhattan.
Rodney Garbato
No information
Robert Garcia
Jeff Gates
Jeff is 34 and a nurse-epidemiologist who works on AIDS research and education with intravenous drug users in the South Bronx.
Additional information: 1990 interview with Jeff: https://actuporalhistory.org/actions/storm-the-nih
Deborah Gavito
Background: Deborah is a 32 year old white lesbian. She grew up in Denver, Colorado in a poor, working-class family. She moved to New York City in 1981, waited tables, and assistant stage managed at Playwrights Horizons. She came out a few years later. She first came to ACT UP with her friend Michael.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Wave 3; Powertools
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/096-debbie-gavito
David Geltman
David is in the 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.
Stephen Gendin
Background: Stephen is a 23 year old white gay man who grew up in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He was valedictorian of his high school, where he was out and sexually active, and then went to Brown University, where he got into AIDS activism. Steven tested HIV-positive in 1985. Steven has been in a relationship with fellow ACT UPer Mark Aurigemma since the summer of 1987.
Role in ACT UP: Stephen attends almost all meetings and actions, and has been arrested with ACT UP many times. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Mark Aurigemma (boyfriend); Tom Keane, Candelabras
Additional information: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/16/1007361916/act-up-a-history-of-aids-hiv-activism
David Gerstner
Background: David is a 26 year old white gay man who grew up in Buffalo, New York. He went to Catholic high school then moved to New York City in 1981 to go to Fordham. He came out when he got to New York City. He switched to cinema studies at NYU and worked at World of Video at West 10th Street and 7th Avenue. He dated some HIV-positive men, then moved back to Buffalo to finish his bachelor’s degree in 1986. He moved back to New York City and currently works in advertising.
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/158-david-gerstner
Robert Getso
Robert is a 28 year old white gay man who lives at East 12th Street and 1st Avenue in Manhattan. Robert has worked in drag clubs and hustler bars. He now documents AIDS activism through still and motion picture photography. Robert is HIV positive and is a client at Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
Mark Gevisser
Background: Mark is a 25 year old white gay man from South Africa of Lithuanian Jewish heritage. He graduated from Yale in 1987 with a degree in comparative literature. He is currently a political reporter at the Village Voice. He has not been coming to ACT UP very long, but he has encouraged his friend Esther Kaplan (who he knows from Yale and who is an intern at the Village Voice) to come to ACT UP as well. They are excited to be trained in civil disobedience for their first action, Target City Hall. They have also brought Ira Sachs, Mark’s roommate and best friend who they know from Yale.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Esther Kaplan, Ira Sachs
Joan Gibbs
Background: Joan is a 36 year old black lesbian who grew up in rural Swan Quarter, North Carolina, where segregation and Klan activity were the norm. Her mother was a teacher who was fired for her outspokenness and moved to New York, with Joan and her sister staying in the South until Joan was fourteen. When she was in 4th grade her cousin was lynched. After moving to New York, Joan went to Bronx Science, where was was involved in the anti-war movement, Young Socialist Alliance, and the Black Students Group. She went to City College, dropped out, went to hippie Franconia College in New Hampshire for two years, came back to New York, went to Marlboro College studying theater, then graduated from Empire State College. She came out in 1971. She lived in Providence for a year then came back to New York in the mid-1970s, got politically active again, this time from a queer perspective starting Azalea (a magazine for women of color) and DARE (a lesbian group opposing racism). She went to law school at Rutgers in the early 1980s and started doing social justice law with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights where she works now. David Barr invited her to get involved with legal work for ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Joan comes to many ACT UP meetings and acts as a legal observer at actions.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Legal observers
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/138-joan-gibbs
John Gibson
John is from Jerome, Arkansas, lives and works in Manhattan, and is on ACT UP’s Gay and Lesbian Teach-In Committee.
John Gilbert
No information
Betsy Gimbel
Betsy is a 44 year old woman who uses a wheelchair. Betsy has been an activist with Disabled in Action and WWP Disability Rights for over a decade.
Additional information: https://abc7ny.com/aids-protest-act-up-in-the-80s-new-york/6233266/
David Gips
David is a 26 year old white man.
Additional information: Photo of David
Jean Elizabeth Glass
Jean is a lesbian around 20 years old. She co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Student Union at Queens College, was involved with the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights as a teenager, and was a member of the Lavender Hill Mob. She is on the Actions Committee, and is co-chair of the Target City Hall action. She is also a civil disobedience trainer. She is in the affinity group Delta Queens.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Target City Hall principals; Delta Queens, Civil disobedience trainers
Gary Glickman
Gary is a writer with homes in Manhattan and East Hampton. His first novel, Years from Now, about generations of a Jewish family, came out in 1987. Gary is in a relationship with fellow ACT UPer David Leavitt.
Groups/friends at the meeting: The Candelabras; David Leavitt
Additional information: Article about Gary and David
Kay Glidden
Kay is a nurse. She has been a buddy with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and has volunteered in their Ombudsman’s office, putting together a city-wide survey on funeral homes that discriminate against and price gouge people with AIDS. She is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
My Goble
My lives in Manhattan.
Ron Goldberg
Mark Golebiowski
Mark is a photographer. He received a BFA in photography from SUNY Purchase in 1984.
Cliff Goodman
Cliff is a black man. He is on the Majority Action Committee and wrote an article on City Prisoners and AIDS for the Target City Hall handbook. Cliff is also involved with HEAL (Health Education AIDS Liaison), which spreads information on alternative and holistic therapies. Cliff is HIV positive. He lives at 54 Featherbed Lane in the Bronx.
John Goodman
John is a white man. He is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Additional information: Photo of John
Emily Gordon
Background: Emily is a 53 year old straight white woman who grew up poor in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan. When her mother was hospitalized when she was 15, Emily moved in with a liberal Jewish family in Ann Arbor and cared for their kids. They found her a job at the University of Michigan Hospital and encouraged Emily to go to college, which she did at the University of Michigan. She left college in her senior year, married her second lover Jerry, and moved to El Paso.She hated El Paso and convinced Jerry to move to Los Angeles, where she graduated from UCLA. Jerry got more right-wing as Emily got more left-wing and they got divorced. She went to graduate school at University of Michigan in 1964 and got very involved in the civil rights movement. She moved around the country, getting involved in various leftist movements, and ended up in New York in the 1980s working at Covenant House as a social worker. She lives in Harlem at 723 St. Nicholas Avenue, where she moved with her friend Michael as he was dying of AIDS. She met Griffin Gold, who got her to ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Emily goes to most meetings and is on the Majority Action Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Majority Action Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/127-emily-gordon
Steven Gradman
Steve has been involved with ACT NOW, which works to coordinate various ACT UP chapters in different cities. Steve also is involved with ACT UP NJ. He lives on Hurlburt Street in Westwood, NJ.
Paul Graham
Paul lives in Manhattan.
Jim Granger
Jim grew up in Lagrange, Illinois. He was a sensitive, insular child. After a year at the University of Illinois, he transferred to SUNY Purchase and started to become a painter. After graduating in 1984, Jim moved to the East Village and tried to break into the art world while waitering at the Moondance diner. He frequents bars and dance clubs. After testing HIV positive, Jim joined ACT UP. Jim recently got interested in needlepoint art.
Michael Green
Michael has attended Majority Action Committee meetings and lives at 156 First Avenue in Manhattan.
Brian Greenbaum
Background: Brian Greenbaum is friends and collaborators with the filmmakers Christine Vachon and Todd Haynes. They are all working on a new film, Poison, with fellow ACT UPer and friend Jim Lyons.
Role in ACT UP: Brian comes to some meetings and actions.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Christine Vachon, Jim Lyons, Todd Haynes
Jeff Griglak
H
Mark Harrington
Background: Mark is a 29 year old white gay man. His early life is well-summarized in the Personal life section of his Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Harrington_(HIV/AIDS_activist))
Role in ACT UP: Mark came to ACT UP in 1988 and joined the Actions Committee, but he quickly transitioned to the Treatment and Data Committee. He is a member of the affinity group Wave 3. He comes to most actions and meetings.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Treatment and Data Committee, Wave 3
https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/012-mark-harrington
David Alan Harris
David is a program assistant at the AFSC, Haitian Women’s Program at 15 Rutherford Place in Manhattan.
Jill Harris
Background: Jill is a 31 year old white lesbian who grew up in Eugene, Oregon. Her parents divorced when she was young and she lived with her mother and step-father. Her mother was into women’s lib and took Jill to hear Gloria Steinem speak when Jill was in high school. Jill came out in her freshman year at Harvard. She took a year off and worked at a bookstore in Eugene, then finished a psychology major at Harvard (where she was active in the Boston/Cambridge lesbian scene, worked as a bartender, and got involved in some women/gay rights causes). She came to New York in 1982 to go to NYU law school, then started working as a criminal defense attorney with Legal Aid. She got arrested in 1986 at a big civil disobedience demonstration in Washington protesting the Bowers v. Hardwick Supreme court decision that upheld state sodomy laws. Her friend David Barr encouraged her to get involved with ACT UP providing legal support, which she first started doing for the FDA action in October of 1988. Jill is starting a relationship with Catherine Saalfield, though she is also in a relationship with another woman who is not involved in ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Jill comes to most meetings and actions. Though she has been arrested at some actions, she mostly acts as a legal observer. Jill was recently recruited into the affinity group Wave 3 for Target City Hall.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Legal observers, Wave 3; Catherine Saalfield (dating)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/087-jill-harris
Vicki Harwyn
Vicki lives in New Jersey.
Roger Hayes
Roger lives at 206 9th Avenue in Manhattan. Roger is interested in housing issues.
Todd Haynes
Background: Todd is a 28 year old white gay man who grew up in Encino, California. He studied art and semiotics at Brown University, where he met friend and collaborator Christine Vachon. He moved to New York for an MFA at Bard College. Together with Christine, Todd created a non-profit film production company called Apparatus Productions in 1987, and through that made Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story which Todd directed. They are now working on a new film, Poison, with friends and fellow ACT UPers Jim Lyons and Brian Greenbaum.
Role in ACT UP: Todd comes to some meetings and actions. Christine and Todd also let Gran Fury use Apparatus’ office for meeting/working space.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Jim Lyons, Christine Vachon, Brian Greenbaum
Timothy Hazel
Tim has been arrested for civil disobedience with ACT UP before, including at an action on Wall Street in March of 1988. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Billy Heekin
Billy is 29 and lives in New York City. He graduated from St. Nicholas of Tolentine High School in the Bronx in 1977. He is a model, poet, and actor.
Kelly Halpine
Kelly is the Phone Tree Manager and he sometimes records the Monday night meeting minutes.
Jason Heffner
Aldo Hernandez
Background: Aldo is a 32 year old Cuban gay man who was born in Cuba and grew up in Corona, a small town in California. In 1981, he was in the queer synth band called Strong Silent Types. After college, he had various jobs in San Francisco, Long Beach, and worked on a cruise ship for a year. When he came to New York from California in 1985 he started working for Harry Fox, the music publishing house. Aldo has worked in development for MoMA, and is currently the Development Director for Creative Time. His boyfriend of many years died of AIDS in late 1988, which led Aldo to ACT UP. Aldo lives at 299 East 8th Street, where various friends like ACT UPers Ray Navarro and Hunter Reynolds have occasionally lived with him. Aldo occasionally DJs at parties. He lives at 299 East 8th Street in Manhattan.
Role in ACT UP: Aldo has been coming to most meetings and actions since his friend Ray Navarro got him more committed to ACT UP. He is in the affinity group La Cocina.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Affinity Group La Cocina, Hunter Reynolds, Majority Action Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/013-aldo-hernandez
Scott Heron
Scott is a dancer, clown and stilt walker, and is in the affinity group the Candelabras. Scott has been arrested for civil disobedience with ACT UP before, including at an action on Wall Street in March of 1988.
Robert Hilferty
Background: Robert is a 29 year old white gay man who grew up in Weehawken, New Jersey. He went to Regis High School, a Catholic school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and then Princeton, graduating in 1982. His lover Tom died of AIDS in 1985. Robert has worked as a production assistant for the filmmaker Robert Altman, and is beginning to make documentaries about ACT UP. Robert has been in a relationship with Peter Staley. Robert lives in the East Village.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Powertools
Lewis Holman
Lewis is a 29 year old gay man. In 1985, he complained to the Civilian Complaint Review Board about press statements by uniformed officers who said that lesbians and gays should not be part of society, much less on the police force. No action was taken. Lewis has been an ACT UP member for over a year. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Beau Houston
No information
Charles Hovland
Background: Charles is a 35 year old white gay man who grew up on a farm in Minnesota. He went to college in Minneapolis then moved to New York. While at his Lutheran college, he went to a gay bar and met a man with whom he had a two year relationship. That man was in art school, and that got Charles interested in art. When Charles came to New York, he started working at the Guggenheim Museum bookstore and started going to gay rallies and events. Photos that he took for a friend for personal ads caught the attention of an editor at a porn magazine company, which led to Charles’s career as a photographer for male porn magazines. Charles delivers meals to people with AIDS for God’s Love We Deliver, which led him to ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Charles goes to most meetings and actions, and is on the Fundraising Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Fundraising Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/135-charles-hovland
Jim Hubbard
Background: Jim is 38 and from Brooklyn. He is an experimental filmmaker who co-founded the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival with Sarah Schulman in 1987.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Sarah Schulman
Bob Huff
Background: Bob is a 36 year old white gay man who grew up in and around San Diego. He was into music and was in a heavy metal band in high school. Later in New York he got into country/folk/bluegrass music and was in a band called Crash. He came out in high school, then went to UCLA for a few years, dropped out, started building guitars, and eventually moved to the East Village in New York. He would go dancing at places like the Anvil, Pyramid, and 8 BC and would hang out at The Bar and International Stud. In 1982 at a temp job he stumbled into writing computer programs, which became lucrative and allowed him to buy video equipment and get into video editing. He went to some political demonstrations before ACT UP, including the protest at the Supreme Court about the decision upholding state sodomy laws. Seeing the Silence=Death poster motivated Bob to start going to ACT UP meetings in the summer of 1987.
Role in ACT UP: Bob first started going to Housing Committee meetings, but has transitioned to the Treatment and Data Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Treatment and Data Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/079-bob-huff
Barbara Hughes
Barbara was born in Camden, New Jersey and graduated from West Chester State College in Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in music, training as a concert pianist. She works in the restaurant business, and has volunteered at Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Seeing so many friends and colleagues becoming ill and dying from AIDS, Barbara started coming to ACT UP in 1988. Barbara lives in Manhattan and is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Bert Hunter
Bert is a black gay poet who lives in Manhattan.
Robyn Hutt
Robyn is a 26 year old white straight woman who grew up outside of Toronto. She went to art school in Canada for a few years then transferred to Cooper Union in New York. She originally thought she wanted to be an illustrator but was drawn to film at school. She then began the Whitney program where she met her Testing the Limits collaborators David Meieran and Gregg Bordowitz. They, together with Sandra Elgear (who Robyn met at art school in Canada and with whom she went to the Whitney program as collaborators), Hilary Kipnis, and Jean Carlomusto, formed Testing the Limits, a video collective that pre-dates ACT UP with the specific aim of documenting AIDS activism. Testing the Limits’s first major footage is from ACT UP’s first demonstration in 1987 at Wall Street. All decisions within Testing the Limits, including the editing, are done by consensus. Robyn tends to run sound when shooting. Testing the Limits released a video in 1988 focusing mainly on ACT UP that played at festivals and is distributed among educators. There has been a split in Testing the Limits of late with Robyn, David, and Sandra wanting to focus more on feature length documentary than short videos. That is what they are working on now as they prepare to shoot footage at Target City Hall. Robyn is married to a man who is currently in architecture school.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Testing the Limits
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/086-robyn-hutt
J
Richard Jackman
Background: Richard is a 31 year old white gay man who grew up in a small town in southwestern Pennsylvania. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, he moved to Columbus, Ohio with his girlfriend for a few years and worked his first architecture jobs. After they broke up in 1984, he started going out to gay bars in Columbus as he explored his homosexuality. He moved to South Jersey in 1985, then to New York in 1987, working for a small firm doing high-end interior renovations. Working there and seeing the homeless population in New York led him to quit and start working for Pratt Architectural Collective on nonprofit affordable housing. He joined a small group in the Community Center, then started coming to ACT UP in August of 1987.
Role in ACT UP: Richard comes to most actions and meetings, and is involved in the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. He was (previously) in the affinity group Metropolitan Health Association (MHA).
Groups/friends at the meeting: Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now; Metropolitan Health Association (MHA)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/172-richard-jackman
Michael Jacobs
Michael is new to ACT UP. He lives in Manhattan and is a graduate student.
Eliza Jackson
Eliza is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Coleman Jones
Coleman is a 38 year old gay white man who grew up in Largo, Florida. He went to the University of South Florida, then lived in Washington, D.C., Houston, and San Francisco before settling in New York City in 1983. He worked as a print model for Bloomingdale’s, and then began appearing in erotic films under the name Keith Adent. In the January 1989 issue of Manshots, he described himself as “a very sexually curious person” into “advanced sexuality.” “Making porn is definitely a political act. If you’re making porn in this time, you’re definitely a rebel.” He has volunteered with PWA Coalition, PWA Health Group, GMSMA, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, PONY, and Community Research Initiative.
Additional information: https://laudiel.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/advocate-men-1987-mayo/003-keith-ardent-01/
Alexandra Juhasz
Background: Alex is a 25 year old white straight woman. She went to Amherst College, majoring in American Studies and English. She was involved in some feminist activism at college. She came to New York in 1987 for the Whitney Independent Study Program. On a lunch break from her job in 1987 making a video for the Department of Juvenile Justice, she saw an ACT UP rally, which drew her to come to meetings. She also volunteers with Jean Carlomusto at Gay Men’s Health Crisis making videos about women and AIDS.
Role in ACT UP: Alex has been coming to ACT UP meetings and actions sporadically for the past two years.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Women’s Caucus
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/008-alexandra-juhasz
Frank Jump
Background: Frank is a 29 year old white, gay man who grew up in Howard Beach, Queens. He went to John Adams High School in Ozone Park, and then Queens College. He came out to his mother when he was 11, had a relationship with his 28 year old camp counselor when he was 14, and took over the gay organization at Queens College. He got involved with Gay Activist Alliance starting at 16, then the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights. His mother became a PLAG mom, and together they went to the march in Washington in 1979. He found out he is HIV positive in 1986 (he had been part of a study, so unlike most people at the time he found out he was positive before experiencing symptoms). He met Eric Sawyer when he was working the coatroom at the nightclub Shout in the mid-1980s. They moved in together and started going to ACT UP for the beginning in March of 1987. Frank is a songwriter and musician.
Role in ACT UP: Frank was on the Zap Committee at the start of ACT UP, and writes activist songs and raps.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Eric Sawyer (current boyfriend); Maria Maggenti; Timmy Spree
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/033-frank-jump
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Tom Kalin
Don Kaminsky
No information
Saul Kanowitz
Saul has been involved with The All People’s Congress and has been the Treasurer of the Workers World Party, a socialist political party. Saul lives in New Jersey. Saul is on the Actions Committee.
Esther Kaplan
Background: Esther is a 24 year old bisexual woman who was born in Claremont, California. Her parents were back-to-the-landers who moved their family to a collective subsistence farming community in Oregon until Esther started high school. In high school in Claremont, Esther got into the punk rock scene and local leftist activism. She went to Yale University, where she came out as queer and wrote for a feminist journal called Aurora. She also got involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and took part in a workers’ strike at Yale. Esther is living in a collective household in Fort Greene. Kevin, one of her housemates, is living with AIDS, and she is helping coordinate his care. Esther is currently an intern at the Village Voice and is waitressing. She has not been coming to ACT UP very long. Her friend Mark Gevisser (who she knows from Yale and who is a reporter at the Village Voice) encouraged her to come to ACT UP. They are excited to be trained in civil disobedience for their first action, Target City Hall. They have also brought Ira Sachs, Mark’s roommate and best friend who they know from Yale.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Mark Gevisser, Ira Sachs
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/146-esther-kaplan
Sandy Katz
Background: Sandy is a 27 year old white, gay Jewish man who grew up on the Upper West Side. He went to Hunter Elementary School and was one of the first boys to go to the formerly all-girls Hunter High School in Manhattan. He then went to Brown University and came out at 20 or 21. He was a high school teacher in Chicago for a year, then moved back to New York and became the executive director of Westpride, a community organization opposing the construction of Trump City on the Upper West Sider. He was always interested in electoral politics. He didn’t really know people with AIDS. But he started getting involved and attending meetings in 1987 when he saw ACT UP demonstrating at Sloan-Kettering, where his mother was being treated for cancer.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Candelabras
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/058-sandy-katz
Wayne Kawadler
Wayne is in the affinity group Seeing Red. He is an administrator at a gay and lesbian school.
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.
Tom Keane
Background: Tom is a 21 year old white gay man who grew up in Mineola on Long Island. He grew up going to Catholic church every Sunday. He did a little liberal politics work in high school. He came out as gay when he went to Yale, where he got involved in some of the gay groups. When he was in New York for Spring Break in 1987, a friend from Yale invited him to go to the first ACT UP meeting, having heard that Larry Kramer’s speech the week prior raised a ruckus.
Role in ACT UP: Tom is in his senior year at Yale, but still comes to most actions and many meetings. He had been in Wave 3 for the 2nd Wall Street action in March of 1988, but is in Bored of Ed for Target City Hall.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Affinity group Bored of Ed; Stephen Gendin (who he knows from the Northeastern Lesbian and Gay Student Union), Mark Aurigemma
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/176-tom-keane
Buzz Kelly
Buzz is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
John Kelly
John lives in Manhattan and is on the Outreach Committee, and the Public Artworks subcommittee of the Outreach Committee. He is also a civil disobedience trainer.
Additional information: https://www.tllittphotography.com/image?&_bqG=2&_bqH=eJwribAMcws3LiuKKDUscXQ0y3VNSgoJyfGICCi3MrMyNDAAYSDpGe8S7GzrlZ.Rp.2dmpNTqQYWiHf0c7EtAbJDg12D4j1dbENBip2dXMPjs4OrAozT1eIdnUNsi1MTi5IzAOVqINE-&GI_ID=
Charles King
Background: Charles is a 34 year old white, gay man who grew up on a farm in Texas in an extremely fundamentalist evangelical family. His father is a minister who considers Jerry Falwell a liberal. Charles also went into the ministry, running a program that brought Black and Latino kids to First Baptist Church. He engaged in street ministry and ran a relief center for abused and neglected children at Texas Baptist Children’s Home in Austin. He realized he was gay when he started divinity school at Yale, but decided to be celibate to continue his ministry work. He moved from independent fundamentalist Baptist (extreme right) to Southern Baptist (mid-right). He did a community organizing project that brought him to the attention of the pastor of Emanuel Baptist Church in New Haven, who enlisted him as his assistant minister (even though Charles is white and the congregation was black). Watching as closeted congregants died of AIDS, Charles came out to the congregation, a decision that meant he had to leave his post. He then drove buses for a year until he started law school, first at Cardozo and then at Yale. He spent the summer of 1988 in New York and got involved with ACT UP, specifically housing issues. He has continued his involvement with ACT UP while he finishes law school.
Role in ACT UP: Charles is on the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now while he finishes his final year of law school at Yale.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now; Ginny Shubert
https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/107-charles-king
David Z. Kirschenbaum
Background: David is a 29 year old white, Jewish, gay man who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He came out at age 20 while at Case Western Reserve (studying biomedical engineering). He got involved with Cleveland's Gay and Lesbian Community Center and the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club, and started a gay bridge group. In 1981 he transferred to Pratt to study architecture. He learned about ACT UP at one of Columbia University’s popular gay dances. He currently works as an architect.
Role in ACT UP: In 1987, David started working on the Issues Committee, which morphed into the Treatment and Data Committee, where David focuses his ACT UP work. He is also in the affinity group Wave 3.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Treatment and Data Committee; Wave 3; Margaret McCarthy (roommate)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/031-david-z-kirschenbaum
Alan Klein
Garry Kleinman
Background: Garry is a 38 year old white, gay man who grew up in Passaic, New Jersey. In high school Garry was sort of a hippie, smoked a lot of pot, was gay without being sexual active, and barely graduated. Garry stutters, though that’s gotten better over the years. He attended the School of Visual Arts and worked factory jobs before his friend Judy convinced him to go to hairdressing school. He has been a hairdresser since 1974. Four years later, Garry started going to bathhouses, the Saint nightclub and bars in Cherry Grove on Fire Island. He first heard about ACT UP while at the 1987 March of Washington with his friend John, and started going to meetings when he returned to New York.
Role in ACT UP: Garry works with the Treatment and Data Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Treatment and Data Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/165-garry-kleinman
George Kontanis
George lives in Manhattan and is on the Actions Committee.
Larry Kramer
Background: Larry is a 54 year old white gay Jewish man. His Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Kramer) gives a good summary of his background. Larry is well known for being fiery and excoriating, though one-on-one he can be far more mild.
Role in ACT UP: Larry’s speech at the Community Center in March 1987 spurred the formation of ACT UP, so he is looked to as a spiritual leader of ACT UP even if he does not hold any specific role. He is often asked by the press to speak on behalf of ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Larry knows just about all of the regulars, and certainly just about everyone knows him. But while Larry’s speech was the impetus for starting ACT UP, Larry is not the leader of ACT UP (even if the prerogative he sometimes attempts to exercise might suggest otherwise). At tonight’s meeting he is likely mostly involved with planning for Target City Hall with his affinity group, the Candelabras.
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/035-larry-kramer
Mike Kuchar
Mike is 47, was born in New York, and splits time between New York and San Francisco. He is an underground filmmaker (with his twin brother George) and does homoerotic comics and illustrations (Meatmen; Gay Heart Throbs; First Hand Magazine; Manscape Magazine).
Rob Kurilla
Rob is helping to form DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists).
Kayeton Kurowski
Background: Kayeton is a 42 year old gay man. He is a clinical social worker. He runs burnout groups for fatigued ACT UP members.
Role in ACT UP: Kayeton is the lead organizer of Wave 3, one of the more prominent affinity groups in ACT UP. He is also on the Actions Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Wave 3, Actions Committee
Additional information: Photo of Kayeton
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Bob LaChance
Bob lives in Port Washington on Long Island. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Silvio Lanaro
Silvio lives in Manhattan.
Tom Landin
Tom is a 25 year old student.
Annie Lanzillotto
Annie is a 25 year old lesbian who is a writer and performer. Her Wikipedia page gives a good summary of her background (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Lanzillotto)
Barry Lapidus
Barry is 34 and lives in Brooklyn. He is involved in Treatment activism and is on the Treatment and Data Committee and the Actions Committee. He recently wrote a section on AIDS Education in NYC for ACT UP’s Target City Hall activist’s guide.
James Latus
James is a graduate of the Professional Theatre training program at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. A production stage manager, James previously worked at Shakespeare Theatre in DC, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, The Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Arena Stage, and ABC TV. He is currently working on the book of a new musical and is involved with 3 Dollar Bill Theater, a new professional Off Broadway gay and lesbian theater company. He lives at 412 West 25th Street in Manhattan.
Chuck Laven
Chuck lives in Manhattan.
David Leavitt
David is a 27 year old gay man who grew up in Palo Alto, California. He went to Henry M. Gunn Senior High School, where he edited the literary magazine. He graduated from Yale with a B.A. in English in 1983. He writes short stories and has had two novels published: The Lost Language of Cranes (1986) and Equal Affections (1988). He has worked at Books & co. and in publishing at Viking-Penguin. David is in the affinity group the Candelabras. He lives in Manhattan and East Hampton. He is in a relationship with fellow ACT UPer Gary Glickman.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Candelabras; Gary Glickman; Jeff Engel
Additional information: https://www.google.com/search?q=gary+glickman+david+leavitt&oq=gary+glickman+david+leavitt&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i30i546i625j0i546l4j69i61.5578j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=XcwdvopUUfSa0M
Bob Lederer
Patrick Lehman
Patrick is a 28 year old white man who lives in Manhattan. He is from Cincinnati.
Zoe Leonard
Background: Zoe is a 27 year old white bisexual woman who grew up in New York City. She went to P.S. 122, then went to private school for a couple of years before dropping out. She started doing art with a group of friends she met at City High School, including Jean-Michel Basquiat with whom she lived for a while. They went to art openings and to clubs like the Mudd Club, and worked on art projects. Her friend David Wojnarowicz, who had just tested HIV positive, invited her to go to an ACT UP meeting with him in late 1988.
Role in ACT UP: Zoe is relatively new to ACT UP, but she is active in her affinity group called the Candelabras that formed around the action Seize Control of the FDA in fall of 1988.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Affinity group the Candelabras; Women's Caucus
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/106-zoe-leonard
Simon Levin
No information
Debra Levine
John Lewis
No information
Michael Liberatore
Michael is a 31 year old gay, white man who grew up in Camillus, New York. He is an art director at W and will be covering the World Conference on AIDS for Self with John Voelcker.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Adam Smith
David Liebhart
Background: David is a 38 year old gay man with AIDS who lives in Manhattan. David was a theatrical agent with Don Buckwald and Associates until his diagnosis. He has been on the board of GLAAD and was co-chair of GLAAD’s media committee. Since his diagnosis he has lived with his brother Vince. He is finishing a contribution to ACT UP’s AIDS Activist’s Guide to New York City in 1989, writing an article on Bias and Discrimination with Margaret McCarthy.
Role in ACT UP: David is on the Actions Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Margaret McCarthy, Actions Committee
Tracey Litt
Tracey is a 24 year old white woman who lives in Florham, New Jersey. She photographs many ACT UP actions. She is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Constance Lofton
Constance has attended Majority Action Committee meetings and lives at 305 East 24th Street in Manhattan.
Iris Long
David Lopez
David is 26, lives on Staten Island, and works in Manhattan at Worth Publishers.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Marc Rubin
Tim Luddy
Tim’s partner is John Wagenhauser
Friend: Vito Russo
Paul Lufrano
Paul lives in Nassau County, Long Island.
Greg Lugliani
Greg went to Crestmoor High School in San Bruno, California. Greg lives in Manhattan. He is on ACT UP’s Gay and Lesbian Teach-In Committee and is involved with ACT UP’s Lesbian and Gay Activist History Project. Greg volunteers for Gay Men’s Health Crisis, writing for their newsletter. Greg and friend/fellow ACT UPer Jon Nalley frequent the popular nightclub Tunnel.
Timothy Lunceford
Background: Timothy is a 32 year old white gay man who was born in Atlanta and raised in south Georgia. Tim had leukemia when he was 14. He went to Stanford for one semester, but didn’t like California and wasn’t yet ready for the explicit homosexuality he encountered there, so he went to the University of Georgia. He dated a woman for four years during college, but called off the engagement. He worked for a company in north Georgia for a year, was transferred to New York in 1980 for a year, then transferred to Albany, came out as gay there, then transferred to Rochester until 1986. His work brought him to New York occasionally, and he got involved with Gay Men’s Health Crisis. He helped found Dining for Dollars in Rochester with a local AIDS group. After he moved to New York, he got involved in ACT UP in 1987. He and his current lover help care for a friend and former lover of Timothy’s, who is very sick with AIDS. Timothy’s hearing is not good, so he tries to sit in the front of the room.
Role in ACT UP: After getting arrested at a number of demonstrations and feeling uncomfortable with it, Timothy is transitioning to doing Support at actions.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Timothy is just starting to get interested in the Treatment and Data Committee.
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/115-timothy-lunceford
Rachel Lurie
Note: In later years Samuel Lurie would identify as a trans man and go by the name Samuel, but on March 13, 1989 he was known as Rachel and identified as a lesbian.
Background: Rachel is a 26 year old white Jewish lesbian who grew up in Washington Heights in Manhattan. She went to PS 187, Junior High School 143 (Eleanor Roosevelt), then went to West Milford High School in New Jersey after her family moved there when her mother got breast cancer. Her mother, Ellen Lurie, had been very involved in community activism before she died in Rachel’s sophomore year in high school. Rachel went to Rutgers and got involved in the women’s peace movement, transferred to UC Santa Cruz, got involved in journalism, and had her first serious relationship with a woman. She came back to New York in 1987 and lived with her sister. She was going to Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings at the Center for help dealing with her father’s alcoholism, and stumbled upon ACT UP meetings. She started going to meetings with ACT UPer Marion Banzhaf, who was her sister’s partner at the time.
Role in ACT UP: Rachel is in the affinity group La Cocina and is involved with the Women’s Caucus.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Affinity group La Cocina; Women’s Caucus
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/184-samuel-lurie
Jim Lyons
Background: Jim is a 28 year old white gay man who grew up on Long Island in a very Catholic family. He got a scholarship to go to NYU, got into the punk scene, and then the gay scene. He graduated with majors in psychology, filmmaking, and American literature. Jim is acting in and editing a film, Poison, with friends and fellow ACT UPers Todd Haynes, Christine Vachon, and Brian Greenbaum. Jim learned he is HIV positive in 1988. He lives at 406 East 9th Street in Manhattan.
Role in ACT UP: Jim comes to some meetings and actions, though he is shy and does not really speak at meetings. He also attends Treatment and Data Committee meetings, but again mostly as an observer.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Todd Haynes, Christine Vachon, Brian Greenbaum
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/063-jim-lyons
M
Maria Maggenti
Bonita Makuch
Bonita grew up in Lowville, New York on a small dairy farm. She is studying Art at Cooper Union.
Ira Manhoff
Background: Ira is a 32 year old white gay Jewish man who grew up in Westbury, New York on Long Island. In high school, he was involved in the movement to help Russian Jews. Ira has worked as a freelance film editor on many big films. He had a difficult situation of being outed on the job while working on the movie Ishtar around 1986. He has been in a relationship with his partner (Patrick) for many years and they live at 109th and Amsterdam. Ira has been coming to ACT UP since shortly after it started in 1987.
Role in ACT UP: Though he has worked with the affinity group Metropolitan Health Association (MHA) in the past, Ira does not have a dedicated group that he works with. Rather, he tends to come up with ideas for zaps (small, quickly planned protests) and come to ACT UP meetings to rally people to participate. His best friends at ACT UP are Charles Stimson and Neil Broome.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Metropolitan Health Association (MHA), Charles Stimson, Neil Broome
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/152-ira-manhoff
Joel Marks
Joel lives in Manhattan. Joel is in ACT UP’s Speakers Bureau. In November 1988, Joel spoke at the University of Pennsylvania with fellow ACT UPer Ann Otto about government inaction on developing treatments for AIDS. Joel is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Kiki Mason
Kiki (born Curtis) is a 28 year old gay man who grew up in Pittsburgh and graduated from Hunter College. He has written for the New York Native (including about ACT UP actions). He is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Loring McAlpin
Background: Loring is a 29 year old white gay man. He grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, where his father was a liberal Presbyterian minister. His family moved to the Detroit area for a few years, then back to Princeton. His last few years of high school were at a boarding school in New Hampshire. He went to Princeton University for a few years, left for two years to go to art school at the San Francisco Art Institute (and come out as gay), then returned to Princeton. After graduating, he moved to New York in 1984. Loring had volunteered at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis hotline, and then started coming to ACT UP meetings in September of 1987.
Role in ACT UP: Loring helped take down Let the Record Show, artwork that the New Museum commissioned from Gran Fury. He then became a core member of Gran Fury.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Gran Fury
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/098-loring-mcalpin
Margaret McCarthy
Background: Margaret is a 23 year old white lesbian who grew up in a Catholic family in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. She went to Catholic school, then Columbia starting in 1983 where she got involved in the anti-apartheid movement. For her summer job after her first year of law school, Margaret worked at the New York City Commission on Human Rights in the AIDS Discrimination Unit, which led her to ACT UP in the summer of 1987. She got involved with the Lavender Hill Mob, which at that time were focusing on treatment issues. She is currently in law school at Columbia.
Role in ACT UP: Margaret is not technically on the Treatment and Data Committee, but she is heavily involved in working on treatment issues so she works closely with them. With other people in Wave 3 (particularly Mark Harrington and Richard Elovich), she is drafting a list of demands for Target City Hall. She is also finishing a contribution to ACT UP’s AIDS Activist’s Guide to New York City in 1989, writing an article on Bias and Discrimination with David Liebhart
Groups/friends at the meeting: David Liebhart, Treatment and Data Committee, David Z. Kirschenbaum (roommate); Wave 3; Lavender Hill Mob
Dan McDonald
Dan lives in Manhattan. He has been on the Issues Committee, and is currently involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Henry Yeager; Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now
Shaun McDonald
Shaun is in the affinity group CD 9/18.
James McGrath
Background: James is a 32 year old gay man and a bar owner in Providence, Rhode Island. He joined the Air Force out of high school and started having relationships with men in the military. He then went to Rhode Island College, studying theater. He worked at a local children’s theater and as a DJ at clubs. He also sang in a band and played saxophone. He bought the bar at which he was playing music and started a successful gay night there. His anger at the price of AZT got him interested in ACT UP, and he travels from Providence for the Monday night meetings. He is involved in ACT UP/RI and ACT UP NY. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Peter Staley, Blane Mosley, Lee Arsenault, Powertools, Candelabras
Aldyn McKean
Background: Aldyn is a 40 year old gay man who grew up in Lewiston, Idaho. He went to Harvard, where he joined the Students for a Democratic Society. Then he served a tour of duty in Vietnam. He had gay relations in his youth, but started coming out as gay in Vietnam. He went to NYU/Tisch, graduated in 1975, and became a singer and actor, performing on Broadway and on tour in The Robber Bridegroom. Two close friends died of AIDS recently, which motivated Aldyn to join ACT UP. He is HIV positive.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Anne-christine d'Adesky
Thomas McKean
Thomas is a native New Yorker who lives in Manhattan. He is recording the minutes at tonight’s meeting.
Tom McKitterick
Tom is a photographer whose photographs of ACT UP actions have run in Newsday and other publications.
Jonathon McVey
Jonathon is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Victor Mendolia
Mark Milano
Background: Mark is a 33 year old white gay man who grew up in Wisconsin. He was a very devout Catholic when he was young, more devout than his family. He was a Catholic Charismatic, meaning he prayed in tongues. He realized he was gay when he was 11 and put himself through many years of praying, psychiatrists, and aversion-shock therapy to make himself straight. At 24, he decided to try taking a year off from religion, and never went back. He went to the University of Iowa, then lived in Chicago where he had sex and relationships with men. Mark has had an autoimmune disorder, sarcoidosis, that put him in the hospital in 1982 and 1985. During that second hospital stay he learned he is HIV positive. After he left the hospital, he decided to move to New York to work in film production. He worked as a production assistant and then got into film editing. He is a member of the Healing Circle, a hands-on healing group. In 1987 he started going to Body Positive, a support group for HIV positive people, at the Community Center. There he happened into an ACT UP meeting, and was initially turned off by it. But in 1988 he realized that he wanted to get involved with treatment and clinical trial issues, and people in ACT UP were at the forefront of that.
Mark attends meetings, though he tends not to speak at them. He is much more vocal with the Treatment and Data Committee. He is currently working with some people from the Treatment and Data Committee (Michael Cowing, Iris Long) to put together a registry of AIDS clinical trials.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Treatment and Data Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/077-mark-milano
Michael Milano
No information
Andrew Miller
Background: Andrew is a 24 year old white Jewish gay man who grew up in Nassau County, Long Island. He grew up very involved in his synagogue and studied viola at the Manhattan School of Music. He did not continue with the viola and instead went to Columbia University (starting at age 16). He came out while there, got involved in the gay organization on campus, and first started hearing about AIDS. He volunteered at the Gay Switchboard in the Village around 1984. He was living at 85th Street between West End and Riverside and working as a typesetter when he heard about ACT UP at the March on Washington, and went to the next meeting in late 1987.
Role in ACT UP: Andrew goes to most meetings and actions. He has done Support at actions. He is a former chair of the Actions Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Actions Committee; Duncan Osborne, Steve Quester (who Andrew knew from Columbia and brought to ACT UP), Deb Levine
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/056-andrew-miller
Daryl Miner
Daryl lives in New Jersey and works in Manhattan.
Stacey Mink
Stacey lives in New Jersey and works in Manhattan at the New York Landmarks Conservancy. She is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Additional information: Photo of Stacey
Donna Minkowitz
Donna is 25. She grew up in New York City and graduated from Hunter College High School in 1981. Donna covers gay and lesbian politics and culture for the Village Voice. She is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Darryl Morrison
Darryl is a gay man who lives in Manhattan and works at the Image Bank.
Bill Monaghan
Bill is 38, grew up and now lives in New York, and went to the University of Pennsylvania. He has been involved with ACT UP since 1987 and has served as an at-large member of the Coordinating Committee. Bill is on the Outreach Committee and is in the affinity group MHA/Surrender Dorothy.
Groups/friends at the meeting: MHA; Surrender Dorothy; SPREE (Timmy Vance); Steven Cordova
Additional information: Photo of Bill
Doug Montgomery
Doug is involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. His ex-boyfriend is ACT UPer Mark Aurigemma. Doug lives in Manhattan.
Skip Mooney
Skip (Fraser) lives in Manhattan and works on the Grant Writing Subcommittee of the Fundraising Committee.
Patrick Moore
Blane Mosley
Bob Musco
Bob lives in Manhattan.
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Jon Nalley
Jon is a 30 year old gay man who lives in Brooklyn. He grew up in Grand Haven, Michigan and graduated from Michigan State University in 1982 with majors in psychology and English. While there he was involved in the East Lansing gay political community. Jon writes about AIDS/AIDS activism for various publications such as Gay Community News and The Guardian, an independent radical newsweekly. Jon has been arrested for civil disobedience at previous ACT UP actions. Jon and friend/fellow ACT UPer Greg Lugliani frequent the Tunnel.
Chuck Navarro
No information
Ray Navarro
Background: Ray is a 24 year old Mexican-American Chicano gay man who grew up in Simi Valley, California, went to Otis Art Institute, then graduated from the California Institute of the Arts. Ray moved to New York in the summer of 1988 for the Whitney Museum independent study program as a video artist and immediately wanted to get involved with ACT UP. Ray is in a long-term relationship with Anthony Ledesma. Ray lives at 1138 Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn.
Role in ACT UP: Ray comes to most meetings and actions. He is in the affinity group La Cocina and is helping to start the video activist group DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists).
Groups/friends at the meeting: Affinity Group La Cocina, Majority Action Committee; DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists); Aldo Hernandez, Hunter Reynolds
Bill Neeley
Bill lives and works in Manhattan at an architecture firm. He is in the affinity group The Box Tops and is on ACT UP’s City Issues Task Force.
Michael Nesline
Background: Michael is a 37 year old white gay man who grew up in the suburbs of Washington D.C. After high school he lived in Austin then moved to New York to get involved in theater. He eventually helped to run the Limbo Lounge, a nightclub in the East Village, and drove a taxicab. When his friend Joe Hollis became sick with AIDS, Joe moved in with Michael who managed his care until he died. This motivated Michael to get involved with ACT UP, and to go to nursing school at Borough of Manhattan Community College in order to help people with AIDS. Michael lives in the East Village.
Role in ACT UP: Michael was the original head of the Fundraising Committee when ACT UP first started, was on the Coordinating Committee, and was a Monday night meeting facilitator. Now he is most involved with Gran Fury, which is the main activist artist collective of ACT UP members.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Michael has been in prominent roles in ACT UP since it started, so he knows a lot of people, but he is currently most involved in working with Gran Fury
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/014-michael-nesline
Steve Nesselroth
Steve lives in Manhattan. He is in the affinity group Seeing Red. He attends many ACT UP actions both in and out of New York City.
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: Photo of Steve
Ann Northrop
Background: Ann is a 41 year old white lesbian. Ann’s page on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Northrop) gives a good summary of her early life and career. Ann currently lives on the Upper West Side with her partner Lynda, raising Lynda’s two children from a previous marriage.
Role in ACT UP: Since joining ACT UP in 1988, Ann has been one of the main people involved in crafting ACT UP’s messaging. Ann is not on the Media Committee, but she works closely with them to craft media strategies and to teach ACT UP members how to talk to the media.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Media Committee, Bob Rafsky
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/027-ann-northrop
https://actuporalhistory.org/actions/target-city-hall at about the 37 minute mark of the ACT UP Pre-Action Meetings video
Aziz Nour
No information
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Paul O’Dwyer
Background: Paul is a 26 year old white gay man who grew up in Kilkenny, Ireland. He went to university in Galway (his generation was the first in his family to go to university) where he started to come out (even though he hadn’t met any other gay people) and got involved in debate. He started a Lesbian and Gay Society on campus. He then went to law school in Galway. He spent some time in London, then came to New York in 1987. He is currently in the process of taking the New York bar exam.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Legal observers
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/174-paul-odwyer
Patrick O’Leary
Patrick is a gay man from Santa Monica, California, went to Santa Monica High School and Santa Monica College. He has studied at the School of Visual Arts and lives in Manhattan.
Scott Olmstead
Scott is a graphic designer. He is on the Actions Committee.
Michael Olson
No information
John O’Leary
John is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Additional information: https://www.tllittphotography.com/image?&_bqG=9&_bqH=eJwz9fJzs8zx8NGtMjNyTvc3K3Pyz4jICfNIKU23MjQAIjAGkp7xLsHOtk75Rakp2vlp2q4pamCReEc_F9sSIDs02DUo3tPFNhSk2tnJNTw.O7gqwDhdLd7ROcS2ODWxKDkDANCJIG4-&GI_ID=
Bobby O’Malley
Background: Bobby is a 28 year old white gay man who grew up in Omaha, Nebraska with six brothers and two sisters. He is not particularly close to his family. He moved to Miami and was a waiter and manager of a disco, and came out to his family. He moved to New York four years ago . He waits tables at China Grill, works out five days a week at Chelsea Gym, summers in Provincetown, and throws a fabulous annual Halloween party. He lives in a Chelsea loft with Frank Smithson, among others, where Frank gives memorable parties. Bobby composes music, and has written two raps about how to prevent AIDS (“Fight Back Rap” and “Wrap It Up”).
Role in ACT UP: Bobby comes to most meetings and attends a lot of actions. In summer 1988 he traveled with fellow ACT UPers to the Republican National Convention to protest the Reagan/Bush inaction on AIDS.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Frank Smithson (roommate)
Additional information: https://www.tllittphotography.com/image?&_bqG=4&_bqH=eJyrCjHODUjzNvGKCq9ITg9NSY90d4yKyAwqj_e0MrUyNDAAYSDpGe8S7GzrlJ.UVKntr2pk7puYk5NaqQYWjnf0c7EtAbJDg12D4j1dbENBWpydXMPjs4OrAozT1eIdnUNsi1MTi5IzALpYIq4-&GI_ID=
Duncan Osborne
Background: Duncan is a 31 year old white gay man who grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts. He got a bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado, then moved to New York to become an actor in 1984. He stopped drugs and alcohol in 1984 and is in a twelve-step group. He had HIV positive friends and lovers. He became interested in ACT UP seeing them at the 1987 March on Washington.
Role in ACT UP: Duncan is on the Actions Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Actions Committee, Andrew Miller, Steve Quester, Ron Goldberg, Alan Klein
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/185-duncan-osborne
Ann Otto
Ann is a 22 year old woman. She is on the Treatment and Data Committee. In November 1988, Ann spoke at the University of Pennsylvania with fellow ACT UPer Joel Marks about government inaction on developing treatments for AIDS. Ann had a small part in Rockville is Burning. Ann is on the Montreal AIDS Conference Ad-Hoc Committee.
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Marvin Palmer
Marvin is a black man from Elk City, Oklahoma. He graduated from Elk City High School in 1986. He lived in San Francisco and then moved to Manhattan in 1988. He is on the Majority Action Committee.
Costa Pappas
Costa is 26 and lives in Manhattan. Costa brought George Wittman to his first ACT UP meeting in December 1987 when they were trying to get Mayor Koch to release the B-list of funds in the city budget. Costa is getting involved with newly-forming DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists).
Groups/friends at the meeting: George Wittman, Swim Team, DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists)
Kevin Paulson
Kevin has been an at-large member of the Coordinating Committee. He is in a relationship with Brian Fisher, a dancer.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Tim Powers, Jean Elizabeth Glass
Monica Pearl
Background: Monica is a 24 year old white, Jewish lesbian who grew up in suburban New Jersey. She went to two years of public high school, then two years of boarding school, then Connecticut College then transferred to Smith College in Massachusetts, where she took part in the South Africa divestment movement. She was out in college. She spent one year in New Haven, then moved to New York in 1987. Monica lives on West 13th Street.
Role in ACT UP: Monica comes to most meetings, and has been involved in editing a handbook about women and AIDS with the Women’s Caucus. She is also involved with the Media Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Women’s Caucus; Media Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/129-monica-pearl
Michael Petrelis
Role in ACT UP: Michael is a 30 year old white gay man who grew up in suburban Caldwell, New Jersey. He came out in high school and would go into Manhattan to gay nightspots like the Ninth Circle and Julius’s. After high school, he hitchhiked across the country and landed in San Francisco, supporting himself on restaurant jobs. He moved back to New York and went to a dermatologist, who diagnosed him with Karposi sarcoma and AIDS. He began to advocate for city housing for people with AIDS, and when the first such housing (Bailey House) opened in New York City, Michael received a slot. Through continued activism he got involved with the Lavender Hill Mob. Prior to his speech that would lay the groundwork for ACT UP, Larry Kramer consulted with Michael on involving the Bailey House residents. His Karposi sarcoma is currently in remission.
Role in ACT UP: Michael is very outspoken, and his abrasiveness can be off-putting, to the extent that even his friends sometimes don’t want him in their affinity groups. He feels more of a connection with the other working class members of ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Neil Broome, Gerri Wells, Larry Kramer, Lavender Hill Mob
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/020-michael-petrelis
George Plagianos
Background: George is a 38 year white gay man who grew up in Boerum Hill and Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. He went to Fort Hamilton High School. He came out to his mother around age 18 and went to Gay Youth meetings at the Firehouse. He moved to Chelsea in 1976 and got involved in some gay activism. He worked part-time cleaning up at sex clubs like the Mineshaft. He later worked as a salesperson at May’s Department Store. As friends were getting sick with AIDS, he got involved with the AIDS Resource Center. George started coming to ACT UP in January of 1988. He is working as a superintendent of a building on 10th Street.
Role in ACT UP: George comes to most actions and meetings, and is involved in the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/124-george-plagianos
Howard Pope
Background: Howie is a musician and bartender. He worked at the Saint.
Role in ACT UP: Howard is on the Swim Team.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Swim Team
Sydney Pokorny
Background: Sydney is a 23 year old white lesbian. She graduated from Vassar College in 1988 with a degree in history. Sydney is in the Women's Caucus.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Women's Caucus; Liz Tracey
Tim Powers
Rebecca Pringle
Background: Rebecca is a 27 year old white, straight woman who grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her mother was involved in feminist activism, and her father was an activist as well. Rebecca went to a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania, then the University of Michigan, and then became a dancer in the early 1980s. She met many gay people while dancing, and had close friends with AIDS. She decided to move to New York to pursue medicine. She started a premed program at Columbia and began volunteering on the AIDS ward at St. Luke’s hospital in 1986. She then started working at the Community Research Initiative.
Role in ACT UP: Rebecca works at the Community Research Initiative, an AIDS medical organization. While perhaps not technically on the ACT UP Treatment and Data Committee, she works closely with its members.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Treatment and Data Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/170-rebecca-smith
Russell Pritchard
Background: Russell is a 37 year old white gay man who grew up in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, Canada. He went to school in Calgary then moved to New York in 1979. He came out when he was 21. He majored in journalism, focusing on advertising and public relations, and works in art direction, fashion casting, prop styling, and food styling. He spent time on Fire Island in the Pines as many of his friends got sick. He got interested in ACT UP when David Robinson came to do outreach on Fire Island. Russell is HIV positive, and has tried many different treatment fads (egg lipids, Chinese herbs) but avoided AZT after seeing how toxic it was to people he knew.
Role in ACT UP: Russell came to ACT UP in late 1988 and quickly started attending most meetings and actions. He is currently on the Actions Committee. He is also in the affinity group Wave 3 and has been involved with Surrender Dorothy.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Wave 3; Actions Committee; Surrender Dorothy
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/021-russell-pritchard
Jim Provenzano
Jim is a 27 year old white gay man. His Wikipedia page gives a good summary of his background (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Provenzano). He lives in New Jersey, and joined ACT UP in 1988. He has organized several Jersey City AIDS actions. He writes for gay publications and has directed theatrical productions about AIDS. He is starting to get involved with grantwriting for ACT UP.
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Steve Quester
Gabriel Quirk
Gabriel is from Fulton, New York.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Mickey Wheatley, Garron Edmund
Additional information: https://www.tllittphotography.com/image/I0000gQZB0H30_WM
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Bob Rafsky
Lee Raines
Karen Ramspacher
Background: Karen is a 24 year old straight white woman. She spent her childhood in Havertown, outside Philadelphia, and then spent her teenage years in Rye, New York in Westchester County. She was raised in the Catholic church and went to a Catholic all-girls’ school, then went to Cornell for one year and transferred to Wellesley, a women’s college in the suburbs of Boston, graduating with a degree in art history. She enjoyed going clubbing at places like the Peppermint Lounge, CBGB’s, and Danceteria. Her parents were extremely accepting of her gay uncle Eddie’s relationship with his partner Frank. She works as a curatorial assistant at Dia Art Foundation. With many friends in the art world dying of AIDS, Karen started going to ACT UP in 1988.
Role in ACT UP: Karen comes to most meetings, and has been involved in editing a handbook about women and AIDS with the Women’s Caucus, and recently helped lead a teach-in about women and AIDS.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Robert Garcia, Women’s Caucus
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/094-karen-ramspacher
Eric Rassi
No information
Bruce Reed
No information
Amanda Reinhard
Amanda is a 25 year old woman.
James Revson
James is a 36 year old white gay man who writes a society column called “Social Studies” for Newsday. He graduated from Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio and received a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He was previously arts and weekend editor of The Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time, became managing editor of The Bridgehampton Sun on Long Island, and then started at Newsday in 1984 as an architecture and design writer. He is well known for a high profile war with rival columnist Suzy after he revealed that she was writing incorrectly about events she didn’t attend. He is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Hunter Reynolds
Background: Hunter is a 30 year old white gay man who was born in Rochester, Minnesota and grew up in southern Florida, moving often. He was severely learning-disabled, visually impaired, and non-verbal as a child. Art was how he expressed himself. He started having sex and realizing he was gay as a pre-teen. He was raped by a policeman at a young age. He was out in high school. His parents had divorced, and his father, who was a professional football player, was better about Hunter being gay than his mother was. After his stepfather kicked him out, he briefly lived with his grandmother, then briefly with his father in California, then became an independent adult at 16. He lived on the streets a bit, hustling in Hollywood. He eventually got his GED at Hollywood High School, then started fashion school but transitioned to fine art at Otis Art Institute. He met his first lover, an English lit major, dancer and theater person who helped Hunter improve his verbal quirks that still lingered from his learning disabilities. In the L.A. gay art scene he met future ACT UPer Ray Navarro. Hunter moved to New York in 1985, had a lot of random sex, lived with future ACT UPer Aldo Hernandez, who he had known from L.A., and had a friend group of L.A. artists (like Ray) who moved to New York. Hunter started working at Paula Cooper Gallery. Hunter does not know whether he is HIV positive.
Role in ACT UP: Hunter goes to most meetings and actions, and helps Richard Deagle with posters/artwork for actions. He also arranged to let ACT UP use the Paula Cooper Gallery for smaller meetings.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Ray Navarro, Aldo Hernandez, Gregg Bordowitz, Zoe Leonard, Richard Deagle
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/133-hunter-reynolds
Jody Rhone
Jody went to Austin College in Texas, graduating in 1987. He moved to New York and now makes art and works in Soho galleries, including Crown Point Press.
Terry Riley
Terry is an architect. He happened across an ACT UP demonstration in 1987 and started coming to meetings and got involved with Gran Fury. He helped design ACT UP’s installation at the New Museum.
Scott Robbe
Background: Scott is a 34 year old white gay man who grew up in a 3,000 person town in Wisconsin. He was raised Lutheran, but his family encouraged him to explore his own spiritual path. He became interested in radicalism at an early age. He came out as bisexual in college at the University of Wisconsin, and then as gay when he got to New York in 1978. He was involved in renovating the Orpheum Theater and got involved with producing the work of budding playwrights, chiefly Harvey Fierstein. He was in a relationship with a partner (Peter) from 1978 to 1984. He then got into a relationship with another partner (Jim), who was worried that AIDS activist work would negatively affect Scott’s current work producing television commercials and corporate/industrial films.
Role in ACT UP: Scott is involved with the Media Committee. He is currently working on what is un-officially called Operation Batman with Ken Woodard, which involves projections promoting Target City Hall from Scott’s Jeep onto abandoned billboards.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Ken Woodard (Operation Batman), Media Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/156-scott-robbe
Kenneth Robins
Kenneth lives at 66 Crosby Street in Manhattan.
Allan Robinson
Allan is a 36 year old gay black man whose father is Jamaican and whose mother is American. He was born in Harlem and raised in Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. This interview with Allan from 1989 gives a detailed summary of his background. Allan has been involved with Surrender Dorothy and is the Majority Action Committee's representative on the Coordinating Committee and lives at 15 Durham Place in Brooklyn.
David Robinson
Joseph Rogan
Joseph lives in Manhattan.
Rollerena
Adam Rolston
Background: Adam is a 26 year old white Jewish gay man who grew up in the Los Angeles area. He went to public school until he was 15, then went to boarding school on the East Coast. He had his first sexual experience and came out his third year in college. He majored in architecture at college (since that is what his parents would support, even though he might have preferred art school). Both of Adam’s older brothers were gay, and in 1985 he moved to New York (where his brothers were). His brother was the first person he knew with AIDS. Adam works as an architect. He came to ACT UP after seeing the Silence Equals Death poster in 1987.
Role in ACT UP: Adam goes to most meetings and actions, and is on the Actions Committee. He helps produce artwork and graphics for actions. He is in the affinity group CD 9/18.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Douglas Crimp, Actions Committee; CD 9/18
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/101-adam-rolston
Illith Rosenblum
Background: Illith is a 43 year old white, Jewish woman who was born in Palestine and grew up in Israel. After serving in the Israeli army, she went to Grenoble, France, then Geneva where she studied French and started a relationship with a Swedish man who was a communist. This got her involved in leftist politics, and when she came to New York in 1978 she worked on environmental issues. While in New York she got involved in the feminist movement and met Maxine Wolfe, who would later bring her into ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Women’s Caucus
Stephen Rosenbush
Stephen is part of a group that is currently forming called the Powertools, led by Peter Staley, to do more audacious actions with a smaller group of people than those in ACT UP’s large actions. He has also attended Majority Action Committee meetings. He lives at 210 West 16th Street in Brooklyn.
Gabriel Rotello
Background: Gabriel is a 26 year old gay man. From his Wikipedia page: Gabriel Rotello was born and raised in Danbury, Connecticut, and attended Knox College and Carlton College. He was in the first group of American exchange students to live and study in Kathmandu, Nepal. After graduating Rotello became a New York City keyboard player, arranger and music director. In 1979 he co-founded the underground band Brenda and the Realtones, whose story was recounted in the off-Broadway show Endangered Species in 1997.
In the 1980s, as music director of The Realtones he backed artists such as Ronnie Spector, Darlene Love, Solomon Burke, Rufus Thomas and many others. In the mid-1980s he produced a series of music revues at The Limelight, The Palladium and The Saint under the general name Downtown Dukes and Divas. Among his collaborators were the Uptown Horns, David Johansen, Cherry Vanilla, Johnny Thunders, the Lady Bunny, Holly Woodlawn, Joey Arias, David Peaston, Taylor Mead, Sylvain Sylvain, Jackie Curtis, Dean Johnson, Michael Musto, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato of the Fabulous Pop Tarts and many others. Rotello's life and productions during this period were frequently filmed by videographer Nelson Sullivan, and are now part of Sullivan's archive of downtown life in the 1980s.
Gabriel’s partner Hap Haddon got sick from AIDS in 1986 and died in June of 1988. Gabriel was his caregiver through difficult times, and went to a support group at Gay Men’s Health Crisis for caregivers. When he saw ACT UP in the June 1987 Pride Parade, he tried to convince the others in his support group to go to ACT UP meetings, but Gabriel was the only one to go. Gabriel stopped going to that support group after Hap died, and became more involved with ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Gabriel is currently working on the Fundraising Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Fundraising Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/180-gabriel-rotello
Marc Rubin
Marc is a 57 year old gay man. His Wikipedia page gives a good summary of his background (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rubin)
Groups/friends at the meeting: David Lopez
Vito Russo
Background: Vito is a 42 year old white gay man. His Wikipedia page gives a good summary of his background (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vito_Russo). Vito’s longtime partner Jeffrey Sevcik died from AIDS in 1986.
Role in ACT UP: Vito has been involved in ACT UP since it began in 1987, and is well known and respected as a major voice in the group. Here is a link to a great speech he gave in 1988 at an ACT UP event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Q8p0HCQEs. Vito works most closely with the Media Committee.
Marina Ruston
Marina lives at 140 Riverside Drive and works at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
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Catherine Saalfield
Background: Catherine is a 24 year old white woman who identifies as a lesbian. She grew up in Cleveland, then Connecticut and Massachusetts. She went to Concord Academy, a prep school, and then Brown University. After that, she moved to New York City to do the Whitney Independent Study Program (which a number of other ACT UP members did) and to join ACT UP. She had heard about ACT UP from her mother, Agnes Gund, a philanthropist and arts patron and who was somewhat involved in ACT UP as she knew many people affected by AIDS. Catherine lives in a big commercial loft space at 60 Warren Street, 5th Floor with fellow ACT UPer Robert Garcia among others. This loft is a frequent meeting place for small ACT UP sub-groups, particularly the newly-forming DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists).
Role in ACT UP: Catherine is helping to form DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists) (Damned Interfering Video Activists) to create in-house video documentation of ACT UP actions.
Groups/friends at the meeting: DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists); La Cocina; currently dating Jill Harris
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/071-catherine-gund
Note: Catherine was known as Catherine Saalfield in 1989, but later went by Catherine Gund.
Ira Sachs
Background: Ira is a 23 year old white, gay, Jewish man who grew up in Memphis. He started having sex with men when he was 13 and came out at 16. He was president of his synagogue youth group. He went to Yale, where he got involved in gay politics and performance. After graduating, he moved to New York in January 1988 to work in film. He will be working for the director of Longtime Companion, a movie about AIDS, when it starts shooting in May. He lives on Smith Street in Brooklyn with his best friend Mark Gevisser, who brought him to ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Mark Gevisser, Esther Kaplan
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/143-ira-sachs
Michael Savino
Michael is the personal assistant to Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine. He has been involved with ACT UP since it formed in 1987, and is one of the first people to work on fundraising for ACT UP. He has been on the Logistics Committee, now the Actions Committee. Michael lives in Manhattan.
Eric Sawyer
Background: Eric is a 35 year old white, gay man who grew up in Quinneville (near Binghamton), New York, the middle of five children. His father was a truck driver and his mother was a housewife who took in laundry and welfare children to make ends meet. As a kid, some of the neighborhood kids would bribe Eric with candy bars to get him to perform sexual favors. He was Student Council president and in National Honor Society in high school. He went to a community college, then transferred to SUNY Oneonta, and then went to graduate school in Boulder, Colorado. He started to come out at college, particularly in Colorado where he joined the gay student organization and got involved in gay politics. He moved to New York in 1980, with a plan to buy and renovate buildings and live off the rental income while he went into gay politics. He and his boyfriend Scott (a Wall Street lawyer) both tested positive for HIV in the mid-1980s, and Scott died in 1986. He is friends with Larry Kramer, who invited him to the speech he gave at the Community Center in March 1987 that sparked the formation of ACT UP. He lives in Harlem with his current boyfriend, fellow ACT UPer Frank Jump.
Role in ACT UP: Eric is on the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. He started talking about housing issues for people with AIDS with Larry Kramer even before the formation of ACT UP.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Frank Jump (current boyfriend); Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/049-eric-sawyer
Sarah Schulman
Background: Sarah is a 30 year old white, Jewish lesbian. Her Wikipedia page gives a good summary of her background (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Schulman).Sarah is involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Jim Hubbard; Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now
Additional information: Sarah interviewed Maxine Wolfe in 1989. Though it is mostly focused on Maxine, Sarah is on camera and you get a good sense of her and her history from this video: https://actuporalhistory.org/actions/women-aids (the video titled "Speak for Yourself: Sarah Schulman and Maxine Wolfe" toward the bottom).
Lee Schy
Jim Serafini
Jim is 45 and a clinical psychologist. He lives at 107 West 82nd Street in Manhattan.
David Serko
Background: David is a 28 year old white, gay man. His brother put together an extremely detailed website and documentary about David’s life:
Groups/friends at the meeting: Swim Team
Chris Sharp
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Chris-Sharp--series-of-6-photographs-/D9AE51FD6D5F6E77
Groups/friends at the meeting: Swim Team
Jamie Shapiro
Jamie is 25 and lives in Manhattan.
Alan Shaw
Alan is in the affinity group the Candelabras and is involved in the planning for the Montreal conference (Montreal AIDS Conference Ad-Hoc Committee). In November 1988, Alan attended the U.S. Health Summit on HIV on behalf of ACT UP with Bill Bahlman, Garry Kleinman, Barry Lapidus, Carey Stegall, and Henry Yeager.
June Shelley
June lives in Manhattan.
Earl Sherman
Earl has attended Majority Action Committee meetings and lives at 57 West 16th Street in Manhattan.
Ginny Shubert
Marvin Shulman
Background: Marvin is a 56 year old gay man. Marvin joined ACT UP in early 1988. Known for his campy humor, in the 1970s Marvin financed the landmark gay porn movies Boys in the Sand and Bijou. Marvin is a Broadway producer and business manager/agent for showbiz people like Tommy Tune and, before he died, Michael Bennett.
Role in ACT UP: Marvin hosts Wave 3 meetings at his apartment on the Upper East Side, and hosted a Wave 3 retreat in the summer of 1988 at the Fire Island home of Tommy Tune, one of his clients. Marvin is also on the Fundraising Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Wave 3; Fundraising Committee
Carl Sigmon
Background: Carl is 63 and lives in Plainfield, New Jersey. He was born in Granite Falls, North Carolina and lived in New York City for many years until 1986. He is a trained classical pianist and retired from the music business in 1986. He is now active in ACT UP New Jersey and ACT UP New York. His companion of 24 years, Basilio Rivera, died of AIDS in 1986.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Jim Eigo, Richard Deagle, Wave 3
Michelangelo Signorile
Mark Sikorowski
Mark is 37 and lives and works in Manhattan as the managing director of a design firm. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Mark Silber
No information
Jason Simon
Background: Jason is a 28 year old white man. His Early Life and Early career and education are summarized on his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Simon_(artist)
He met ACT UPer Gregg Bordowitz through the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, and has recently started getting involved with DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists).
Groups/friends at the meeting: DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/157-jason-simon
Mark Simpson
Background: Mark is a gay white man who grew up in Texas in a Southern Baptist family. His parents' relationship was unstable. His mother had mental health issues. His father was a minister, and the family moved often along the Gulf Coast before settling in Dallas when Mark was a teenager. Mark is estranged from his parents and some of his siblings. Mark dropped out of architecture school at the University of Texas but stayed in Austin for 5 years. Mark came to New York in the mid-1970s and worked at Spring Street Natural in SoHo. Mark is a painter, and has shown his artwork at Civilian Warfare, a gallery in the East Village. He works construction jobs to pay the bills. Mark considers himself to be an alcoholic. Mark has not tested, but assumes he is HIV positive. Mark was best friends with Joe Hollis, the partner of fellow Gran Fury member Michael Nesline. He is also friends (going back to when they all lived in Austin) with Michael. Their relationship has grown stronger since Joe's death in 1985, and as they've worked together in ACT UP and Gran Fury, which they helped establish. Mark has put both his artistic and construction skills to use for ACT UP and Gran Fury. Mark lives in desolate Bushwick with Tom Kalin.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Gran Fury, especially Michael Nesline and Tom Kalin
Rolf Sjogren
Background: Rolf is 27. He was born in a small college town in Oregon. He studied 20th century history and studio art (photography and printmaking) at Oberlin College and now works in photo editing in New York and lives in Manhattan.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Bored of Ed
Barry Slinker
Barry lives at 317 East 90th Street in Manhattan.
Scott Slutsky
Scott is a 34 year old white Jewish man who grew up in the Chicago area. He is a rock musician who is working on a novel.
Shawn Slutsky
Shawn is a 38 year old man who lives at 331 East 71st Street in Manhattan. He is on the Actions Committee.
Adam Smith
Background: Adam is an art assistant at GQ. He does some graphic art work for ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Adam is on the Swim Team.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Swim Team
Emily Smith
Emily has attended Majority Action Committee meetings and lives at 652 East 4th Street in Brooklyn.
Tim Smith
Tim is a 30 year old white gay HIV positive man who grew up in Midland, Michigan. He studied German at Indiana University (Bloomington) and political management (with a corp. public affairs concentration) at George Washington University. He lives and works in Manhattan. He has worked at The Manhattan Group, a Wall Street consulting firm, and now works in art gallery administration. Tim has been involved with Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Tim has accounting expertise, and has done bookkeeping/accounting work for ACT UP. Tim also maintains ACT UP contact sheets.
Frank Smithson
Role in ACT UP: Frank dissolved his trucking business to volunteer for ACT UP full time. Frank frequently mans the merchandise table at events, selling ACT UP t-shirts and other merchandise. He was one of the members on the “Freedom Ride” through the south in 1988 with Gerri Wells, Neil Broome, and Heidi Dorrow. He also gives memorable parties in his Chelsea loft.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Fundraising Committee; Bobby O’Malley (roommate), Peter Staley, Gerri Wells, Neil Broome, Heidi Dorrow
Additional information: https://www.tllittphotography.com/image?&_bqG=0&_bqH=eJwzCzKODHV29y4OMDXPLLbIiPcsLvT1NC0zLcq3MrQyNDAAYSDpGe8S7GxbnJtZklGcn6cG5sY7.rnYlgDZocGuQfGeLrahIKXOTq7h8dnBVQHG6Wrxjs4htsWpiUXJGQCOmCAk&GI_ID=
Ricki Smythe
No information
Rand Snyder
Rand is a white man. Rand has previously been arrested at ACT UP demonstrations for civil disobedience.
Karl Soehnlein
Rod Sorge
Background: Rod is 20 years old and lives in Manhattan. He was born in Texas and grew up in Chicago. He dropped out of Vassar College to move to New York to join ACT UP. Rod teaches AIDS education in a literacy program for young adults.
Role in ACT UP: Rod is involved in creating the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now, Lei Chou
Mike Spiegel
Herb Spiers
Background: Herb is a 43 year old gay white man who grew up in Columbus, Ohio. He received an M.A. in philosophy from Ohio State University, taught political science at Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, then moved to Toronto to get a Ph.D in philosophy at the University of Toronto. He helped found Toronto Gay Action, a gay liberation group, in the early 1970s, and wrote for The Body Politic, a gay liberation periodical that he helped establish. He moved to New York in the early 1980s, and eventually started working at S.I. International (a talent agency) representing artists who paint book covers. His partner in New York, Ray Gray, died of AIDS in 1984. Herb volunteered at Gay Men’s Health Crisis as a buddy.
Role in ACT UP: Herb is the former chair of the Issues committee. As Issues became more focused on highly-scientific treatment and data, Herb became less involved. He is currently working on developing a document outlining issues for the International Conference on AIDS in Montreal in June. He is in the affinity group the Candelabras.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Montreal AIDS Conference Ad-Hoc Committee; Treatment and Data Committee; Candelabras
Stephen Spinella
Background: Stephen is a 32 year old white gay man who grew up in Glendale, Arizona. He graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in drama, then got an acting MFA from NYU in 1982. He worked on David Rothenberg’s campaign for City Council in 1984, then joined a gay study group at Columbia with someone he knew from the campaign. He met David Winters, who worked at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, through that group, and started working on a project researching alternative medicines. After seeing ACT UP at the 1987 Pride Parade, Stephen came to ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: Stephen started working on the Issues Committee. Stephen also worked with Mark Harrington and Jim Eigo on creating a handbook about the FDA for the FDA action in the fall of 1988. Stephen is currently on the Actions Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Mark Harrington, Jim Eigo, Actions Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/139-stephen-spinella
Ellen Spiro
Background: Ellen was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She pursued fine art photography in college and worked as a photojournalist. She has recently started creating video art, and is starting DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists).
SPREE (Timmy Vance)
Note: SPREE prefers to go by the chosen name SPREE, but many in ACT UP refer to SPREE as Timmy.
Background: SPREE is 31 years old and grew up in Houston until the age of 10. SPREE then moved southern Georgia, where SPREE was bullied in school though found a place doing theater. SPREE finished high school early, went to the University of Georgia, and studied journalism and film. SPREE then moved to Los Angeles to go to acting school at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and a community college. SPREE then had small roles in films, including Stephen Spielberg's 1942. SPREE started going to rap groups at the Gay Community Services Center in Los Angeles. In 1983, SPREE went to a Radical Faerie gathering, and being a Radical Faerie moved to the center of SPREE's life. SPREE's family rejected SPREE upon coming out. SPREE followed a boyfriend to New York, and though that relationship ended quickly SPREE stayed in New York and started temping, eventually working as a telephone operator at NBC. As SPREE saw friend's being affected by AIDS, SPREE started volunteering and then got involved in AIDS activism. SPREE met ACT UPers at the Second March on Washington and then started coming to ACT UP. Through ACT UPer Rebecca Cole, SPREE started working at the National AIDS Hotline. SPREE is a vegetarian. As far as SPREE knows, SPREE is HIV negative. SPREE comes to most actions in (non-passing) drag, but comes to most ACT UP meetings in men's clothing.
Role in ACT UP: SPREE was involved in MHA which became Surrender Dorothy
Groups/friends at the meeting: MHA; Surrender Dorothy; Bill Monahan; Steven Cordova
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/060-spree
Peter Staley
Mary Anne Staniszeski
Tom Starace
Tom is on the Actions Committee. He went to high school in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. He lives at 2 Stuyvesant Oval, Apt. 3D in Manhattan. Tom does graphics design (including for ACT UP), and has been a staff member of the Stonewall Repertory Theater, a theater company devoted to the work of gay and lesbian playwrights.
Cary Stegall
Charles Stimson
Background: Charles is a 29 year old white gay man. He lived until he was 9 in Rockville Centre, Long Island, then moved to Northern Virginia for 5 years (where he went to the Watergate hearings), and then Lawrenceville, New Jersey. He studied political science and history at NYU, where he came out as gay. He dropped out and moved to France, then London, then back to New York where he bought a place so his lover Joey could open a hair salon, where he helped out. When he got the HIV test once it became available in 1986 or 1987, he tested positive, and that made him want to go to ACT UP.
Role in ACT UP: His affinity group Metropolitan Health Association (MHA) formed as a pretend health organization to meet with city health commissioner Stephen Joseph.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Affinity group Metropolitan Health Association (MHA) (Adam Hassuck; Mike Frisch; Gregg Bordowitz; Neil Broome; Ira Manhoff; John Bohne, Steve Cordova; Rich Jackman; and SPREE, Timmy Vance)
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/160-charles-stimson
Interview with Charles Stimson at Target City Hall at 10:47 minute mark in Phil Zwickler video here: https://actuporalhistory.org/actions/target-city-hall
Gary Strum
Gary is a white man who lives in New Jersey. He is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
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Paul Teeling
Paul is a 25 year old white gay man who lives in Brooklyn.
Polly Thistlethwaite
Background: Polly is a 28 year old white lesbian who grew up in Decatur, Illinois. She went to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, then got a master’s degree at library school at U of I’s Melvil Dewey School. She dated a woman her freshman year of college, then dated another women who was on the Chicago Women’s Rugby team, which exposed Polly to the Chicago lesbian scene. She took a library job at Yale University around 1984, then NYU in 1986. She started volunteering at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, where she met Maxine Wolfe, who would eventually encourage Polly to join ACT UP, which she started doing around October of 1988. She was in charge of the American Library Association Feminist Task Force and the Gay Book Award. She also in a country cover band at WOW Café, a collectively run performance space for women in the East Village. Polly lives in Manhattan.
Polly is in the Women’s Caucus. Polly doesn’t come to all meetings and actions, but has been active at ACT UP recently with the Women and AIDS teach-in last week. Polly is in the affinity group Bored of Ed for Target City Hall.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Women’s Caucus, Bored of Ed
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/154-polly-thistlethwaite
Kendall Thomas
Background: Kendall is a 32 year old black gay man. He was raised in a very fundamentalist Christian family. Kendall received a B.F.A. from Yale in 1978 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1983. He lived in Sacramento for a time after law school, then moved to New York. Kendall is an associate professor at the Columbia University School of Law.
Role in ACT UP: Kendall has done some legal work for ACT UP, and he is involved in the Majority Action Committee.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Majority Action Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/024-kendall-thomas
Conyers Thompson
Conyers lives at 8 East 48th Street. Conyers was one of the organizers of an action in 1988 to disrupt an event with vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle at the Statue of Liberty to protest the Republican administration’s neglect of AIDS. Conyers is in the affinity group the Candelabras. He is also involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. He is also on the City Hall Issues Committee.
Liz Tracey
Sharon Tramutola
Background: Sharon is a 26 year old white woman who has identified as bisexual. She grew up in the Ironbound section of Newark, New Jersey in a working class family. She went to one year of Essex County College, dropped out, and has worked in day care since then. A friend of hers who had AIDS came to live with Sharon, and her experience trying to get him services made her want to get involved with ACT UP. Sharon came to ACT UP with her girlfriend Lynn in late 1988, but Lynn did not stay with ACT UP. Sharon lives in Jersey City.
Role in ACT UP: Sharon is in the affinity group the Candelabras. Sharon was the support person for the Candelabras at the FDA action in late 1988 (tracked people who got arrested, found out where they were being taken, coordinated with their family/emergency person, made sure they got medicines they needed).
Groups/friends at the meeting: Candelabras; Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/092-sharon-tramutola
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Christine Vachon
Background: Christine is a 26 year old white lesbian who grew up in Manhattan. She went to LaGuardia High School and then went to Brown University, where she met friend and collaborator Todd Haynes. She moved to New York and, together with Todd, Christine created a non-profit film production company called Apparatus Productions in 1987, and through that produced Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story which Todd directed. They are now working on a new film, Poison, with friends and fellow ACT UPers Jim Lyons and Brian Greenbaum. Christine has worked as a proofreader to make ends meet.
Role in ACT UP: Christine comes to some meetings and actions. Christine and Todd also let Gran Fury use Apparatus’ office for meeting/working space.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Jim Lyons, Todd Haynes, Brian Greenbaum
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/177-christine-vachon
Michelle Van Voorhies
Michelle lives at 27 7th Avenue South, Apartment 5B in Manhattan.
Robert Vazquez
Background: Robert is a 33 year old gay Puerto Rican man who grew up in the South Bronx. He went to Catholic school and then SUNY Oswego (which he left in his second year when he was wrongfully accused of stealing). He moved to Miami for a few years with an ex-boyfriend, then moved back in with his mother in the Bronx in 1976. He ended up working for Chase Manhattan Bank and working at the Gay Switchboard. Throughout all this time Robert’s main interest was art. His boyfriend Jeff, who Robert had moved in with, was diagnosed with AIDS in 1981 and died in 1986. Robert later ran a gay discussion group, Gay Circles, that met at the Community Center. Robert came to ACT UP with his friend David E. Kirschenbaum, who eventually became ACT UP’s treasurer. Robert initially took over writing on the chalkboard at the front of the room at ACT UP meetings, since he had experience with architectural lettering because he worked as a lighting designer.
Role in ACT UP: Robert recently left the Coordinating Committee as At-Large Representative. He has been involved in the Majority Action Committee, and oftentimes is a marshal at actions.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Marshals, Majority Action Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/002-robert-vazquez-pacheco
https://www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_391841
Andrew Velez
Ronnie Viggiani
Ronnie is 24. He works in the library at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
John Voelcker
Background: John is a 29 year old white gay man who grew up in Rochester, New York. He went to a liberal private high school in Rochester (though his parents, and father especially, were right-wing Republicans). He studied engineering as a college student in California, then moved to New York in 1981 where he started working for a consulting firm. He was not sexually active until a few years after he moved to New York. He had heard about ACT UP going back to coverage of the 1987 Pride Parade, and started coming to ACT UP meetings in spring 1988 after being inspired to take action after seeing the AIDS Quilt at an event. He lives on the Upper East Side.
Role in ACT UP: John comes to most meetings and actions. He is on the Media Committee. He helped develop a guide for the media about language to use when talking about AIDS issues.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Media Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/130-john-voelcker
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Oliver Wadsworth
Oliver lives in Manhattan and is on ACT UP’s Gay and Lesbian Teach-In Committee.
John Wagenhauser
John is 32. His partner is Tim Luddy. John is HIV positive.
Friend: Vito Russo
James Wagner
Background: James is a 48 year old white gay man who grew up outside of Detroit. He went to a Jesuit college, and then graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin, Europe, and then at Brown in Providence, Rhode Island. He dropped out of graduate school and started working at an insurance company in Providence. He lived in Newport and Providence with a man (he had his first sexual experience when he was 24). When he moved to New York in 1985, he was somewhat involved in caring for a friend of a friend who had AIDS. He saw the news of ACT UP’s first action in March of 1987, and a year later joined a march and started coming to meetings. James works for an insurance company, and is not out at work. He enjoys opera. James does not know his HIV status.
James comes to meetings and actions, but does not have a friend or affinity group.
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/046-james-wagner
Michael Wagner
Michael lives in Manhattan.
Scott Wald
Background: Scott is a 30 year old white, gay Jewish man who grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. He went to college then moved into the city of Chicago, where he worked for Marriott and had his first serious boyfriend. He had two gay older first cousins who showed him the gay ropes; they both died of AIDS before Scott joined ACT UP, as did Scott’s first roommate in New York. Scott moved to New York in 1985 and lives in the East Village. Scott came to ACT UP toward the end of 1987/beginning of 1988. Scott has never been tested for HIV, but assumes he is positive.
Role in ACT UP: Scott goes to most meetings, zaps, and actions.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Wave 3
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/132-scott-wald
Judith Walker
Judith helped assemble ACT UP’s Women’s Caucus’s Women and AIDS Handbook, which was completed this month. For the recent Women & AIDS Teach In, she helped present a section on the History of Women & Medicine with Brigitte Weil and John Nalley. She has also attended Majority Action Committee meetings. She lives in Manhattan.
Barry Walters
Barry is a gay man and a journalist for the Village Voice among other outlets. One of his closest friends is Bill Sherwood, the director of Parting Glances. He lives at 240 East 4th Street in Manhattan.
Doug Warn
Doug works at the Bowery Resident Committee, which focuses on Housing issues. He is on the ACT UP Actions Committee and the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now.
Eric Washington
No information
Bill Weathersby
Bill lives in Manhattan.
Wendy Weiss
Wendy is on ACT UP’s Gay and Lesbian Teach-In Committee.
Gerri Wells
Background: Gerri is a 34 year old white, Catholic lesbian who grew up in Inwood. Her father was a policeman and her mother was a medical secretary. Gerri went to the police academy and and worked with the police department for a few year with the child abuse unit in Harlem. She is now a contractor. Gerri came to ACT UP after seeing the terrible treatment her gay brother Easton received at Cabrini Hospital as he was dying of AIDS. A friend put her in touch with Larry Kramer, who encouraged her to come to the new group he was trying to get off the ground.
Role in ACT UP: Gerri is one of the civil disobedience trainers, and often takes the role of talking to the police at actions, using her experience of having worked for the police department. Gerri attends almost all meetings and actions, and has been arrested many times.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Neil Broome, Frank Smithson, Women’s Caucus; Civil disobedience trainers
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/075-gerri-wells
Joe Westmoreland
Joe is 32 and a writer. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 1986. Joe is an office volunteer at Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
Charles Welz
Charles is involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. He lives in Manhattan.
Heidi Beth Wert
Heidi is involved with the Caucus to House Homeless PWA’s Now. She lives in Manhattan.
Mickey Wheatley
Background: Mickey is an attorney from Placentia, California. He formerly practiced in Los Angeles. He is now coordinating Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund’s AIDS-related litigation. Mickey lives in Manhattan. Mickey is in the affinity group Bored of Ed.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Garron Edmund, Gabriel Quirk, ACT UP lawyers (David Barr, Mickey Wheatley, Joan Gibbs, Jill Harris, Mike Spiegel, Bill Dobbs)
Tim Whitcomb
Tim is a white man who is in the affinity group The Box Tops.
Michael Wiggins
Michael is a 22 year old gay black man who was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He attended George Washington University. He works at a community-based organization that conducts studies of promising therapies and treatments for AIDS/HIV. He joined ACT UP in 1988 and is on the Outreach Committee and is involved with the Majority Action Committee. He lives in Manhattan.
Ken Wiley
Ken is an at-large member of the Coordinating Committee. He received a B.A. in Communications and Literature at Brown University (where he was the President of the Brown University Gay Liberation Front), then studied Nutrition and Health Sciences at Northeastern. He worked for two years as a counselor of treatment addiction services in Deerfield Beach, Florida and worked as a chef in Boston and New York. Ken lives in Manhattan at 239 East 14th Street.
Tina Wilkinson
Tina lives at 359 7th Avenue, Brooklyn.
Dan Williams
Background: Dan is a 32 year old black gay man who grew up in Buford, South Carolina (home to Parris Island, a Marine Corps training base). He grew up in a religious Southern Baptist family, but questioned it as a child. He started experimenting with sex (with boys and girls) around age 12. At 17 he took a Greyhound bus to Charleston to go to a gay bar 65 miles away. He went to all-boys, almost-all-white Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, but hated its elitism. He left after a year, took a job in New Orleans, switched to the University of New Orleans, dropped out of there but stayed in New Orleans with his first real boyfriend. After that three-year relationship turned violent, he joined the Navy in 1979. He was in Italy on a ship that he estimates had about 300 gay guys, and the National Investigative Service started an investigation over their alleged presence. Dan was accused of ratting people out and got beaten up, so he went AWOL, called his congresswoman for help, and turned himself in to the US Embassy. He stayed in Italy while he was court-marshaled and honorably discharged. He lived in Rome for the next five years with a boyfriend, and got into graphic design and socialist/Communist politics. After he broke up with that boyfriend (who later died of AIDS), he came to New York to go to Parsons and started coming to ACT UP in 1987. Dan lives in Manhattan.
Role in ACT UP: Dan goes to most meetings and actions and is on the Majority Action Committee. Dan was heavily influenced at ACT UP by Ortez Alderson, one of the leaders of the Majority Action Committee who is leaving ACT UP this month to move to Chicago.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Majority Action Committee
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/053-dan-keith-williams
Kathy Williams
Kathy is in the affinity group La Cocina.
John Williams
No information
Joseph Williams
No information
George Wittman
George is an illustrator. He occasionally has written for the New York Native. Costa Pappas brought George to his first ACT UP meeting in December 1987 when they were trying to get Mayor Koch to release the B-list of funds in the city budget. In summer 1988 he traveled with fellow ACT UPers to the Republican National Convention to protest the Reagan/Bush inaction on AIDS. His nickname is Buck.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Swim Team
Daniel Wolfe
Background: Daniel is a 28 year old white gay man. He grew up in a Rancho Linda Vista, a hippie commune in Oracle, Arizona. For his high school years, he lived with his mother in the Hamptons on Long Island. There he met Dale, who would become a close friend and with whom he would start to explore gay life. He majored in Middle East studies at Princeton, learned Arabic, and moved to Egypt. He ended up as a ghostwriter for Anwar Sadat’s widow and then for Benazir Bhutto, who was then prime minister of Pakistan. He moved back to New York and worked as assistant and speechwriter for Richard Murphy, the assistant secretary of state for the Near East. He is currently working at the Council on Foreign Relations. After Dale got sick and died of AIDS between 1985 and 1987 (during which time Daniel was trying to identify treatments), Daniel was in a Monday night drawing class organized by Steve Barker with fellow students Loring McAlpin and Mark Harrington.When he noticed people were no longer coming, he asked them why and they told him about ACT UP. So Daniel started coming to ACT UP in the fall of 1988.
Role in ACT UP: Daniel worked with the Media Committee for the FDA demonstration in October 1988. He is helping to form an affinity group for Target City Hall.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Media Committee, Loring McAlpin, Gregg Bordowitz, Douglas Crimp
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/111-daniel-wolfe
Maxine Wolfe
Background: Maxine is a 47 year old white Jewish lesbian who grew up in Brooklyn. She went to New Utrecht High School, then to Brooklyn College as the first person in her family to go to college. She eventually earned a Ph.D in psychology. She got married at 19, had two children, but eventually left the marriage. After some relationships with men, she came out as a lesbian in the mid-1970s. Starting when she was in college, Maxine was involved over the next few decades with various feminist, reproductive rights, and gay/lesbian rights groups (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Wolfe) . After seeing ACT UP at Gay Pride in the summer of 1987, Maxine started coming to meetings.
Role in ACT UP: Partially due to her history with activism, which most people in ACT UP did not have, Maxine is one of the most prominent members of ACT UP. She is most involved with the Women’s Caucus. She is also in the affinity group the Delta Queens.
Groups/friends at the meeting: Women’s Caucus; Delta Queens
Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/043-maxine-wolfe
https://actuporalhistory.org/actions/women-aids (An interview of Maxine from 1989 is in the video titled "Speak for Yourself: Sarah Schulman and Maxine Wolfe" toward the bottom).
Jeff Wolson
Jeff is 25 and an artist.
Affinity group: Dada
Friends: Richard Jackman
Ken Woodard
Suzanne Wright
Suzanne is 20 and is from New London, Connecticut. She is currently attending Cooper Union, studying sculpture and film.
Y
Henry Yeager
Henry is one of the founders of the Lavender Hill Mob. He has been involved with ACT UP since it started in 1987, and has been on the Actions Committee, the Issues Committee, and the Coordinating Committee. He is helping to plan ACT UP’s action at the Montreal Conference (Montreal AIDS Conference Ad-Hoc Committee).
Groups/friends at the meeting: Lavender Hill Mob; Montreal AIDS Conference Ad-Hoc Committee; Actions Committee.
Additional information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOoRthLrVg4 (1:10 minute mark)
Z
Brian Zabcik