Steve Quester

Background: Steve is a 25 year old white, gay, Jewish man who grew up in New Jersey (and in Houston for a couple of years). He came out in his freshman year at Columbia, and got involved in the gay organizations there. He spent two years in Israel, and when he returned to New York in 1987 his friend from Columbia Andrew Miller (who was chair of the Actions Committee at the time) brought Steve to ACT UP.  Steve is a first grade teacher at P.S. 144 in Forest Hills, Queens.

Role in ACT UP: Steve has been on the Actions Committee, and has recently been doing a lot of actions and zaps with Surrender Dorothy focused on New York City Health Commissioner Stephen Joseph. He is also close to people in the Delta Queens, with whom he traveled to the presidential conventions in 1988.

Groups/friends at the meeting: Andrew Miller, Duncan Osborne; Surrender Dorothy, Delta Queens

Specific tasks at the March 13, 1989 meeting: Steve is on the agenda to ask the Floor to endorse a phone zap on Wednesday from 2pm to 4pm of the Department of Health having to do with safe sex subway posters. The Department of Health will be receiving a grant from the Center for Disease Control to create the posters, and the zap will demand that the posters include information that is specific and clear about how people can protect themselves, and that they target the communities that are most at risk (gays, IV drug users, minorities). Steve will ask anyone who is interested to come meet him at the side of the room right now to develop talking points for the phone zap.

Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/040-steve-quester

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