On the evening of Thursday, March 12, 1987, while most New Yorkers headed home from work, approximately 300 people gathered at the LGBT Community Center in the West Village to form the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, ACT UP. They were galvanized by a speech the gay activist and playwright Larry Kramer gave two days earlier, calling for the creation of a group that would bring attention to a crisis that was already costing millions of people’s lives, but that was being overlooked by every level of government.
Two weeks later, on March 24th, ACT UP held its first action on Wall Street, protesting the profiteering drug company Burroughs Wellcome, which sold the first approved AIDS treatment drug AZT for $8-$10,000 annually.
Thirty-nine years later, on Saturday, March 21, ACT UP commemorated its 39th anniversary in sunny, spring weather at the NYC AIDS Memorial Park on Greenwich Avenue. Through a day of rallying, marching, and reflecting, activists of all ages marked the progress they have made, while continuing their fight to end the AIDS epidemic.
“What ACT UP built doesn’t belong to the history books, it belongs to us right now on this street, in this fight,” Jennifer Flynn Walker, a longtime activist and chief of the fightback team at the grassroots coalition Popular Democracy, told a crowd of hundreds, who chanted, as is tradition, “ACT UP, Fight Back, Fight AIDS!”
“You know we started ACT UP to try to create a sense of urgency and let the general public know that something had to be done about the AIDS response,” said Eric Sawyer, a founding member, who recalled Kramer calling him to help organize the first action.
Eric Sawyer delivers remarks at the NYC AIDS Memorial on ACT UP’s 39th anniversary.Donna Aceto
“And we were pretty effective in creating a global AIDS response,” he said, recounting the fight to fund AIDS treatment and prevention worldwide, including the 2023 founding of PEPFAR — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — which has faced significant disruptions under the Trump administration.
“And that shows how out of sync their priorities are, how much we have to go to the streets, to do just what that chant is saying. Demand that money be paid, be spent for healthcare, not for ICE,” Sawyer said, referring to US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Members of ACT UP participate in a die-in near Palantir’s Manhattan office.Donna Aceto
Activists also took the opportunity to mourn the death of ACT UP activist Mark Milano, who passed away in January after a long battle with cancer.
“When ACT UP was at its height, Mark was there, and when the crowds thinned, when the meetings went from 100s to dozens to a handful of people in the room, Mark was still there,” said Walker. “Mark Milano had the loudest voice in the room, not just the biggest lungs, but the clearest, loudest moral vision.”
Jennifer Flynn Walker pays tribute to Mark Milano.Donna Aceto
His moral vision led him to challenge Al Gore when the former Vice President intended to obstruct access to HIV treatment in South Africa due to trade pressure. In recent years it led him to organize with Rise and Resist, a nonviolent direct action group founded in response to Donald Trump’s 2016 election, founded in-part by ACT UP members, that co-sponsored Saturday’s rally.
“To the very end, Mark wanted to be a part of the progressive movement, to fight for rights, for human rights, whether it’s AIDS, whether it’s fighting a fascist government,” Milano’s husband, Gerry Valero, shared.
Activists also highlighted battles they are fighting close to home, within New York City, including pressuring the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to extend the hours of its free Sexual Health Clinics to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. from their current 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., passing the New York Health Act, and adding the drug Naltrexone to New York’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program.
ACT UP’s Amanda Lugg.Donna Aceto
After the hour-long rally concluded, activists marched behind banners reading “Money for AIDS + Health Care” and “Not for ICE + Warfare,” as they headed to the New York City offices of the technology company Palantir, which is contracted by ICE to track immigrants using artificial intelligence systems for $30 million, and is also being used by the U.S. government in its war on Iran, at Sixth Avenue and West 18th Street.
“Palantir is a tool of the American oligarchy,” ACT UP member Ryan Foster said. “And we want Palantir out of New York!”
Ryan Foster speaks out alongside a sign denouncing Palantir.Donna Aceto
Since 2023, the company has also signed a nearly $4 million contract with NYC Health + Hospitals to help it track down payments, according to reporting by The Intercept. The City’s public hospital system’s CEO Dr. Mitchell Katz said at a hearing last week that the contract would end in October and not be renewed, adding that there is “an absolute firewall” that prevents them from sharing information with ICE.
Half-a-dozen ACT UP protestors sat in the street in front of the offices, chanting “We’re Here! We’re Queer! We Won’t Stop Fighting Palantir!” and were ultimately not arrested, despite threats from police.
Jim Eigo carries the banner during ACT UP’s March 21 demonstration.Donna Aceto
The NYC (dis)Order of Sisters.Donna Aceto
Jay W. Walker speaks at the NYC AIDS Memorial.Donna Aceto
Ivy Kwan Arce and Mark Hannay.Donna Aceto
New Alternatives’ Kate Barnhart participates in the die-in.Donna Aceto
Mattie Beaton during the die-in.Donna Aceto