In four decades, AIDS has gone from a likely death sentence to a manageable condition that needn't affect most patients' life spans, health or pursuit of happiness.
None of this progress could have happened without education and action, largely on the part of the LGBTQ community which stood tall as others lagged.
In honor of World AIDS Day December 1, we're remembering these eight moments when AIDS broke through to a new level of cultural awareness.
In four decades, AIDS has gone from a likely death sentence to a manageable condition that needn’t affect most patients’ life spans, health or pursuit of happiness.
None of this progress could have happened without education and action, largely on the part of the LGBTQ community which stood tall as others lagged.
In honor of World AIDS Day December 1, we’re remembering these eight moments when AIDS broke through to a new level of cultural awareness.[/tps_header]
1. World AIDS Day
In 1988, the World Health Organization launched World AIDS Day to raise awareness and mourn those lost to the disease. Celebrated each year December 1, it encompasses events all around the world. (The red ribbon came three years later in 1991 and still stands as the universal symbol of AIDS awareness.) Use this interactive map to find an event near you, and don’t be afraid to hit that big red Donate button.
In 1985, a previously closeted Hudson became the first celebrity to publicly announce he had AIDS. When he died that year, his dear friend and former co-star Elizabeth Taylor founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), becoming its chairperson and chief spokesperson until her death in 2011. Today, AmfAR is at the forefront of scientific research and dead set not just on zero new infections but on a cure. There are a dozen ways to help, from a bucket-list private concert with Sam Smith to an online store of merchandise that puts you on the right side of history.
Investigative reporter Randy Shilts lit a fire under politicians and health organizations with his 1987 best-seller And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, later turned into a movie starring Ian McKellen and Matthew Modine. Watch it on iTunes, Amazon Prime, or Vudu — unless, of course, you’re someone who always believes the book is better than the movie.
The brainchild of AIDS activist Cleve Jones back in 1985, the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt now contains 48,000 memorial panels commemorating more than 94,000 victims and is the largest piece of community folk art on the planet. Currently housed in Atlanta, the quilt itself will move back to initial home of San Francisco in 2020, while its 200,000+ archival items — photos, tributes, biographical records, and more — will be permanently housed and The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress for posterity.
When the NBA’s star player announced he was HIV-positive, public perception of the disease shifted somewhat. Johnson, now 60, has been a prevention advocate ever since.
Whether you call it the Concert for Life or The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness, this seminal 1992 benefit concert, broadcast around the world, brought the stars out in full force to Wembley Stadium. Everyone from Metallica to Guns ‘N Roses showed up. Personally, we’re torn on the concert’s high point: Was it David Bowie and Annie Lennox performing Queen’s “Under Pressure,” or George Michael‘s rendition of “Somebody to Love”? Get your hands on the DVD and decide for yourself.[/caption]
Photo credit: Uark Theatre (Wikimedia Commons)
Full of rabbis, drag queens, angels, and ghosts, Tony Kushner’s seminal play, Angels in America, swept the Tonys and won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. No wonder the New York Times called it “the most thrilling American play in years.” The play later became an HBO series starring luminaries like Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, and Emma Thompson.
In 2008, the Nobel Committee awarded the prize for Physiology/Medicine to the three scientists credited with discovering the HIV virus back in 1982: Luc Antoine Montagnier, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, and Harald zur Hausen. By this time, powerful anti-retroviral drug combinations were slowing the disease’s progress and lengthening life spans to normal.
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PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
You forget Ryan White, the teenage boy who bravely fought discrimination, ignorance, and bigotry. He put a face on this devastating plague that America had not seen before. Ryan showed AIDS was not solely a horrific plague that targeted Gay men. His sad death was covered by every major news outlet…
WashDrySpin
If this is World’s AIDS day…then share something other than white American AIDS information and icons…these are the same images…these are the same people…the same wealth…the same Hollywood…UGH!!!
Showcase the invisible people especially those of color who died from the disease and continue to die in America because of a lack of medical and treatment access…show the millions in Africa that continue to brace themselves with this disease…