Page 16 - Act Up News Today

>> ricardo gomes is also dealing with a reputation issue. he recently had a cup of urine confiscated from his cell. he says he was going to throw it at a particular officer, but an even more sinister concoction. >> i was planning on making a special remedy we used to do back in the old days called funky cold medina. its kind of like skunk juice. its made out of some really nasty parts, urine, feces, peanut butter and sour milk. and we mix it together until its liquid. if you hit anybody with thi...

Of extra servings of food. >> oh, oh, oh, thank you jesus. number six, oh, look at that. see, look out for somebody on the tip and then he looks out for you with some food. see, thats how jail works. if youre good to people, people are good to you. if you act like an [ bleep ] -- >> over the last seven to ten days were starting to see his behavior change because weve been giving him less attention. weve kind of been having just one or two people deal with him for the most part, as opposed to whe...

The next few years, but in the mid 1990s, the group splits apart due to internal disagreements. in the end, the coalition is considered groundbreaking for the attention it brings to aids. >> we got the drug companies and federal government to develop treatments that were extending lives and stopping the immediate carnage. >> by 1996, a drug cocktail is introduced that brings about dramatic improvements for many of the afflicted. >> those of us who had under 100 "t" cells and were really sick, ou...

Ed cotchs administration was not talking about aids publicly. >> actup is born in 1987, emerging from the powerlessness that many affected by the disease are feeling. >> actups original formula was also its formula. anger into action. our grief, after a while, became anger. we took that anger and frustration and we focused it. >> a key part of actups strategy is to use the media to spread its message. >> actup was very, very savvy. we had people like ann northrop who used to be diane sawyers pro...

Advocacy group, actup, are looking for new ways to get the message across. >> as we got into the 90s, the number of our friends within actup dying was just escalating and we were really getting tired of metaphors. and a lot of people were using rhetoric, when i die, throw my body over the white house fence. >> in 1992, with the presidential election looming, actups activists seized the opportunity to put aids research on the national agenda. >> actup began a year-long campaign called campaign 92...

Citys gay and lesbian community and its supporters. the demonstrators are from a defiant political action group called actup, the aids coalition to unleash power. actups co-founder, eric sawyer, was diagnosed with hiv in 1984. >> one thing we realized writing letters or articles to the editor about the health crises wasnt getting the publics attention and decided we really had to disrupt people in their daily lives the way aids was disrupting our daily lives. >> the crisis began in 1981 when a m...

News organizations. planning to disrupt their live broadcasts. they succeed at cbs. >> good evening. were going to take a break for a commercial just now. >> we knew that cameras were going to cut off as soon as they could. so we didnt know whether we were going to get one word out, two words out, or a whole sentence. so we came up with "fight aids, not arabs, act up, act back, fight aids." >> the next day, actups planned demonstrations wreak havoc on the city. the plan for the end of the day is...

Aids deaths skyrocket. by 1991, the number of people infected with hiv reaches 1 million. and theres still no effective drug treatment in sight. >> almost in step with the way the epidemic was exploding, the turnout to act up exploded. first it was a few dozen people planning, and then a thousand people or more showing up at a meeting. >> in january, 1991, around the 10-year anniversary of the epidemic, actup mounts a major coordinated protest, hoping to attract maximum media coverage. they call...

I deserve to live just as much as you do. >> actups success at not only defying authority, but creating revolutionary results, was the fact that we didnt simply get angry and shout in the streets. >> we did change the way the media talked about aids. we demanded the right to be able to live. and we fought like hell for action to happen to save our lives. coming up, a journalist puts his life in jeopardy to report from one of the most dangerous places on earth. when "caught on camera: defiance"...

And bone fragments. youre looking at bone fragments of people. people you knew. >> we are gathered here today to pay our last respects to the bush administration. >> i think the ashes action was kind of drawing a line in the sand and saying, we arent going to take it anymore. you know, we are bringing our dead to your door, and you had better start doing something to stop the dying, or, you know, you literally are going to be walking on bodies. >> shame, shame, shame, shame. >> it was the most e...