Page 19 - Act Up News Today

If something is important, it shouldnt break... jam. crack. tear. snap. fall apart. act up or only work in one corner of your house. if it matters, it should just work, right? (screaming) verizon built americas best, most reliable network for one reason. because it matters. we thought wed be ready. but demand for our cocktail bitters was huge. i could feel our deadlines racing towards us. we didnt need a loan. we needed short-term funding. fast. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that...

Tear. snap. fall apart. act up or only work in one corner of your house. if it matters, it should just work, right? (screaming) verizon built americas best, most reliable network for one reason. because it matters.

Leper. i have a virus. 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 "caug...

Acts of civil disobedience for 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 company and the federal government to develop treatments that were extending lives and stopping the immediate carnage. >> by 1996, a drug cocktail is introduced that brings -- >> those of us who had under 100 "t" cells and were really sick, our health started to...

Nearly 3,000 members of new york 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, 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 c...

>> the situation worsens with each passing year. 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, ho...

Insurance. everything. city government was also absent. 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 photo 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 peo...

>> people are having a very difficult time as they try to make their way home. reporting live from grand central terminal -- >> tony arena is a former videographer for actup. >> what i remember the most was the noise. i mean, we were so loud. >> so its hundreds and hundreds if not a thousand people inside grand central. it was an incredible thing to see. >> seeing the banners hanging over the train schedule and the banners floating on the ceiling gave me a sense of pride, you know, like, we real...

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...

>> i never saw cremated ashes before, but i was looking at the lawn. it was kind of a grayish-green, 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,...