Page 44 - Act Up News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Begins the night before with a daring stunt that will be seen by millions. as the media focus on the beginning of the gulf war, actup, using fake i.d. badges, tries to sneak into a number of news organizations. planning to disrupt their live broadcasts. they succeed at cbs. >> good evening. we're 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 didn't 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 d...

Insurance. everything. city government was also absent. ed cotch's administration was not talking about aids publicly. >> actup is born in 1987, emerging from the powerlessness that many affected by the disease are feeling. >> actup's 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 actup's 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 sawyer's producer at cbs. we had bob ravsky who did pr...

These ashes are the person i love the most. this is what's left. >> actup continues to perform 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 rebo...

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 it's 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 really did it. >> day of desperation attracts attention to the cause, but the urgency of actup's mission continues to grow. coming up, as the death toll climbs...

As you do. >> actup's success at not only defying authority, but creating revolutionary results, was the fact that we didn't 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" continues. i told my dentist about my sensitive teeth, he told me there's a whole new way to treat sensitivity. he suggested i t...