Let the record show A political history of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993

Review by Booklist Review

ACT UP is a grassroots political organization formed in New York City in 1987 that sought to end the AIDS pandemic and help improve the lives of those suffering with the disease. Schulman, who worked as a part of ACT UP herself, interviewed 188 people who were a part of the organization to create this extensive resource. Rather than attempting to present a chronological history of ACT UP, Schulman organizes the book into sections based on specific moments, like working with the CDC, and themes, such as the leadership within the organization, and presents the relevant interviews with ACT UP volunteers. Schulman presents ACT UP not as a heroic, sanitized institution made up of exclusively white gay men, but as what it actually was: an organization that managed to improve the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS despite its own racism and sexism. By doing this, Schulman creates a much more nuanced--and accurate--portrait of the AIDS crisis, highlighting the ways the disease impacted women and people of color.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Novelist and AIDS activist Schulman (Maggie Terry) recounts the successes and failures of the New York chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in this fine-grained history. Drawing on interviews with 188 members of ACT UP New York, Schulman showcases the diverse array of people who worked to raise awareness about AIDS, and notes their simultaneous involvement in related issues including homelessness, gender inequity in medicine, and needle exchange programs. She also explains how ACT UP New York leveraged an "inside/outside" strategy in which some members worked collaboratively with politicians and health officials while others created dramatic acts of protest, such as the 1989 infiltration of the New York Stock Exchange, when seven activists handcuffed themselves to a banister in a VIP balcony and threw fake hundred-dollar bills onto the trading room floor to pressure a pharmaceutical company to lower the $10,000-per-year price tag of the AIDS medication AZT. Readers less familiar with ACT UP may wish for a clearer explanation of its organizational structure and more narrative cohesion than Schulman provides. Still, her firsthand perspective and copious details provide a valuable testament to the courage and dedication of many unheralded activists. (May)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Few activist organizations of the late 20th century have had the impact of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. Novelist and playwright Schulman was herself intimately involved in the group, and has written a deeply personal account of its heady years. ACT UP's New York chapter is the mother chapter of 148 groups worldwide; Schulman says it was the site of incredible creativity, research, and leadership. She states that she is not a trained historian, but her skilled use of oral histories, combined with solid research into earlier social movements, provide a complete history of ACT UP, from its founding in 1987 to the present day. The writing is given a personal touch with the inclusion of profiles and oral histories of notable people, such as chemist Iris Long and HIV/AIDS researcher Mark Harrington. These portraits, together with the historical context offered throughout, prove the lasting influence of ACT UP and have a lot to teach readers about activism today. Schulman reminds us that ACT UP still exists because the HIV/AIDS crisis is not over. VERDICT This engaging, accessible book will find a wide audience among readers interested in activism from the ground up. It will also be a foundational document for historians for generations to come. A must-read.--David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The veteran author, screenwriter, and activist delivers a significant boots-on-the-ground account of the New York City chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. Though divisive, ACT UP's in-your-face activism unquestionably improved life for subsequent generations of people with AIDS. Many of the volunteers saw themselves as warriors, some fighting for their lives by forcing governmental health institutes to care about them and stop delaying treatments. Founded in 1987 by novelist and playwright Larry Kramer, the New York chapter served as the "mothership" of what eventually became 148 chapters worldwide. The organization's strategy of confrontation was inspired by Kramer's insistence on political agitation born of necessity. Days before ACT UP was formed he notoriously told a crowd, "In five years, half of you will be dead!" ACT UP's "boldest act of broad leadership" was the Stop the Church campaign, waged on Dec. 10, 1989, with WHAM! (Women's Health Action and Mobilization). In a "raw display of power," activists interrupted a Catholic service at St. Patrick's Cathedral, garnering heaps of both positive and negative media coverage. "Nothing could have been more counter to assimilationist or respectability politics than Stop the Church," writes Schulman, who was a rank-and-file ACT UP volunteer. A longtime historian of LGBTQ+ activism, the author takes to task other histories of AIDS, including David France's documentary film How To Survive a Plague (2012), which focuses on the "heroic white male." Schulman clearly demonstrates that ACT UP was founded in part to engender a relentlessly democratic and inclusive force of activism. That ideology explains the heft of this book, which isn't written as traditional history but as a mashup of events witnessed by Schulman and oral history that's truly all-encompassing. Readers are right there with activists, hearing their stories from them but also others who knew them. "Drive and commitment, invention and felicity, a focus on campaigns, and being effective are the components of movements that change the world," writes Schulman, an assertion born out in the stories told here. Vital, democratic truth-telling. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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