The ACT UP Oral History Project is a collection of interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York. Our mission is to present and preserve the stories of the men and women who made ACT UP. Their stories cross all races and classes, discuss cultural ideas such as homosexuality, sexuality, illness, health care, civil rights, art, media, and the rights of patients. Their stories reveal their motivation to action and organizing efforts to making social charge. These members have impacted a number of fields including: medical and scientific research, insurance, law, health care delivery, graphic design, and introduced new and effective methods for political organizing. The project aims to highlight the story of 250 ACT UP/NY members, each who provides an individual insight into the efforts ACT UP did. The ACT UP Oral History is a project under MIX—the New York Queer Experimental Film Festival and led by Sarah Schulman and Jim Hubbard.
The African American AIDS Activism Oral History Project captures the stories of people who have fought the spread of HIV and AIDS in African American communities, whether through protest, service provision, or policy work. Although racial disparities in U.S. AIDS epidemic have been clear since at least the middle of the 1980s, the impact of the disease on black communities has received scant attention. Similarly, the important work that African Americans (along with some white allies) have done to combat the AIDS epidemic in their communities has gone almost completely untreated in academic and popular literature on AIDS activism in the United States. The African American AIDS Activism Oral History Project aims to fill that silence by producing a set of interviews that will be available to scholars and the public at Temple University’s Urban Archives.
The Municipal Archives and the City Hall Library, housed under the New York City Department of Records, holds all New York City historical records that relate to the municipal government. The Municipal Archives store the official governmental correspondence from three of New York City’s mayors during the years of the AIDS epidemic: Mayors Edward I. Koch, David N. Dinkins, and Rudolph Giuliani and all their appointees to offices such as the Office for the Lesbian and Gay Community, Office of Immigrant Affairs, and the Office of Latino Affairs. The City Hall Library hosts official reports from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, the Office and the Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC).
