BONUS: ACT UP: A History Of AIDS/HIV Activism

Forty years ago this month, the CDC reported on patients with HIV/AIDS in the United States for the very first time. In the years since, LGBTQIA+ Americans have been fighting for treatment and recognition of a disease that was was understudied, under-reported, and deeply stigmatized. On this bonus episode of Up First, Sam Sanders, host of It's Been a Minute, talks to Sarah Schulman. Schulman is the codirector of the ACT UP Oral History Project, and the author of Let The Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993.

Schulman draws from nearly 200 interviews with ACT UP members to document the movement's history and explore how the group's activism transformed the way the media, the government, corporations and medical professionals talked about AIDS and provided treatment. She and Sam discuss this transformation and its relevance to social movements today.