eir lives were on the line, this changed dramatically, mobilizing staid figures like Leonard Matlovich (a purple heart soldier who was expelled from the military and has since died of AIDS), who would previously never have considered breaking the law."
ACT UP was born on March 10, 1987, in the basement of the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center (LGCSC) on 13th Street in Greenwich Village. Larry Kramer, the Angry Man of the AIDS movement, and its most vocal contributor and detractor, was asked to speak at the last minute on that first meeting. A critically acclaimed novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, Kramer was one of the first to sound an alarm about "something that is setting off the time bomb that is causing the breakdown of immunity in certain bodies."
In 1981, Kramer urged caution in the New York Native, the city's gay weekly newspaper, in 1981: "While it is true that we don't know what it is specifically, isn't it better to be cautious until various suspected causes have been discounted, rather than be reckless?" Differences of opinion were immediate. Some members of the gay community, preferring to shoot the messenger, labeled Kramer an alarmist, fearmonger, and homophobe. ACT UP was generally accepted as Kramer's organization, and thus responsive to his warnings, but the group had no official leader.
ACT UP's ground rules required the organization to function without a board of directors, paid staff, or elected leader. Control of the floor was assigned to a "facilitator" who changed regularly. Anyone could vote after attending two sessions--but since no one took attendance, it was impossible to know whether that restriction was respected. The angry rhetoric and hostile tactics used by ACT UP were, in part, influenced by Kramer's confrontational style. Even as early as 1981, in a speech given before the fledgling group, Kramer gave his grim prognosis: "At the rate we are going, you coul...