LOCATION
GLBT Historical Society Museum, 4127 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114
ADMISSION
RSVP and purchase tickets here
In just six years, ACT UP New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled—and beat—The New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had abandoned them.
Join the GLBT Historical Society and Fabulosa Books in hosting Sarah Schulman for an author talk and reading from Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993. Based on more than two hundred interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for today’s activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration—and long-overdue reassessment—of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Schulman, one of the most revered queer writers and thinkers of her generation, explores the how and the why, examining, with her characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future for generations of people across the world.
Schulman will be joined by former GLBT Historical Society Board Chair and former Secretary of ACT UP San Francisco, Lito Sandoval, for an audience Q&A, followed by a book signing. Copies of Let the Record Show will be available for purchase through Fabulosa Books.
Speakers
Sarah Schulman (she/her) is the author of more than twenty works of fiction (including The Cosmopolitans, Rat Bohemia, and Maggie Terry), nonfiction (including Stagestruck, Conflict is Not Abuse, and The Gentrification of the Mind), and theater (Carson McCullers, Manic Flight Reaction, and more), and the producer and screenwriter of several feature films (The Owls, Mommy Is Coming, and United in Anger, among others). Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Slate, and many other outlets. She is Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Northwestern University, a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at College of Staten Island, a Fellow at the New York Institute of Humanities, the recipient of multiple fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was presented in 2018 with Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award. She is also the cofounder of the MIX New York LGBT Experimental Film and Video Festival, and the co-director of the groundbreaking ACT UP Oral History Project. A lifelong New Yorker, she is a longtime activist for queer rights and female empowerment, and serves on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Lito Sandoval (he/him) has served on many nonprofit boards in the Latino and LGBTQ communities, including as the former Chair of the GLBT Historical Society. He is a former President of the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club andwas a former Secretary of ACT UP San Francisco. Lito’s essay “I Love You Alto” appears in the anthology Virgins, Guerrillas y Locas: Gay Latinos Writing on Love (Cleis Press, 1999). He also founded the Queer Latinx Social Club.
Location
GLBT Historical Society Museum, 4127 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114
Admission
Admission is free for members and $10 for non-members. This event will likely sell out, so guests are encouraged to reserve their tickets early. Tickets are available here.
Join the GLBT Historical Society
Become a member of the GLBT Historical Society for free museum and program admission, discounts in the museum shop and other perks throughout the year.
Photo Credits: Photo of Sarah Schulman, credit Drew Stevens. Let the Record Show cover art, courtesy of Picador.