The numbers of AIDS cases measured the shame of the nation….The United States, the one nation with the knowledge, the resources, and the institutions to respond to the epidemic, had failed. And it had failed because of ignorance and fear, prejudice and rejection. The story of the AIDS epidemic was that simple….it was a story of bigotry and what it could do to a nation. I moved from New York to San Francisco in 1990, when I was 21 years old. I vividly remember sitting […]

My boyfriend recommended that we watch And the Band Played On together. It looked like a good movie, but I knew I wanted to read the book first. Initially I was intimidated by the lengthy six hundred-some-odd pages, but I eventually bought And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts. Originally published in 1987, I read the 20th Anniversary edition. I was quite young when AIDS broke out in the United States, and the epidemic has never affected me personally. I vaguely remember […]