Winner, "Gold" Independent Publishing Award (IPPY) for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction Winner, The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, 34th Annual Triangle Awards 2023 Lammy Finalist, Gay Memoir/Biography
A coming-of-age memoir of life on the front lines of the AIDS crisis with ACT UP New York.
From the moment Ron Goldberg stumbled into his first ACT UP meeting in June 1987, the AIDS activist organization became his life. For the next eight years, he chaired committees, planned protests, led teach-ins, and facilitated their Monday night meetings. He cruised and celebrated at ACT UP parties, attended far too many AIDS memorials, and participated in more than a hundred zaps and demonstrations, becoming the group’s unofficial “Chant Queen,” writing and leading chants for many of their major actions. Boy with the Bullhorn is both a memoir and an immersive history of the original New York chapter of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, from 1987 to 1995, told with great humor, heart, and insight.
Using the author’s own story, “the activist education of a well-intentioned, if somewhat naïve nice gay Jewish theater queen,” Boy with the Bullhorn intertwines Goldberg’s experiences with the larger chronological history of ACT UP, the grassroots AIDS activist organization that confronted politicians, scientists, drug companies, religious leaders, the media, and an often uncaring public to successfully change the course of the AIDS epidemic.
Diligently sourced and researched, Boy with the Bullhorn provides both an intimate look into how activist strategies are developed and deployed and a snapshot of life in New York City during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic. On the occasions where Goldberg writes outside his personal experience, he relies on his extensive archive of original ACT UP documents, news articles, and other published material, as well as activist videos and oral histories, to help flesh out actions, events, and the background stories of key activists. Writing with great candor, Goldberg examines the group’s triumphs and failures, as well as the pressures and bad behaviors that eventually tore ACT UP apart.
A story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, from engaging in outrageous, media-savvy demonstrations, to navigating the intricacies of drug research and the byzantine bureaucracies of the FDA, NIH, and CDC, Boy with the Bullhorn captures the passion, smarts, and evanescent spirit of ACT UP—the anger, grief, and desperation, but also the joy, camaraderie, and sexy, campy playfulness—and the exhilarating adrenaline rush of activism.
Ron Goldberg is a writer and activist. His articles have appeared in OutWeek and POZ magazines, Central Park, and The Visual AIDS Blog. He served as a research associate for filmmaker and journalist David France on his award-winning book How to Survive a Plague and enjoys speaking at high schools and colleges about the history of AIDS and the lessons and legacy of ACT UP.
Table of Contents
Preface | ix
Part I: Becoming an Activist 1 Awakening | 3 2 First Steps | 22 3 Welcome to ACT UP | 38 4 We Are Family | 52
Part II: Expanding the Agenda 5 ACT NOW and the Nine Days of Rain | 67 6 Taking Actions | 83 7 Summer Awakening | 97 8 Seize Control of the FDA | 117
Part III: Crashing Through 9 Targeting City Hall | 141 10 Storming the Ivory Tower | 163 11 Remember Stonewall Was a Riot | 179 12 Parallel Tracks | 192 13 Heading Inside | 211 14 Stop the Church | 222
Part IV: The Gorgeous Mosaic 15 The Myers Mess | 235 16 Time’s Up, Mario! | 248 17 Storm the NIH | 256 18 Inside or Out | 266 19 Can the Center Hold? | 280 20 Bombs Are Dropping | 301
Part V: Days of Desperation 21 Desperate Measures | 317 22 Splitting Differences | 333 23 Target Bush | 351 24 Strategies and Consequences | 370
Part VI: AIDS Campaign ’92 25 ACT UP / Petrelis | 383 26 The In-Your-Face Primary | 394 27 Unconventional Behavior | 402 28 Vote as If Your Life Depended on It | 417