ACTUP Capsule History 1987
March, 1987: Outraged by the government's mismanagement
of the AIDS crisis, concerned individuals unite to form the AIDS
Coalition to Unleash Power. Our first demonstration takes place
three weeks later on March 24th on Wall
Street, the financial center of the world, to protest the
profiteering of pharmaceutical companies (especially Burroughs
Wellcome, manufacturer of AZT). Seventeen people are arrested.
Shortly after the demonstration, the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) announces it will shorten its drug approval process by two
years.
June 1, 1987: ACT
UP joins other national activist groups in civil disobedience
at the White House in Washington, DC. In a display of AIDS-phobia,
the police wear rubber gloves while arresting protesters. Another
demonstration is held at the Third International Conference on
AIDS.
June 4, 1987: When Northwest Orient Airlines refuses passage
to people with AIDS (PWAs), ACT UP erupts in protest at the airline's
New York offices. Two suits are brought against Northwest. The
policy is reversed.
June 21, 1987: ACT
UP's four-day, round-the-clock protest at New York City's Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Hospital, one of four AIDS Treatment Evaluation
Units (ATEU's) in the City, demands more clinical trials of promising
drugs other than AZT and more people with AIDS in the trials.
September 9, 1987: ACT UP protests the inadequacies of
the newly-formed Presidential Commission on AIDS when it meets
for the first time in Washington, DC. Several ACT UP members give
testimony.