THE BEGINNINGS OF A POLITICAL AGENDA BY PEOPLE WITH AIDS: A HISTORY PROJECT We condemn attempts to label us as "victims," a term which implies defeat, and we are only occasionally "patients," a term which implies passivity, helplessness, and dependence upon the care of others. We are "People With AIDS." --Preamble to the Denver Principles, 1983
THE PROJECT
Although I've completed much of the first phase of my research, I am still gathering materials for a history project about people with HIV and AIDS, the reasons for their early efforts to organize politically, and the impact of those efforts on later activism. I'm exploring the history in San Francisco and New York that led to the writing of the Denver Principles, and how these early ideas of self-determination of people with AIDS laid the groundwork for the successes of later AIDS activist movements.
WHERE IT WILL END UP
I'm a medical student and a writer. This project will become a paper I write for school, which may also become a thesis for my MD (an optional portion of the degree at my medical school). I will do everything I can to make this paper easily available to people who are interested in it. I also expect that this longer project paper will yield several smaller and more widely-distributed essays or papers. One will likely be a shorter essay for an open-access medical journal. I may also use this research to write on this topic, again in shorter form, for essays and commentaries in the popular press. The thesis work may also become a paper for journals which look at health policy or the history of medicine. I will also seek to talk about this work to (and with) interested groups of people. It is my fondest hope that it will be useful to people living with HIV and AIDS who are interested in continuing the tradition of AIDS activism by people with AIDS.Wherever this work ends up, my hope is that the products of this research can become tools for people who are interested in the political organizing efforts of people with diagnoses, by telling the stories of some past tactics, and their successes and failures.
One early example of where this work might end up is in this commentary for All Things Considered, taken from a portion of my research.
WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
I'm currently seeking archival resources (things like letters, meeting minutes, guidelines, articles and so on) on this topic. I am also currently seeking materials on several specific topics:* The life and times of Bobbi Campbell, Michael Callen, and other people involved in the formation of the Denver Principles;
* The conference of the Lesbian and Gay Health Education Foundation at which the Denver Principles were formulated;
* The formation of early groups of People With AIDS (for instance, the People With AIDS Coalition in New York, or other similar groups elsewhere).
* And other materials related to this topic.
I am also seeking to interview a few people who were involved in important historical moments, most especially the Denver Principles.
Finally, I am also seeking information on links between the women's health movement of the 1970s and AIDS activism in the 1980s, and also on links between strategies of people with cancer and people with disabilities in the 1970s, and the strategies of people with AIDS during the 1980s and 1990s.
I welcome correspondence and advice; write to me by clicking here.
--Joe Wright, May 2006
