Introduction by Eric Rofes

In March 1987 a radical coalition of queer activists converged on Wall Street…their target, ‘Business, Big Business, Business as Usual!!!’ It was ACT UP’s first demonstration. In November 1999 a radical coalition of environmental, labor, anarchist, queer, and human rights activists converged in Seattle—their target was similar, a system of global capitalism. Between 1987 and 1999 a new project in activism had emerged unshackled from past ghosts. Through innovative use of civil rights’ era non-violent disobedience, guerrilla theatre, and sophisticated media work, ACT UP has helped transform the world of activism.

This anthology offers a history of ACT UP for a new generation of activists and students. It is divided into five sections which address the new social movements, the use of street theater to reclaim public space, queer and sexual politics, new media/electronic civil disobedience, and race and community building. Contributions range across a diverse spectrum: The Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, Jubilee 2000, Students for an Undemocratic Society, Fed Up Queers, Gender Identity Center of Colorado, Triangle Foundation, Jacks of Color, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Lower East Side Collective, Community Labor Coalition, Church of Stop-Shopping, Indy Media Collective, Black Radical Congress, The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, Adelante Street Theater; HealthGAP, Housing Works, SexPanic! and, of course, ACT UP itself.

“Captures narratives of a new activism currently igniting our nation.” – Eric Rofes

“Shepard and Hayduk's book shows where the first 'movement' of the twenty-first century is coming from.” — Marshall Berman, author of All That Is Solid Melts into Air and Adventures in Marxism

Benjamin Shepard is program director for a housing program for people with HIV/AIDS in the South Bronx as well as an activist. His work has appeared in Monthly Review, Working USA, minnesota review, Antioch Review, as well as two collections, Teamsters, Turtles, and Others and Eyewitness to the American West. He is the author of White Nights and Ascending Shadows.

Ronald Hayduk teaches political science at the City University of New York. He is a contributor to Teamsters, Turtles, and Others as well as In Defense of the Alien, Mobilization and The State of Democracy in the States.

Publication
Cloth: Nov. 2001
Paper: July 2002

360 paqes

Paper
1 85984 356 5
£15 / US$22 / CAN$32

Cloth
1 85984 653 X
£45 / US$70 / CAN$100