Recognized clinically in 1981, the HIV/AIDS epidemic killed more than 700,000 Americans by 2024. The Reagan administration’s refusal to publicly mention AIDS until 1985 catalyzed the formation of ACT UP in March 1987 at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York. ACT UP’s direct-action tactics — including the 1988 FDA shutdown and the 1989 St. Patrick’s Cathedral protest — accelerated drug approvals, broadened clinical-trial inclusion, and reshaped patient-led medical activism. Randy Shilts’s And the Band Played On (1987) remains the definitive narrative history.

Why it’s been targeted

And the Band Played On and David France’s How to Survive a Plague are flagged in PEN America’s Index in Texas, Florida, and Missouri districts. Florida HB 1557 expansion in 2023 to grades 4–12 explicitly limits classroom discussion of “sexual orientation” — language districts have invoked to remove AIDS-history materials. The 2023 College Board revision moved the Black queer / AIDS-era content of AP African American Studies to optional status after Florida’s objection.