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The organization was laser focused on eliminating red tape that clogged the pipeline of new AIDS drugs, and increasing funding and research. Within ACT UP (though later splitting from it) there was a small group called "The Science Club" that focused on medical advances, and they successfully pushed to make clinical trials more readily available to those facing death.
Kramer and Dr. Anthony Fauci (who was lead scientist investigating AIDS at the National Institutes of Health) were seemingly at loggerheads when ACT UP was new in the late 1980s, but eventually Fauci publicly recognized the critical impact Kramer had as an activist. “He was a firebrand who brought attention to things. He was totally abrasive, confrontational and theatrical. He didn’t care who he offended because he felt he was doing the right thing,” Fauci wrote in a recent tribute to his old adversary and then friend.
But, Fauci said, Kramer got things done.
Confrontation, boycotts, marches and civil disobedience are all tools of outsiders, and these approaches often attract media attention that produces pressure. Eventually, insiders from mainstream nonprofits, or those who had jobs on Capitol Hill and within successive administrations, worked in concert with the entire continuum of movement figures to make real breakthroughs in research and funding on AIDS.
Kramer was a unique figure, but his approach echoes some of the strategies used in the civil rights movement, and in the early 20th century labor movement. It is also a touchstone for some of today’s causes, whether climate change, racial justice or gun violence. What place do you want to occupy on the continuum, and with whom will you make alliances? Are you including people directly affected, community activists, scholarly researchers, established advocates and advocacy organizations, as well as policy makers? All have a role to play.
For grand transformations, a push from outside may be the precipitating factor that finally gets change moving, but to solidify important change, legislation and appropriations are capstones. Where are you on your journey, and who travels with you?
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