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ACT UP staged a political funeral the last day
of Quilt Weekend, Oct. 13, scattering ashes of
their dead on the White House lawn. They called
on President Clinton to lead in the fight against
AIDS.
The group assembled in sight of the Capitol at
a comer of those memorial panels spread across
the National Mall. Snare drums beat a steady,
solemn tattoo; as the protesters marched under the
trees along the northern length of the Quilt, their
numbers swelled to a thousand. Many bore small
jars or plastic bags. Their lovers and friends were
gone, reduced to the fine gray powder they carried
in outstretched hands.
The column wheeled into full sun near the
Washington Monument.
The marchers spied Newt Gingrich ambling
along 15th Street. A brief verbal exchange be
came heated, and the Speaker of the House was
hustled into a blue van and driven away.
The parting words of one protester rang out,
“Fuck you, scum bag.”
They turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue in
front of the White House and the energy level
rose. “U.S. government, you can’t hide, we charge
you with genocide,” they chanted. “Bring our
dead to your door, we won’t take it anymore.”
The last few hundred feet turned into a virtual
assault, as the crowd raged and surged to the
wrought-iron fence surrounding the grounds. The
air filled with puffs of gray as hands reached
through the fence and fists hurled leaden ashes
over its top. Protesters and media alike grew
flecked with the hoary consequences of the plague.
Stephen Hardway threw a small jar containing
ashes of John Whitmore, his lover who died a year
and a half ago. He was quickly hustled away by
police but later released.
“I had to do it for John,” said the native of
Oklahoma City. He wore the broad, open good
looks of Middle America upon his face. “I’ve
seen too many people die, and scattering the ashes
was just not enough for me. I wanted to put it on
Bill Clinton’s yard.”
Eric Sawyer of ACT UP Golden Gate told the
crowd, “We have lacked presidential leadership
since the beginning of this AIDS crisis, it’s about
time we had some.”
“We must stop the Quilt from growing,” said
San Franciscan Bill Thome. The list of six actions
included guaranteeing access to lifesaving drugs
like protease inhibitors, focusing research toward
a cure, and lifting the ban on needle exchange to
help reduce the spread of AIDS.
The ACT UP manifesto read, “Bill Clinton
has broken most of his 1992 promises on AIDS.
Rather than offer the ‘loud, clear and consistent
leadership’ he pledged, Clinton has done just
what he condemned Bush for.... After 15 years of
genocide, willful ignorance and—under this presi
dent— ‘caring’ without action, we demand real
presidential leadership from whoever occupies
the White House.”
ACT UP Philadelphia member Dawn Acero
said, “The president loves a good memorial. He
will stand there and cry for the cameras until the
Quilt covers the entire city of Washington.”
Bob Roe hr
Clinton sneaks
to see the Quilt
Bill Clinton visited the Quilt late on Friday
afternoon—the president did not. It is a distinc
tion worthy of note.
The man and his wife had a day off on Oct. 11
to celebrate their 21 st wedding anniversary. There
were no official events; the White House calendar
was blank. And so when the man stepped upon the
National Mall, after even stragglers had left the
White House press office to begin a long holiday
weekend, it was without the entourage of media
that records presidential actions and transmits
them to the people.
A presidential visit to the Quilt would have
topped the evening television news. There was no
such story. The White House staged the event so
as to avoid lending the power and prestige of the
office to the visit, to avoid linking Clinton’s name
with AIDS before the broad U.S. public.
At the same time it allows his supporters to
tout the visit and score points with targeted sexual
minority and AIDS audiences through word of
mouth and the community press.
As Qui It co-founder Cleve Jones gushed, “I ’ ve
been trying for nine years to get a president to visit
the Quilt, and it finally happened. It was the
greatest moment in my life.”
Bob Roehr
ACT UP demonstrates
for lower drug prices
Chanting “Your money or your life,” ACT UP
accused the pharmaceutical industry of “price
gouging AIDS patients for drug therapies” on
Oct. 11. The charges were leveled in a report
released that day and a demonstration at the
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers As
sociation in Washington, D.C.
ACT UP Golden Gate conducted a “market
basket” survey of retail prices for five variations
of standard drug thera
pies for a person liv
ing with AIDS. It
found the cost for one
year of treatment rang-
ing from $11,985 for
the sim plest, m ini
mum anti-HIV com-
bination, to $19,500.
This does not include
a projected $2,000 to pay for recommended blood
tests in conjunction with these therapies. Nor
does it include doctor’s fees.
The pharmaceutical industry historically has
been the most profitable sector in the U.S.
economy, with profit margins at least twice the
average.
The report held that “[t]he high cost of all
AIDS drugs is a barrier preventing or delaying
tens of thousands of people in the United States
from receiving life-saving treatment," and con
cluded that “AIDS drugs have consistently been
brought to market at a price representing all the
market will bear.”
Roger Garza of Atlanta spoke of the restric
tion on the Georgia AIDS Drug Assistance Pro
gram: “I’m living in fear. These are miracle drugs,
and I’m not going to get access to them. It is a false
hope, an illusion of hope.”
Peter Cashman of Los Angeles told of similar
problems in California: “They talk about hope,
but there is absolutely no hope when there is no
access. I had to go to the families [of friends] and
say, ‘Can I have their drugs?’ while they were
dying and after they were dead, so that I could
continue on some of these drugs.”
Bill Thome of San Francisco said, ‘T ens of
thousands of people are going to be added to the
Quilt who don’t need to be if the government and
the drug companies do not do something about the
incredibly high prices of anti-HIV drugs.”
Time to approval and development costs have
been reduced, said New Yorker Mark Milano,
“[b]ut the more we reduce the time to market, the
more they raise their prices. These people are
making profits off my back and the backs of
everyone living with AIDS in America. We are
drawing a line in the sand. We are telling them that
we insist they roll back their prices."
“We die, they make money,” and “No access,
no hope, no peace— ACT UP,” the group shouted.