Conflicted Histories: Internal Conflict in the ACT UP Oral History Project

• In Event: OHA Poster Session and Project Bazaar

Abstract

“Conflicted Histories: Internal Conflict in the ACT UP Oral History Project” explores the interactions between members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) found within the transcripts of the ACT UP Oral History Research Project. During the 1980s, the radical activism of ACT UP and its members secured a number of victories in the fight against the AIDS epidemic. To outside world, the organization appeared as a unified whole, a group of diverse individuals brought together in a fight against a neglectful federal government and medical establishment. The oral histories contained in the ACT UP Oral History Project, however, reveal another story. Conflict with other members and the ACT UP leadership often takes a noteworthy position in the narratives of women and people of color in the organization. Using works by Martin Duberman, Jennifer Brier, and Cathy J. Cohen as theoretical foundations, this research continues the nascent discussion about the racial dimensions of AIDS activism and the LGBT community more broadly. ACT UP members who belonged to racial, ethnic, and gender minorities spoke about the conflict that existed within the organization itself and how that experience framed their activism and involvement. This work, in part, follows upon the critiques levied by scholars and activists in an attempt to understand how the divisions in the American queer community played out in what appeared to be a moment of communal solidarity. Though all narrators came to join ACT UP for their own personal reasons, their oral histories demonstrate that conflict and conflict resolution can be a through line to create a more complicated and nuanced history of one of the most famous, and infamous, AIDS activist organizations.

Author

• Franklin James Howard, University of Nevada, Las Vegas