UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP STUDY GUIDE

UNIT 3: PROJECTS AND EXERCISES

Individual Project 1: Activism and You
ACT UP is best known for its collective action, characterized by many groups and coalitions including affinity groups and mass meetings every Monday nights.  Yet members were ultimately galvanized by a sense of personal responsibility, often initially joining ACT UP as concerned individuals and then finding their place within activist community.  ACT UP thus demonstrates that the power of collective action rests on individual impulse.

Indeed, activism doesn’t always require collective action.  Individuals or a couple of friends can bring a problem to light, agitate against unfairness, and ultimately transform social paradigms.  Martin Luther King, Jr., though he led the collective Civil Rights Movement, did so based on his sense of personal responsibility for change.  For more information, read King’s timeless 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he articulates this activist ethos of personal responsibility.

Now reflect on your own activism as an individual and as a member of an organization.  Toward whom or what do you have a sense of personal responsibility that inspires you to act to make change for the better?  How have you acted individually to effect that change?  Are you a member of any activist organizations or movements?  What has been your role in those groups?  How is individual activism different from group activism?

What have you learned about the ability to effect social change from your experiences of individual and group activism?  If you don’t have a history of activism, reflect on what may have prevented you from becoming involved.

Group Project #1: Plan a Demonstration, Direct Action, or Zap: HIV Prevention
 For this group project, you will plan an HIV/AIDS demonstration, direct action, or zap.  There are three steps in this project:

1. For this project, you will focus on an HIV/AIDS problem with which you may already be somewhat familiar: HIV Prevention.  You may have received a fair amount of formal or informal education about HIV prevention, yet you may take issue with aspects of those prevention messages and efforts.  For example, you might be critical of HIV prevention messages aimed at your peer group.  What are those messages, exactly?  Are the prevention messages clear? Do they communicate in a way that makes you listen and respond?  Are the underlying prevention strategies appropriate (in terms of target audience, tone, language, medium, “realness”?)  Conversely, you may have a deep understanding of the people and institutions that have insured that you have received little or no HIV prevention education—itself  a good facet of this problem that you might want to address.

Your first goal is to identify and explain the problem with HIV Prevention in a clear, detailed statement.  Then, point to the sources or causes of the problem, identify those who are hurt by it, and spell out the logic by which the problem is allowed to persist.  Remember, the more specific the problem, the more targeted your activist intervention can be.

2. Now brainstorm ideas for addressing the problem.  What is the goal?  What is your group’s overall plan or strategy for achieving that goal?  For example, ACT UP often used the strategy of directly confronting a problem through street demonstrations with the goal of setting up a meeting with officials or administrators who could, in turn, affect policy decisions.  Other actions, like the zap that interrupted the CBS Evening News, had the goal of forcing mainstream news organizations to “report” on the disparity between coverage of and funding for AIDS and the Gulf War.  What specific tactics would your group use to implement its strategy?  Consider the logistics of your action.  What are the small details that will make it successful?  Predict potential challenges and outcomes.  For a step-by-step guide for planning an action, see the Lesbian Avengers Action Outline and the ACT UP Direct Action Manual.

3. Finally, write a reflection on the process of planning your HIV/AIDS Prevention action.  What lessons did you learn about activist organizing and social protest?  About group activism?  About  yourself as a potential activist?

Individual/Group Project #2: Political Funerals

Freewrite a response to United in Anger’s footage of political funerals and to Joy Episalla’s comments in her ACT UP Oral History Project interview. Then discuss your response with a group of your peers.