ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) Colorado became active in 1988 under the leadership of Rex Fuller, Roger Beltrami and Scott Little. The group started with about 30 dedicated members that grew to 75 as 1988 progressed and would become a very important part of the Denver LGBT community. Colorado ACT UP demanded action from the state to help people with AIDS (often referred to by the group as PWAs) with funds to purchase AZT (a life prolonging drug for those with AIDS), funds for the Denver General Hospital’s AIDS clinic, an end to the mandatory reporting policy for those who tested positive, and other evolving demands. The group focused on direct action protests that took an adversarial stance towards the elected officials of Denver and Colorado and specifically targeted Governor Roy Romer (of Romer v. Evans), Mayor of Denver Federico Peña, and Executive Director of the Colorado Health Department Tom Vernon. These protests would often occur at their homes or at major State buildings. These protests would take the form of a few things. One would be a straightforward picket sign protest where activists presented signs and demanded action. Another would be ‘die-ins’ where activists would lay on the ground outside state buildings blocking traffic and sometimes put an elected official they deemed particularly heinous on mock trial. Sometimes activists would call on the community to send letters to their elected officials or perform phone zaps where mass amounts of callers would call in at a very specific time to present to them that their measures had overwhelming support. All of these tactics had the intended effect of forcing Colorado legislators to support the growing community of those with AIDS. Romer in particular, despite calling AIDS his number one priority in his inauguration speech, had disdain for ACT UP activists. Calling their largely peaceful protests threats. At one point while Romer was giving a practice run of his State of the State speech to a group of Denver residents and was confronted on his inaction regarding AIDS by a man named Mark Caesar, who was not affiliated with ACT UP, but did have AIDS. This resulted in a screaming match between the two in which Romer remarked, “I’m so goddamn sick of bullshit from assholes like you”. This response in turn pushed Caesar to join ACT UP. This then led Romer to enact, by executive order, bans on discrimination against those with HIV. Eventually, in 1989, as the death rates rose in Colorado to 510 people because of AIDS, a group that was estimated to be 300-500 people joined an ACT UP candlelight vigil for those who had died, showing wide community support for ACT UP and PWA. These demonstrations eventually had the effect of pressuring state legislators into mass legislation on AIDS issues. This included widespread state funding to help those with the disease have access to AZT. ACT UP also proved to be an organization with support beyond just Gay men. Tea Schook and other prominent members of Denver’s Lesbian community would join panels of ACT UP members discussing the group’s next actions, meetings on upcoming protests, and join in these demonstrations. These activists’ demands and protests hit on issues that are still relevant today as the group protested Borroughs and Wellcome’s price hike of AZT. They eventually led a boycott of products by the company that included Actifed, Sudafed, Neosporin, and Polysporin. ACT UP’s wide support and direct action tactics grabbed the attention of both the wider public and had broader community support. Their direct action protests and community mobilization garnered significant concessions from the elected officials of Colorado. They were instrumental in creating much of the backbone of later Colorado LGBT protest groups. Colorado ACT UP was ground breaking in demanding the rights LGBT people have today.
The scrapbook is a very well put together book documenting ACT UP Colorado during its most relevant and activist years. Finding information about the organization, specifically in Colorado, is not easy endeavor. The scrapbook contained all of the information for the brief history of ACT UP Colorado in the introduction to the curator’s assessment. The scrapbook contains many newspaper clippings and ACT UP literature arranged on each page meticulously and presents as a book about the this invaluable organization. Arranged in chronological order beginning in 1987-1988 the information and articles show a timeline of the organization.
Thanks to the generosity of the Gill Foundation, in October 2019 History Colorado hired the Gill Foundation Associate Curator of LGBTQ+ History to manage and expand History Colorado’s LGBTQ+ holdings and to develop the Gill Foundation LGBTQ Archive in recognition of the significant contributions of Tim Gill to the state of Colorado. All LGBTQ+ acquisitions from 2019 through 2021 reflect the support of the Gill Foundation.
Dedicated to documenting the varied experiences of all Coloradans, History Colorado and the Gill Foundation initiated the LGBTQ Collecting Initiative to proactively build a research archive that preserves and promotes the contributions, history, and voices of Colorado’s LGBTQ+ community.