Wo pioneers for people with AIDS......

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Wo pioneers for people with AIDS, Michael Callan on the East Coast and Dan Turner on the West Coast, decided to record the beginnings of the PWA movement while it was still fresh in their memories. Join them and their colleague, photographer Jane Rosette, in a written and pictorial journey of the way it was in the 1980s when the HIV and AIDS movement was young. We thought it important to record the founding of the People With AIDS (PWA) self-empowerment movement now, while our memories are not totally fogged over. Many who were there are gone now, and those of us who are left feel a responsibility to those generations of People With AIDS who will follow to explain how a movement was born; a movement based on the breathtakingly obvious concept that People With AIDS ought to participate in the decisions that directly affect our lives. The founding of the PWA self-empowerment movement is largely a tale of two cities: San Francisco and New York. It is sad that the first "comprehensive" history of AIDS in America, And the Band Played On, omits or demeans the PWA self-empowerment movement. And so, to the best of our abilities, we will tell our own history herein so that future generations may understand how we got here from there.
by Michael Callan and Dan Turner