Gay men faced particular trials during the years Reagan was in charge, the first ever case of AIDS was in 1981 and rapidly it became clear that it was spreading. ‘Those infected initially with this mysterious disease — all gay men — found themselves targeted with an unprecedented level of mean-spirited hostility.’ This was due to the concerns of this becoming a national health crisis. However, Reagan had caused such a deficit in funds there was no money to give to health care in order to try and stop the spread of the disease although those in medical and scientific positions were deeply concerned at the rate at which it was spreading. As a consequence this led to the deaths of thousands of gay men.
AIDS casualties multiplied rapidly throughout the 1980s; in 1981, the mortality rate was 225, jumping to 1,400 by 1983, 15,000 by 1985, 40,000 by 1987, and over 100,000 by 1990.6 The great majority of these deaths were young men between the ages 25 and 44.7 The disease spread rapidly within urban centres, most notably New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. After the mid-1980s, however, the disease had made its way to other North American cities and rural areas (Murray, H. 2008).
The response of Reagan was to do nothing, this clearly took its toll as thousands of men died from the disease due to this lack of funding. It was not until May of 1987 that Reagan first addressed the issue of AIDS in public. As a consequence of this bad political management it is easy to see why so many gay men turned to activist techniques to try and draw attention to the national crisis. The realisation of the AIDS crisis by Jones in 1985, and its large-scale response was provoked by the entire nations concern of issue at hand. This is proof of how a visual and material object brought not just a community together, but the entire nation. As people learnt of the crisis and had it stare them in the face with the AIDS quilt they had no choice but to discuss the problem at hand and how to deal with it, with growing concerns of the disease spreading through blood transfusions people were unsure of where they stood or how to respond. Gay activist groups tried tirelessly to raise the issue of AIDS openly with the government, including trying to smoke Reagan out as it were, by creating posters with the face of Reagan, bearing the slogan “What if your son gets sick?”, (Murray, H, 2008) These were the posters which formed a street protest by an activist group called ACT UP, a street theatre group. Their posters aimed to remind Reagan and others that all those dying from AIDS were someone’s child and would he want to go through that? It was essential for these examples of gay activism to take place in order to provoke a rise in social consciousness about AIDS, ensuring Milk’s ambition of raising awareness to gay issues was fulfilled. The fact that the AIDS quilt occurred at such a crucial point for gay rights suggests that it had a lot to do with Reagan finally discussing the issue publicly, once everyone was so aware and concerned he had no choice. In the October of 1987 the quilt in its entirety to date went on show in Washington D.C. on the National Mall, coinciding with the National march of Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. After a large turnout the quilt went on tour for four moths raising around $500,000 (The NAMES Project Foundation, 2010).
CherisseBrown 