ACT UP, Fight Back

Andy Velez was a co-founder of ACT UP, a legendary activist group known for its willingness to take practically any nonviolent action to fight AIDS. At the same time ACT UP was making itself known, New York City’s lower east side was changing fast. Neighborhoods that once belonged to artists and punks were lost to developers and yuppies. In this episode, Ryan Kilkenny and Jiayu Liang look at the culture of protest Andy helped create, and how Andy’s son Ben would pick these values up and bring them to a different cause in the summer of 1988. This episode uses material from Andy Velez’s ACT UP Oral History. You can access all 187 member interviews at actuporalhistory.org.