History and timeline

2 August 2017. Related: Advocates, Resources.

As an advocate it is important to know your history both in your own country and globally.

History can put local issues in context. If you know what went before you can have confidence that the future can be as positive and dramatic.

The following community sites have published HIV timelines that include social, medical and advocacy events. Although much of this is US-based, every country will have it’s own history, including periods of denial and prejudice, HIV positive people organising for their right to care, and more recently, for access to treatment and better treatment.

If you have other appropriate links we can include please contact us.

• AVERT timeline 1900-2008
• ACT-UP New York oral history project Over 80 transcribed interviews with surviving US activists.
• Early AIDS in the US Online webcast lecture from CROI 2008 by Harold Jaffe that includes scenes from the film ‘And the band played on’ (see 3 Feb) Direct link
• The Names Project US site with a database of 48,000 memorial quilts.

HIV history in film

There are many films that include HIV as a subject and the selection below includes different aspects of the history of HIV and activism.

• BBC Horizon documentary (1983) (link to youtube access)
• And the Band Played On (1993)
• Philadelphia (1993)
• Angels in America (2003)
• Precious (2009)
  The first three films include some of the early years in the USA before there was effective treatment. Precious includes HIV as a theme that is relevant to the USA today.
• Blue (link to youtube access)
  This is a unique and powerful film by the UK director Derek Jarman about his personal experiences of HIV in England in the 1990s.
• Fire in the Blood (2013)
  This film is about the struggle to make HIV treatments affordable and accessible to people across the world.
• How to Survive a Plague (2012)
• United in Anger: A history of ACT-UP (2012)
  These two recent films (both released in 2012) cover different aspects of the history of ACT-UP as a community fight to get access to treatment. (See i-Base review).
• AIDS since the 80s (ongoing UK film and oral history project) – 2017 Facebook link