Ann Northrop: The Crucial Role of Women in ACT UP

LGBTQ&A

Jeffrey Masters

Society & Culture

4.7 • 703 Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2021

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Ann Northrop walked into her first ACT UP meeting in February of 1988, she felt immediately at home. "Oh my god, these are my people," she remembers thinking. "These are the cranky individualists who are really too weird to be part of normal society and they're here doing civil disobedience and direct action." The longtime activist joins us to talk about helping to craft ACT UP's media strategy, the controversial Stop The Church protest, and why for the most marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community today, the AIDS crisis is ongoing. You can listen to our interview with ACT UP historian, Sarah Schulman here: bit.ly/actuppod LGBTQ&A is hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate magazine, in partnership with GLAAD. Come find us on Twitter @lgbtqpod.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From The Advocate magazine in partnership with Glad, this is LGBTQ and A.
0:08.0	I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is one of those interviews that shaped how I think about activism,
0:14.5	what it is and how it can be most effective.
0:18.3	Anne Northrop was a member of ACT UPUp in the 80s and 90s.
0:21.8	She had previously worked in national news at the CBS Morning News.
0:25.9	And when she joined ACT-Up, the direct-action HIV-AIDS organization,
0:30.7	she quickly became a key figure working to help develop and train members on their media
0:36.0	strategy.
0:36.6	How do best talk to the press?
0:39.3	I would say to the activists, all right, I'm going to train you.
0:42.3	The first two words you have to know are ignorant and arrogant.
0:46.3	They know nothing. They think they know everything.
0:49.3	Anne was also one of the members of ACT UP that was inside St. Patrick's Cathedral at the now
0:55.1	infamous Stop the Church action in 1989. Sarah Schulman, the actup historian and author of Lether
1:01.6	Record Show, touched on this action and its significance in our interview from about a month
1:07.0	ago, if you want to go back and check that out. And Anne here describes how it all went
1:11.9	down. And by down, I mean, not really at all as planned. I thought I was going to die. I'm lying
1:19.2	in the center aisle of the cathedral. And I'm sure I'm going to be trampled to death by all these people.
1:24.5	So all of that is coming up today. And then as a reminder, this month, we are dipping into our archive.
1:30.7	This originally aired on the Luminary app and was recorded in February of 2020.
1:36.2	It might even have been our last in-person interview before the world changed.
1:41.2	So please enjoy.
	...

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