Hey there, it's Asma Khalid, and I know it's Saturday, and you need a break from the White House in Congress, and frankly, so did we.

But we knew you'd really enjoy this special episode from It's Been a Minute with Sam Zanders.

The episode is all about the history of HIV activism in the United States.

And as you're closing out Pride Month, we thought this episode might give you a chance to learn a little bit about the political struggle of LGBTQ people.

So enjoy!

In 1987, there was a new activist group in New York City called Act Up.

And they held weekly meetings on Monday evenings at this place called The Center, an LGBT community nonprofit in the West Village.

At the time, it was a crumbling old school.

paint was peeling off the walls and it had never been rehabbed.

That is Sarah Schulman, she's a writer and activist, and she joined Act Up in 1987.

And you know, even though that building was raggedy, those meetings, they were really something else.

I was hanging around The Center on the Monday, and there was a lot of noise coming from room 101.

Because I saw so many people there, I knew, you know, something really big was going on.

The feeling of Act Up in its heyday, when the room is packed and the weather is nice, the meeting spills out into the courtyard,

and there's all kinds of cruising going on and eye-catching and chattiness.

And Sarah says that vibe was the key to the group's impact.

I think any political movement for it to be successful has to be a place that makes the participants' lives better.

If you're just joining a political movement out of some kind of sense of responsibility in burden, it's not going to work.

And that's why Emma Goldman famously said, if I can't dance, it's not my revolution.

So Act Up was a dance, you know, it was a place that was life-affirming, it was sex-positive,

it was all about being effective, and it was filled with very young people who were very energetic and desperate for change.

Those weekly meetings began with the recitation of Act Up's motto.

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