1981: “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals” headlined a tiny New York Times story on Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), the first reporting by the “paper of record” on the crisis that would become AIDS.
1982: The Times reported that “GRID” (gay-related immunodeficiency) was the cause of KS and other disorders seen among gay men—and now “some heterosexual women, bisexual and heterosexual men,” too.
1983: First-ever AIDS vigil filled a mile of hard-hit San Francisco streets with candlelight, headed by a PWA banner reading “Fighting for Our Lives.”
1991: Tony Kushner’s AIDSepic, Angels in America, later a Pulitzer- and Tony-winning hit, opened at San Francisco’s Eureka Theater.
1998: The Congressional Black Caucus urged the Clinton administration to declare HIV a public health emergency in African-American communities.
