Select Page

Post In Remembrance of Larry Kramer

Post your comments here about Larry Kramer…

23 Comments

  1. Timothy Lunceford-Stevens

    This is poem I wrote on the night I went to Larry Kramer died. I finished after ACTUPNY had the memorial at the AIDS Memorial
    LARRY – The WORD

    Larry was a whirlwind, a pain in the ass.
    Anger, Vinegar!
    Saw no one was playing it safe in the 80s!
    Time of Reagan, it took that President seven years to utter,
    One WORD

    AIDS!

    It would kill tens of thousands before,
    Protease Inhibitors in 1996

    Larry Kramer wrote
    HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH,
    WOMEN IN LOVE, REMAKE OF LOST HORIZONS
    SISSIES’ SCRAPBOOK, later FOUR FRIENDS, A MINOR DARK AGE,
    THE FURNITURE OF HOME, THE NORMAL HEART, THE DESTINY OF ME,
    FAGGOTS, JUST SAY NO,REPORTS FROM THE HOLOCAUST,
    THE TRAGEDY OF TODAY’S GAYS, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: A HISTORY,VOL 1 & 2.
    AN ARMY OF LOVERS MUST NOT DIE WE ARE NOT CRUMBS, WE MUST NOT ACCEPT CRUMBS,
    1112 AND COUNTING, BE VERY AFRAID.

    FAGGOTS, A book some could relate to,
    While others hated
    As much as Larry Kramer
    Hated those who did nothing to
    End AIDS Now

    LARRY KRAMER died May 27, 2020
    HIV Positive since 1988
    At 84 years old, just a month before his 85th, living with HIV,
    A LIVER TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT with HIV

    Since 1980, No one from with HIV
    Has lived that long.

    Larry’s LEGACY, he Co-founded
    GMHC, founded ACTUPNY, and inspired thousands of offshoot
    Activist organizations that came later…
    TREATMENT ACTION GROUP, HEALTHGAP, HOUSING WORKS.
    Just to name a few.

    Now there’s Protease Inhibitors. PreP, PEP
    And new plans for prevention and treatment
    Keeping folks
    NEGATIVE
    Keeping folks
    POSITIVE & UNDETECTABLE & UNINFECTABLE

    The WORD
    RECKONED
    A Failure by the system to stop Millions of the Worlds population from
    The WORD
    AIDS

    The WORD
    KRAMER
    The WORD
    LARRY

    Reply
    • Timothy Lunceford-Stevens

      It is now in AIDS Memorial Achieves

      Reply
    • Timothy Lunceford-STevens

      The night Larry Kramer died, I walked to his fifth Avenue building with two candles, and stood vigil for a comrade in AIDS. Edie Windsor’s widow, Judith Kasen-Windsor came up walking her dog and we talked about Larry, his disdain of Ed Koch in the elevator.His friendship with Edie and Judith. It was a nice evening talking about Larry Kramer” that night I began my poem. -Timothy Lunceford-Stevens

      Reply
  2. Andria

    I met Larry in London (where I live) in 1995. My Life-Partner had just died from AIDS-related Opportunistic infections and I was as sad and mad as hell. Larry was about to speak on a panel at our Southbank, and I was so eager to meet him, but every time I approached him there was someone else and someone else: everybody at the Southbank that day wanted to speak with him. Eventually I managed to get a meter away from him, and I opened my mouth but my tears were already welling up. I did manage to tell him I had been an IVU User And that my life-partner and I had been very much involved with ACT.UP and other HIV Activism including illegal needle exchange in NYC. He just stood up and kissed me right there and I was knocked out (and didn’t wash my cheek for days!)
    Larry’s anger sometimes scared people, but that’s what we needed back then in the late 1980s when few people – VIPs – cared about whether we lived or died. He was smart, passionate and and beautifully erudite.
    The world lost a special man, but we rock on in his name and know he will be pushing us towards that day when HIV will no longer be an issue.
    Rest in Power and Peace Larry Kramer

    Reply
  3. Loretta M Mitson

    I just want to take the opportunity to honor the life of Larry Kramer, one of the founders of “ACT UP”. When AIDS was epidemic in third world countries, Diflucan (fluconazole) was being provided FREE to them. Meanwhile AIDS victims in this country were not afforded the same access to free medication. Through the efforts of ACT UP, this disparity in access to affordable Fluconazole was extended to us in the United States. As most of us know, fluconazole is critical to treating Valley Fever. I had health insurance which did not cover pharmaceuticals, and the $900 a month that Diflucan cost would have ruined me financially for the 8 years that I had to take it. It saved my life. Thank you and God bless you, Larry Kramer. God speed.

    Reply
  4. Marcelo Maia

    We met in 2010, while I was serving as chair of GMHC client advisory board, CAB. Larry brought me to my first ACT UP meeting, which I finally joined a few months later and continued to attend to this day. We kept in close contact and I witnessed him come back to life at Village Care a few years ago. Our most recent encounter was at the “Queer Liberation March” event last year on the stage at Central Park, when I was to his left holding a “Free Lula” poster. You can watch the show about him and access the video of his speech at Central Park here : https://www.democracynow.org/2020/5/28/rip_larry_kramer

    I wrote this to Larry and read it at his memorial by ACT UP at the NYC AIDS Memorial in May this year.

    Larry Kramer’s Memorial 28 de maio de 2020, NYC, AIDS Memorial

    I’ll read the text in Portuguese first, to the benefit of Brazilians who may not have known who Larry Kramer was.

    Larry era um fenômeno, um agitador de primeira classe que apesar de ter uma postura moralista quanto ao sexo gay, principalmente pela transmissão de HIV, foi um homem que tinha os dedos no pulso da consciência humana, da realidade e não media palavras para fazer sua posição a mais clara possível.
    Como gato, viveu várias vidas completamente e se pessoas com HIV, sobreviventes a longo termo, antes de 1996 ou do tratamento efetivo do HIV, diziam que vivem em “tempo emprestado”, Larry viveu como se o tempo fosse seu.
    Não fico triste com sua passagem, pois ele deu o que tinha e o que não tinha, fez o que pode e foi além. Um homem como pouquíssimos que dizia que o sentimento da raiva era um sentimento positivo, que sem raiva não se consegue mudar nada.
    United in Anger é o tema do ACT UP. Este sentimento já existia em 1987 quando ele forjou com palavras a alma da resistência passiva, mas na tua cara e com isso trouxe o embaraço ao poder, ações que envergonhavam as pessoas, aos dirigentes, ao estado e a instituições.
    Não fico triste com a passagem do Larry, pois ele deu o que tinha e o que não tinha. Que ele descanse em paz e com o poder.

    English Version

    Larry was a phenomenon of Nature, a first class agitator who despite a moralistic position towards gay sex, specially because of HIV transmission, was a man with fingers on the pulse of human consciousness, of reality, who did not measured words to make his position as clear as possible.
    Like a cat, he lived several lives completely and if long term survivors, those who became HIV positive before 1996 or the effective treatment for HIV became available, used to say they “live on borrowed time”, Larry lived as if time belonged to him.
    I am not sad with his passing, because he gave what he had and what he didn’t have, he did what he could and went beyond that. A man like very, very few, who said that the feeling of anger was a positive feeling, that without anger, we can’t change anything.
    “United in Anger” is the theme of ACT UP. That feeling already existed in 1987, when he forged with words the spirit of passive resistance, but in your face and with that brought embarrassment to power, actions which shamed people, officials, the state and institutions.
    I am not sad with Larry’s passing, because he gave what he had and what he didn’t have.
    May he Rest In Peace and in Power.

    Reply
  5. Katie Manno

    I am not going to lie, I had never heard of Larry Kramer until very recently. I had no idea what he contributed to the fight against AIDs until researching him for an essay today. But here I am, crying over the passing of a man that I wasn’t aware existed until very recently.

    And I think that is because I am a gay teenager that exists in a world that is a little safer for me because of his activism. So thank you Larry Kramer. Rest in power.

    Reply
  6. chris

    Larry showed us all that if you believe you’re right about something, the whole world can be against you, and that’s ok: one individual can take on the world and make a difference. He did that with such confidence and strength, and he didn’t back down or back off. That is absolutely inspirational no matter who you are-race, color, sexual orientation, creed, religion, citizen of any nation. That’s what awed me about him. That, and the fact that he was actually right.

    Reply
  7. Fundación IGualitos

    We are organising a webinar to honor Larry Kramer titled: “The Activism and the Arts: The power of Stories”. The event will take place on June 25, at 11am (Costa Rica time) and will have the presence of Oscar Award winner, a theatre director, and three social strategist. We will discuss the normal heart among many things.

    El Activismo y Las Artes

    Reply
  8. Lillian santiago

    Larry Kramer taught me how to speak truth to power, whether about HIV/AIDS or racism (which I believe are connected-for another time). God Bless His Spirit FOREVER!

    Reply
  9. carol Prisant

    Larry and my husband were in the same class at Yale and, at one of their reunions, I was standing by myself when I happened to notice a smallish, pleasant-looking man who had brought his dog along. I didn’t know him, nevertheless I wandered over to talk dogs and reunions, and, somehow, we got on to the subject of ‘our’ experiences at Yale in the fifties, (there were no women then) and I found myself waxing rhapsodic on how it had felt to be a freshman at Barnard and to detrain at New Haven Station, where, “You could look around the platform and there’d be nothing but wall-to-wall beautiful boys, in crewcuts with button-down shirts and tweed jackets and khaki pants and white bucks,’ I told him. “I thought they were gods.”

    There was a pause.

    “So did I,” Larry Kramer said.

    And then he went on to tell me how intimidated he’d been to be among that crowd back then, and how he’d memorized the photos in the Freshman Class book so he’d be prepared when the moment came to meet them all.

    Years later, I was in the room at the 50th reunion dinner when those gods who had so dazzled us both, their edges worn smooth by divorces and reverses and children in rehab and life’s disappointments, voted to choose the member of the class of 1957 whom they believed to be the most important and influential of their several hundred classmates. To a man, they voted for Larry Kramer.

    Reply
    • Loretta M Mitson

      Thanks for sharing that!

      Reply
  10. Loretta M Mitson

    I just want to take the opportunity to honor the life of Larry Kramer, one of the founders of “ACT UP”. When AIDS was epidemic in third world countries, Diflucan (fluconazole) was being provided FREE to them. Meanwhile AIDS victims in this country were not afforded the same access to free medication. Through the efforts of ACT UP, this disparity in access to affordable Fluconazole was extended to us in the United States. As most of us who are victims of Valley Fever ( a fungal desert disease which can be fatal) know, fluconazole is critical to treating Valley Fever. I had health insurance which did not cover pharmaceuticals, and the $900 a month that Diflucan cost would have ruined me financially for the 8 years that I had to take it. It saved my life. Thank you and God bless you, Larry Kramer. God speed.

    Reply
  11. fani

    I’m from a different generation of ACT UP, so Larry and I didn’t really know each other, however many mutual friends and acquaintances we have.  But ACT UP/NY now starts meetings with a reminder that we don’t need to agree about everything to work together to end AIDS.

    To me, that is Larry’s legacy: We can disagree about all kinds of things and still work together.  We can get angry with our friends, we can point out each other’s mistakes, we can scream at each other — and still be a team.  We can yell at each other with love, with the understanding that we are fundamentally on the same side.

    This is a lesson the left needs, now more than ever.  Disagreement is uncomfortable, but it is necessary if we want to get anywhere — if we’re all tiptoeing around, afraid to question each others’ ideas, our ideas are weak.  If we all just repeat whatever nonsense somebody made up on Twitter without questioning it, our work is empty because our minds are empty.

    Every time I’ve seen someone share one of those “Repeat after me” memes in the last few years, I’ve thought of Larry.  Would Larry just repeat after you?  Hell no.  He’d ask questions, and then, if he decided you were wrong, he’d fight with you about it.  And then he’d still be willing to work with you down the line.

    You can’t change the world by refusing to work with people who don’t have exactly the same opinions as you.  If you refuse disagreement, all you do is make enemies out of people who could’ve been amazing friends and allies.  I’ve left ACT UP meetings spitting mad half a dozen times — and kept going back.

    That’s the real spirit of activism.  We cannot be afraid to tell our friends what we really think.  We cannot be afraid to challenge each other’s ideas.  If we go around thinking everyone we’ve ever disagreed with is an enemy who needs to be cancelled — well, Larry would’ve been cancelled about four thousand times over.  But instead, most AIDS activists have built the capacity for disagreement into our work.  And for that, I say thank you, Larry.

    Reply
  12. Ross

    Québec, Québec
    Wednesday, 27 May 2020

    I have just learned that Larry Kramer has died.

    I can’t easily sum up what an influential figure he has been throughout my adult life both in terms of my personal journey as a gay man and in relation to my work as an artist.

    Though often controversial, his art and his activism (most importantly as it was inextricably linked to the ravages and catastrophic governmental inaction of the AIDS crisis) were emblematic of an impassioned community leader and cultural vanguard.

    I am sad now that I won’t be able to meet him, to talk with him and to thank him for the invaluable gifts he shared with me and with the world at large.

    I will never forget seeing my first production of “The Normal Heart” (in Canada) in the midst of the early days of the AIDS pandemic and seeing the Off-Broadway revival in New York in 2004.

    It all seems a lifetime ago now.

    Thanks Larry…

    Ross William Bartleman

    Reply
  13. Peter

    I feel guilt, humility, and deep sadness. I ended up on the ground sobbing uncontrollably when I heard about the passing of Larry Kramer. As I watched the film version of THE NORMAL HEART, I felt a deep connection to the playwright and activist. I must keep the fight in me. We all must keep the fight in us. It’s a different fight some 30 years later. I light a candle in honor of Larry for the needless lives lost each day during the pandemic. Whatever you do, keep the fight in you. Thank you Larry for your service. I will carry the torch from here.

    Reply
  14. David

    Thank you Larry ❤️

    Reply
  15. Christopher Gagliardi

    STATEMENT FROM CHRISTOPHER C. GAGLIARDI, YOUTH OUTREACH SPECIAL NEEDS ADVOCATE AND INTERIM DEPUTY MAYOR FOR THE CITY OF ENGLEWOOD, NEW JERSEY

    “On behalf of the thousands of youth across the country and around the world who believe in the power of compassion, love, grace, and care to all those who do not have a voice, especially in the LGBTQ community and those who have been affected by the tragic nightmare of HIV and AIDS, I join my voice among the many who express the deepest sorrow and sympathies to the friends and family of one of history’s greatest heroes and fighters for people who didn’t have a voice and were silented by ignorance and fear, Larry Kramer.

    Mr. Kramer was not just a writer and activist, but a writer who spoke the honest truth about what is going on and a activist who was crying for change in life and one among the many people who spoke out and sounded the alarm in 1981 after reading about a new disease that was taking lives, for which he not only told the truth about it and tried hard to speak out and stand up about it, and to get the attention of all in the corridors of power, science, etc. to do something about it and yet, nothing was done. But Mr. Kramer didn’t give up, his heart and lion – like courage with passion did more than change history, it changed the world forever and made us see sincerely that life is precious and that this disease that we now know today as AIDS, clearly made us look at ourselves a bit more clearly and to take more responsiblity and common sense to help one another and to promote the general welfare and the common good to promote rights for all. Mr. Kramer is a true living genune hero among many who’s name will be long etched into the history books. His courage and his fire will never die and never diminish. May he rest not only in peace, but in the hearts of all who continue his mission.”

    Reply
  16. Mark

    Though I only rarely interacted with Larry over the 10+ years of my ACT UP activism, his and others’ leadership in founding Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and ACT UP completely transformed my life starting in my mid-30s up to the present day. My life took a completely different turn from off-off-Broadway theater production to where I am today as a long-time health care advocate fighting for universal health care, including 2 stints working at GMHC. Larry and his colleagues created the structures and pathways of my own trajectory and those of many others who developed careers in HIV/AIDS, public health, and other related fields. Working together, we all make change happen and save lives, something that’s needed now more than ever as we cope with our current COVID-19 pandemic. We carry on in his spirit and memory.

    Reply
  17. Joshua

    He Made Me Powerful And Strong By His Saying #ACTUPFightbackENDAIDS

    Reply
  18. allie

    He made me the activist I am today. He was queer unapologetic and angry. He was afraid and fearless. He was loud and bold. I learned about Larry Kramer in my undergraduate studies and I remember thinking he was so scary and intimidating and how can I be like him. He was a powerhouse and I am saddened he is no longer on this earth but I will continue to fight to keep is legacy via advocacy going.

    Reply
  19. ES

    The first time I heard Larry Kramer’s name was in an art history class where we discussed the work of Act Up and the response of activists to the AIDS Crisis. I wasn’t alive when Kramer’s work began, but he inspired me to get involved with a community organization that provides harm reduction services to people living with HIV and I have been volunteering with them ever since. Although I live in a different country and I never knew Larry, he taught me how to be a better ally and supporter. His work will continue to inspire me, and he will never be forgotten.

    Reply
  20. SG

    I first learned about Larry Kramer when I read Normal Heart for a class. It was my favorite piece of text that semester. Larry was my rock through a lot of times in my life, even though I never knew him. He gave me reason and support to be me, to come out to people I care about and to overcome the urge to just hide that part of me. He may be gone from this world but I’m keeping Larry with me in every way I can.

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About ACT UP

Founded in 1987, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. ACT UP currently meets every Monday night online (via zoom).

Support ACT UP NY & Palestinian people fleeing Gaza

For every SILENCE = DEATH watermelon item sale, proceeds will be split in half between ACT UP NY and direct medical aid to Palestinian people fleeing Gaza.

Individual wearing a Silence=Death ACT UP NY Black T-shirt with a pink triangle that is composed from a watermelon slice indicating support and to benefit Palestine
ACT UP NY, SILENCE=DEATH Watermelon Baseball Cap to Benefit Palestine, BLACK
ACT UP NY, SILENCE=DEATH Watermelon Button to Benefit Palestine
5-PACK: ACT UP NY, SILENCE=DEATH Watermelon Button to Benefit Palestine
25-PACK: ACT UP NY, SILENCE=DEATH Watermelon Button to Benefit Palestine

Meetings Only On Zoom:

ACT UP Meetings Only Via Zoom

Support ACT UP

Union Made, Fairtrade Merchandise

ACT UP Baseball Cap

ACT UP Cap NEW! Save 25%

ACT UP Decal Sticker Sheet

NEW! ACT UP Sticker Sheets
Ship FREE (USA)

Silence=Death ACT UP U=U Silencio=Muerte Buttons

Get Buttons and Button Packs

Silence=Death & ACT UP Masks

Masks 20% off

Donate to ACT UP

Black HIV+ Lives Matter #QueerLiberationMarch

An important read:

Archives

Subscribe!

Get infrequent, announcements from ACT UP New York and occasional offers from our shop.

You have Successfully Subscribed!