Editing ACT UP (section)

==Structure of ACT UP==
[[File:Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill protest.jpg|thumb|right|ACT UP protests in [[New York City]] against [[Uganda]]'s [[The Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014|Anti-Homosexuality Bill]]]]
ACT UP was organized as effectively leaderless; there was a formal committee structure. Bill Bahlman recalls there were initially two main committees.  There was the Issues Committee that scrupulously studied the issues surrounding an advancement the group wanted to achieve and the Actions Committee that would plan a Zap or Demonstration to achieve that particular goal. This was intentional on Larry Kramer's part: he describes it as "democratic to a fault."<ref name="kramer1"/> It followed a committee structure with each committee reporting to a coordinating committee meeting once a week. Actions and proposals were generally brought to the coordinating committee and then to the floor for a vote, but this was not required - any motion could be brought to a vote at any time.<ref name="carlomusto1"/> [[Gregg Bordowitz]], an early member, said of the process:

<blockquote>This is how grassroots, democratic politics work. To a certain extent, this is how democratic politics is supposed to work in general. You convince people of the validity of your ideas. You have to go out there and convince people.<ref name="bordowitz1">Bordowitz, Gregg. Interview with Sarah Schulman and Jim Hubbard. ACTUP Oral History Project. February 16, 2005. MIX: The New York Lesbian & Gay Experimental Film Festival.  December 11, 2005, [http://www.actuporalhistory.org/interviews/images/bordowitz.pdf Actuporalhistory.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423213332/http://www.actuporalhistory.org/interviews/images/bordowitz.pdf |date=2021-04-23 }}</ref></blockquote>

This is not to say that it was in practice purely anarchic or democratic. Bordowitz and others admit that certain people were able to communicate and defend their ideas more effectively than others. Although Larry Kramer is often labeled the first "leader" of ACT UP, as the group matured, those people that regularly attended meetings and made their voice heard became conduits through which smaller "affinity groups" would present and organize their ideas. Leadership changed hands frequently and suddenly.<ref name="bordowitz1"/>
* Some of the Committees were:{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}
** Issues Committee
** Action Committee
** Finance Committee
** Outreach Committee
** Treatment and Data Committee
** Media Committee
** Graphics Committee
** Housing Committee
Note: As ACT UP had no formal organizing plan, the titles of these committees are somewhat variable and some members remember them differently than others.

In addition to Committees, there were also Caucuses, bodies set up by members of particular communities to create space to pursue their needs. Among those active in the late 1980s and/or early 1990s were the Women's Caucus (sometimes referred to as the Women's Committee)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://herstories.prattinfoschool.nyc/omeka/exhibits/show/nomoreinvisiblewomenexhibition|title=No More Invisible Women Exhibition · Herstories: Audio/Visual Collections of the LHA|website=herstories.prattinfoschool.nyc|language=en-US|access-date=2017-11-30}}</ref> and the Latino/Latina Caucus.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nacla.org/article/latinos-act-transnational-aids-activism-1990s|title=Latinos ACT UP: Transnational AIDS Activism in the 1990s|website=NACLA|language=en|access-date=2017-11-30}}</ref>

Along with committees and caucuses, ACT UP New York relied heavily on "affinity groups."  These groups often had no formal structure, but were centered on specific advocacy issues and personal connections, often within larger committees.  Affinity groups supported overall solidarity in larger, more complex political actions through the mutual support provided to members of the group.  Affinity groups often organized to perform smaller actions within the scope of a larger political action, such as the "Day of Desperation," when the Needle Exchange group presented NY City Health Department officials with thousands of used syringes they had collected through their exchange (contained in water cooler bottles).{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}

=== Gran Fury ===
[[Gran Fury]] functioned as the anonymous art collective that produced all of the artistic media for ACT UP. The group remained anonymous because it allowed the collective to function as a cohesive unit without any one voice being singled out. The mission of the group was to bring an end to the AIDS Crisis by making reference to the issues plaguing society at large, especially homophobia and the lack of public investment in the AIDS epidemic, through bringing art works into the public sphere in order to reach the maximum audience. The group often faced censorship in their proceedings, including being rejected for public billboard space and being threatened with censorship in art exhibitions. When faced with this censorship, Gran Fury often posted their work illegally on the walls of the streets.<ref>Gober, Robert, Bob Gober, and Gran Fury. "Gran Fury." ''BOMB'', no. 34 (1991): 8–13.</ref>

===DIVA-TV===
[[Diva TV (video collective)|DIVA-TV]], an acronym for "Damned Interfering Video Activist Television," was an affinity group within ACT UP that videotaped and documented [[AIDS]] activism. Its founding members are [[Catherine Gund]], [[Ray Navarro]], [[Ellen Spiro]], [[Gregg Bordowitz]], Robert Beck, Costa Pappas, [[Jean Carlomusto]], Rob Kurilla, George Plagianos.<ref>Alex Juhaz, "Diva TV and ACT UP," Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media, editor John D. H. Downing.</ref> One of their early works is "Like a Prayer" (1991), documenting the 1989 ACT UP protests at [[St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York|St. Patrick's Cathedral]] against New York [[John O'Connor (cardinal)|Cardinal O'Connor]]'s position on AIDS and [[contraception]]. In the video, Ray Navarro, an ACT UP/DIVA TV activist,<ref name="Leap Into the Void">A Day Without an Artist: Ray Navarro [http://imoralist.blogspot.com/2008/12/day-without-artist-ray-navarro.html Leap Into the Void]</ref> serves as the narrator, dressed up as [[Jesus Christ|Jesus]]. The documentary aims to show mass media bias as it juxtaposes original protest footage with those images shown on the nightly news.

Although less as a "collective" after 1990, DIVA TV continued documenting (over 700 camera hours) the direct actions of ACT UP, activists, and the community responses to HIV/AIDS, producing over 160 video programs for public access television channels - as the weekly series "AIDS Community Television" from 1991 to 1996<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.actupny.org/divatv|title=DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists)|work=actupny.org|access-date=19 February 2017}}</ref> and from 1994 to 96 the weekly call-in public access series "ACT UP Live"; film festival screenings; and continuing on-line documentation and streaming internet webcasts. The video activism of DIVA TV ultimately switched media in 1997 with the establishing and continuing development of the ACT UP (New York) website.   The most recent DIVA TV-genre video program documenting the history and activism of ACT UP (New York) is the feature-length documentary: "Fight Back, Fight AIDS: 15 Years of ACT UP" (2002), screened at the Berlin Film Festival and exhibited worldwide. DIVA TV programs and camera-original videotapes are currently re-mastered, archived and preserved, and publicly accessible in the collection of the "AIDS Video Activist Video Preservation Project" at the New York Public Library.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://digilib.nypl.org/dynaweb/ead/human/mssroyal/|title=AIDS Activist Videotape Collection, 1983-2000: Table of Contents|work=nypl.org|access-date=19 February 2017|archive-date=20 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170220011614/http://digilib.nypl.org/dynaweb/ead/human/mssroyal/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Institutional independence===
ACT UP had an early debate about whether to register the organization as a [[501(c)(3)]] nonprofit in order to allow contributors [[tax exemption]]s. Eventually they decided against it, because as Maria Maggenti said, "they didn't want to have anything to do with the government."<ref name="maggenti1"/> This kind of uncompromising ethos characterized the group in its early stages;{{editorializing|date=August 2021}} eventually it led to a split between those in the group who wanted to remain wholly independent and those who saw opportunities for compromise and progress by "going inside [the institutions and systems they were fighting against]."<ref name="harrington1">Harrington, Mark. Interview with Sarah Schulman and Jim Hubbard. ACTUP Oral History Project. February 16, 2005. MIX: The New York Lesbian & Gay Experimental Film Festival.  December 11, 2005, [http://www.actuporalhistory.org/interviews/images/harrington.pdf Actuporalhistory.org] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210424012157/http://www.actuporalhistory.org/interviews/images/harrington.pdf |date=2021-04-24 }}</ref>