After a decade that included sugary music, disco dancing, the end of the Vietnam War, casual drug use, and the burgeoning women’s and gay-rights movements, the 1970s ended with a thud—the ominous election of a former actor to be the president of the United States. Ronald Reagan’s administration was marked by arrogance and ignorance, denial and destruction. His refusal for many years to even say the word “AIDS,” and his inaction in the early years of the crisis, can be morally linked to the deaths of tens of thousands, if not millions.
The impact of AIDS can never be fully measured. It changed the world, and it continues to kill. While the crisis in the U.S. changed with new medications introduced in the mid 1990s, people still die of complications of the disease, from Chicago to New York, China to South Africa. Thirty years into the epidemic, there is still no vaccine, still no cure.
The start date of the AIDS crisis is debatable, especially in hindsight, because blood samples tested later show it could have been with us for decades. But most people believe the first indication of the plague to come occurred in 1981 in the U.S. Therefore, this summer marks 30 years since the early deaths from what would later become known as AIDS.
For the next nine months, Windy City Times will take an unprecedented look back at the first 30 years of AIDS. Starting with this issue, and through December 2011, we will have hundreds of articles, photos, and essays about the AIDS epidemic, from profiles of people we lost, to stories about groups that responded, to the science and medical issues, and the current statistics and impact of AIDS. While we will have a strong focus on the Chicago region, we will also look at AIDS beyond our city, especially with national leaders in politics, culture, science, medicine, and more.
We are partnering with the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and other local AIDS agencies on this project, along with our team of amazing writers and photographers. We will dig deep into the archives of Windy City Times, Outlines, Nightlines, Blacklines, En La Vida, GayLife and more to show just how widespread the impact was. While AIDS is not a “gay” disease, it devastated the gay community, and caused the mainstream to delay a comprehensive plan to stop the epidemic before it took hold. Our archives will show just how political those early years were, from ACT UP in the streets, to lobbyists in Springfield in D.C. fighting off horrible AIDS legislation.
We invite our readers to suggest stories, people to profile, or to submit your own essays about AIDS. You can send questions to editor@windycitytimes.com, with AIDS @ 30 in the memo line. At the end of the series, we hope to collect the materials into a book.
— Tracy Baim, Publisher, Windy City Times