Interchange: hiv/aids and U.S. History Emerging in the 1980s, acquired immune deficiency syndrome... more Interchange: hiv/aids and U.S. History Emerging in the 1980s, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (aids) ravaged minori-tized communities across the country and in the process transformed the United States. In this " Interchange, " the writers focus primarily on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq) communities and communities of color, groups that make up the majority of people living with human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) in the United States, as a way to explore social, cultural, and political battles over recognizing the significance of aids and for access to treatment and prevention. The epidemic, and those affected by it, transformed public discussion of sexuality and race, poverty, and public health. But despite those radical changes, hiv/aids has rarely been included in the history of the post-1960s era. Working with Jennifer Brier, the JAH brought together nine scholars to discuss how the history of hiv/aids intersects with the history of the United States. Participants engaged in a far-ranging conversation that interweaves histories of sexuality, race, gender, medicine, social activism, and media, and explores how hiv/aids has been addressed, and ignored, in historical scholarship of the late twentieth century. As the first feature-length piece dedicated to the history of hiv/aids published by the Journal, this " Interchange " is able to delve deeply into many critical aspects of the history of hiv/aids but misses many others. The JAH and all the contributors hope this piece sparks and sustains new historical research across the many axes of the field of U.S. history. The JAH is indebted to all of the participants for sharing their thoughts on this subject.
The outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia-like disease in the Philadelphia region in the summer of 1... more The outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia-like disease in the Philadelphia region in the summer of 1976 puzzled doctors and public health officials. Many of the sick had attended an American Legion convention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, giving the new illness the name “Legionnaires’ disease.” Months later, doctors discovered that bacteria in the hotel’s air conditioning system had caused the outbreak. By then, thirty-four of the 221 people who fell ill had died, and the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel had closed its doors for lack of business.
Comments on a presentation by Dr. Jennifer Brier for the symposium An Interdisciplinary History o... more Comments on a presentation by Dr. Jennifer Brier for the symposium An Interdisciplinary History of the Struggle Against HIV/AIDS at the University of Utah.
This paper describes the efforts of black gay intellectuals and activists to curb the spread of A... more This paper describes the efforts of black gay intellectuals and activists to curb the spread of AIDS through consciousness-raising among African American men. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the New York City writer’s collective Other Countries and the social and political advocacy group Gay Men of African Descent challenged homophobia in black communities and racism among gay whites by publicizing black gay identity. They argued that the invisibility of same-sex desire among African American men led them to engage in behaviors that put them at risk for contracting HIV. Other Countries turned out anthologies that included work by intellectuals such as Essex Hemphill and Marlon Riggs, while Gay Men of African Descent produced an HIV prevention public service announcement that showcased same-sex intimacy among black men specifically to counteract the absence of representations of gay men of color from the mainstream media. Furthermore, these artists and activists looked to African spiritual tradition to affirm the place of same-sex desire within contemporary African American life, and to the work of women of color writers to understand and challenge their own marginalization as both racial and sexual minorities. Altogether, they articulated a radical sense of black gayness distinct from both mainstream white gay men and the straight black community, looking beyond more conventional HIV prevention measures such as condom distribution and safer sex education to issues of identity and consciousness as a means to stem the rising tide of the AIDS epidemic.
Short presentation on the connections between ACT UP Philadelphia's local AIDS activism and globa... more Short presentation on the connections between ACT UP Philadelphia's local AIDS activism and global HIV/AIDS treatment efforts during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Delivered as part of a roundtable discussion organized by the Committee on LGBT History of the American Historical Association.
Paper delivered at the University of Michigan history department's graduate conference. This pape... more Paper delivered at the University of Michigan history department's graduate conference. This paper describes the tensions between established, white gay AIDS service providers and African American AIDS activists as the extent of the AIDS epidemic among the city's communities of color became clear during the middle of the 1980s, leading to the establishment of Blacks Educating Blacks About Sexual Health Issues (BEBASHI), the nation's first black AIDS service organization.
Paper delivered at the Organization of American Historians annual meeting as part of a panel on H... more Paper delivered at the Organization of American Historians annual meeting as part of a panel on HIV/AIDS in communities of color in the United States. This paper describes the history of ACT UP Philadelphia as the group's membership shifted during the middle of the 1990s from one of predominantly gay white men to one with a majority of people of color—most of them HIV-positive African Americans from the city's low-income neighborhoods.
Presentation delivered at Radically Gay: The Life & Visionary Legacy of Harry Hay as part of a pa... more Presentation delivered at Radically Gay: The Life & Visionary Legacy of Harry Hay as part of a panel titled "HIV/AIDS Politics Past and Present." This presentation looks closely at Party, a thirty-minute HIV education film produced by the New York group Gay Men of African Descent, to tease out larger themes that run through black gay men's AIDS activism.
This paper describes the grassroots efforts of the Nation of Islam to win an NIH-backed clinical ... more This paper describes the grassroots efforts of the Nation of Islam to win an NIH-backed clinical trial for Kemron, and AIDS drug from Kenya. The Nation's spokesmen situated Kemron as a holistic, Afrocentric AIDS remedy that would be effective among African Americans because of its purported African origins. However, their claims about Kemron as a naturopathic African AIDS cure obscured the drug's origins in advanced biotechnology and globalized pharmaceutical research and production.
This presentation begins to explore Arthur Ashe's post-tennis career through the lens of "athleti... more This presentation begins to explore Arthur Ashe's post-tennis career through the lens of "athletic respectability," examining how he fashioned himself as an athletic race man invested in cultivating young race men and women in a post-Civil Rights, post-Black Power America.
Dispatch from AHA 2015 panel that was part of the Committee on LGBT History's conference-within-a... more Dispatch from AHA 2015 panel that was part of the Committee on LGBT History's conference-within-a-conference on "Promiscuous Interdisciplinarity."
Interchange: hiv/aids and U.S. History Emerging in the 1980s, acquired immune deficiency syndrome... more Interchange: hiv/aids and U.S. History Emerging in the 1980s, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (aids) ravaged minori-tized communities across the country and in the process transformed the United States. In this " Interchange, " the writers focus primarily on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (lgbtq) communities and communities of color, groups that make up the majority of people living with human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) in the United States, as a way to explore social, cultural, and political battles over recognizing the significance of aids and for access to treatment and prevention. The epidemic, and those affected by it, transformed public discussion of sexuality and race, poverty, and public health. But despite those radical changes, hiv/aids has rarely been included in the history of the post-1960s era. Working with Jennifer Brier, the JAH brought together nine scholars to discuss how the history of hiv/aids intersects with the history of the United States. Participants engaged in a far-ranging conversation that interweaves histories of sexuality, race, gender, medicine, social activism, and media, and explores how hiv/aids has been addressed, and ignored, in historical scholarship of the late twentieth century. As the first feature-length piece dedicated to the history of hiv/aids published by the Journal, this " Interchange " is able to delve deeply into many critical aspects of the history of hiv/aids but misses many others. The JAH and all the contributors hope this piece sparks and sustains new historical research across the many axes of the field of U.S. history. The JAH is indebted to all of the participants for sharing their thoughts on this subject.
The outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia-like disease in the Philadelphia region in the summer of 1... more The outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia-like disease in the Philadelphia region in the summer of 1976 puzzled doctors and public health officials. Many of the sick had attended an American Legion convention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, giving the new illness the name “Legionnaires’ disease.” Months later, doctors discovered that bacteria in the hotel’s air conditioning system had caused the outbreak. By then, thirty-four of the 221 people who fell ill had died, and the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel had closed its doors for lack of business.
Comments on a presentation by Dr. Jennifer Brier for the symposium An Interdisciplinary History o... more Comments on a presentation by Dr. Jennifer Brier for the symposium An Interdisciplinary History of the Struggle Against HIV/AIDS at the University of Utah.
This paper describes the efforts of black gay intellectuals and activists to curb the spread of A... more This paper describes the efforts of black gay intellectuals and activists to curb the spread of AIDS through consciousness-raising among African American men. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the New York City writer’s collective Other Countries and the social and political advocacy group Gay Men of African Descent challenged homophobia in black communities and racism among gay whites by publicizing black gay identity. They argued that the invisibility of same-sex desire among African American men led them to engage in behaviors that put them at risk for contracting HIV. Other Countries turned out anthologies that included work by intellectuals such as Essex Hemphill and Marlon Riggs, while Gay Men of African Descent produced an HIV prevention public service announcement that showcased same-sex intimacy among black men specifically to counteract the absence of representations of gay men of color from the mainstream media. Furthermore, these artists and activists looked to African spiritual tradition to affirm the place of same-sex desire within contemporary African American life, and to the work of women of color writers to understand and challenge their own marginalization as both racial and sexual minorities. Altogether, they articulated a radical sense of black gayness distinct from both mainstream white gay men and the straight black community, looking beyond more conventional HIV prevention measures such as condom distribution and safer sex education to issues of identity and consciousness as a means to stem the rising tide of the AIDS epidemic.
Short presentation on the connections between ACT UP Philadelphia's local AIDS activism and globa... more Short presentation on the connections between ACT UP Philadelphia's local AIDS activism and global HIV/AIDS treatment efforts during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Delivered as part of a roundtable discussion organized by the Committee on LGBT History of the American Historical Association.
Paper delivered at the University of Michigan history department's graduate conference. This pape... more Paper delivered at the University of Michigan history department's graduate conference. This paper describes the tensions between established, white gay AIDS service providers and African American AIDS activists as the extent of the AIDS epidemic among the city's communities of color became clear during the middle of the 1980s, leading to the establishment of Blacks Educating Blacks About Sexual Health Issues (BEBASHI), the nation's first black AIDS service organization.
Paper delivered at the Organization of American Historians annual meeting as part of a panel on H... more Paper delivered at the Organization of American Historians annual meeting as part of a panel on HIV/AIDS in communities of color in the United States. This paper describes the history of ACT UP Philadelphia as the group's membership shifted during the middle of the 1990s from one of predominantly gay white men to one with a majority of people of color—most of them HIV-positive African Americans from the city's low-income neighborhoods.
Presentation delivered at Radically Gay: The Life & Visionary Legacy of Harry Hay as part of a pa... more Presentation delivered at Radically Gay: The Life & Visionary Legacy of Harry Hay as part of a panel titled "HIV/AIDS Politics Past and Present." This presentation looks closely at Party, a thirty-minute HIV education film produced by the New York group Gay Men of African Descent, to tease out larger themes that run through black gay men's AIDS activism.
This paper describes the grassroots efforts of the Nation of Islam to win an NIH-backed clinical ... more This paper describes the grassroots efforts of the Nation of Islam to win an NIH-backed clinical trial for Kemron, and AIDS drug from Kenya. The Nation's spokesmen situated Kemron as a holistic, Afrocentric AIDS remedy that would be effective among African Americans because of its purported African origins. However, their claims about Kemron as a naturopathic African AIDS cure obscured the drug's origins in advanced biotechnology and globalized pharmaceutical research and production.
This presentation begins to explore Arthur Ashe's post-tennis career through the lens of "athleti... more This presentation begins to explore Arthur Ashe's post-tennis career through the lens of "athletic respectability," examining how he fashioned himself as an athletic race man invested in cultivating young race men and women in a post-Civil Rights, post-Black Power America.
Dispatch from AHA 2015 panel that was part of the Committee on LGBT History's conference-within-a... more Dispatch from AHA 2015 panel that was part of the Committee on LGBT History's conference-within-a-conference on "Promiscuous Interdisciplinarity."
Weekly blog prompts for a hybrid version of The Roaring Twenties and Great Depression. Prompts ar... more Weekly blog prompts for a hybrid version of The Roaring Twenties and Great Depression. Prompts are geared to weekly course readings, as well as to the overall goal of introducing history majors to research and analysis of digital sources.
Upper-level course in United States history during the 1920s and '30s, with particular attention ... more Upper-level course in United States history during the 1920s and '30s, with particular attention to issues of race, gender, and sexuality.
Worksheet for structured primary source analysis based on Patrick Rael's "How to Read a Primary S... more Worksheet for structured primary source analysis based on Patrick Rael's "How to Read a Primary Source" (http://www.bowdoin.edu/writing-guides/primaries.pdf)
This assignment is designed to help students visualize the connections among key actors, movement... more This assignment is designed to help students visualize the connections among key actors, movements, and phenomena in the United States during the 1960s. View examples of this assignment here: blogs.stockton.edu/hist2123/student-work
This lesson introduces students to basic text analysis methods using Voyant and the WPA slave nar... more This lesson introduces students to basic text analysis methods using Voyant and the WPA slave narratives. The lesson also addresses issues of power and representation in primary sources, as students consider how to deal with the use of dialect in the narratives as they prepare a corpus for large-scale analysis.
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