A resource for reliable information about significant people, places, events, and things in Minnesota history.
Organized on a grassroots level within the communities most affected by the virus, MAP became a model for successful community responses to public health crises. Its activities led directly and indirectly to a huge expansion of services and organizations serving HIV-positive people and people with AIDS in Minnesota and beyond. In , mere months after the initial appearance of AIDS in New York, the outspoken gay activist Bruce Brockway became the first Minnesotan to be diagnosed with the disease.
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With their friends and lovers becoming sick and dying suddenly, and faced with stigma and public hysteria, they cared for their loved ones themselves. In its early years, MAP was a ragtag effort, staffed entirely by volunteers and driven by their passion. It drew strength from the militancy of the gay liberation movement of the s and a belief in community support in the face of a frightening and mysterious epidemic. In addition, the group was on the forefront of HIV prevention, giving seminars on safe-sex practices and devising an array of creative methods to spread the message far and wide.
Things changed drastically for MAP in , when it began to get large grants from state and county health departments, enabling it to move into an official space, hire its first staff, and broaden its work. Faced with a perplexing, terrifying illness ravaging an already small, marginalized community, the founders, volunteers, and staff of the Minnesota AIDS Project came up with a bold grassroots response, using compassion, mutual support, and the power of education, agitation, and insurrection to fight for themselves and their loved ones.
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JustUs Health. The narrators discuss the reasons for their actions, the effect the epidemic has had on their faith, their commitments to other issues, and their image of the United States.
