“Amongst all the sadness around AIDS,” artist and activist Lola Flash states, “there’s so much joy in the community that has held me.”
Revisiting the first two decades of the AIDS crisis often means confronting sorrow and fury. In the early 1990s the epidemic reached a peak, as politicians and leaders of different stripes tried their best to ignore it. Thousands in New York City alone were dying every year. But when the government failed to act, people like Lola Flash found lifelines in their community. In late-night care shifts, underground clubs, kitchen-table meetings, abandoned piers, ballrooms, and impromptu art shows, queer people—especially queer people of color—turned love into resistance. They created new families out of friendships, and among all the progress they made, that is one of the era’s strongest and most joyful legacies. It is that firsthand story that Flash and her friends are here to tell.
This audio tour follows Flash, Aldo Hernandez, Agosto Machado, Idris Mignott, Pamela Sneed, and Thea Quiray Tagle as they revisit the places where their lives, art, and activism came together. Whether you’re listening on New York City streets or tuning in from elsewhere, follow along below to hear about the places and people you may not find in history books, but that shaped a movement nonetheless.
