ACT UP was trying to explain to Americans that AIDS could affect

In the twilight of the twentieth century, when fear walked hand in hand with ignorance, Alexander Chee recalled the cry of a people who refused to be silent: “ACT UP was trying to explain to Americans that AIDS could affect all of us: that health care that ended once your disease was expensive could affect more than gay men with HIV or AIDS. We were trying to tell them about the future—a future they didn’t yet see and would be forced to accept if they failed to act.” These words are both a remembrance and a prophecy, spoken from the heart of struggle. They are a torch handed down to us, glowing still with the fire of those who loved life too much to let the world remain blind to suffering.

To understand this saying, one must see that ACT UP, born from anguish and courage, was more than an organization—it was a movement of defiance and compassion. In an age when death came swiftly and stigma more swiftly still, its members rose not as politicians or saints, but as ordinary souls unwilling to watch their friends die in silence. They fought not only for medicine, but for justice, not only for survival, but for recognition. Chee’s reflection reminds us that what they saw—what so few dared to see—was that the sickness of neglect spreads faster than any virus, and that a nation indifferent to the suffering of one group endangers all.

There is an old story from Athens, when the plague struck and the city was divided by fear. Some fled from the sick, others barred their doors. But one physician, Hippocrates, walked among the dying, tending both rich and poor. When his students questioned why he risked himself, he said, “Because the health of one is bound to the health of all. If I abandon one, I abandon the city.” The truth he spoke then is the same truth ACT UP cried centuries later: that compassion is the only cure that heals a nation. When health care becomes a privilege, when empathy is rationed, the disease that follows is moral decay.

Chee’s words cut deeper still. He warns that indifference to others’ suffering is not only cruelty—it is prophecy. “We were trying to tell them about the future,” he says. Indeed, the warning was not only about AIDS, but about every system that deems some lives worth saving and others expendable. And so it has come to pass: the cost of care rising like a tide that drowns the weak first and then the strong, the illnesses of despair spreading through those who once thought themselves safe. The future they refused to see has become the present we inhabit.

But from this warning arises hope. For if injustice is woven by the choices of men, it can also be unwoven by their courage and unity. The heroes of ACT UP showed the way—not through hate, but through relentless truth. They chained themselves to government buildings, stormed pharmaceutical companies, and demanded to be heard. They forced the world to see that silence equals death, and that to fight for another’s life is to defend one’s own humanity. This is the ancient rhythm of justice: each generation must awaken again to the pain of others, lest compassion fade into memory.

Take this lesson, then, as one carved into the tablets of time: apathy is the enemy of the future. Do not turn your eyes away from the suffering of the stranger, for their illness may one day be your own. Do not let health be a matter of wealth, nor life a privilege bought by the fortunate. True civilization begins when the strong protect the weak—not out of pity, but out of wisdom. For a house divided by indifference cannot stand; it rots from within until even its highest towers crumble.

Therefore, live as those ancient healers lived—awake, defiant, and compassionate. Speak when silence is demanded. Give when greed commands you to hoard. See in every face a reflection of your own fragile life. For this is the meaning of Chee’s words: that to care is to survive, and to refuse care is to perish, body and soul. Let the spirit of ACT UP burn within you—not merely as history, but as living flame. Stand for justice while breath still fills your lungs, and teach others to do the same. Only then can the future, once feared, be transformed into hope.