Fight AIDS!: How Activism, Art, and Protest Changed the Course of a Deadly Epidemic and Reshaped a Nation
by Michael G. Long
High School    Norton    288 pp.
6/25    9781324053538    $19.99

In the early 1980s—following a time of political galvanization in the 1960s around sexual liberation and efforts to destigmatize gay sexual health—gay men began, mysteriously, to get sick. At first it was a few people at a time. But once the numbers reached a critical mass and friends and lovers began dying en masse, the gay community marshaled its resources to protest, to advocate, and to demand humane treatment in the face of government indifference. This book tells the story of the protest movement over the next several decades, until combination therapy finally arrived and meant that AIDS was no longer a death sentence. Long introduces readers to a panoply of activists; some make brief cameos while others play major roles in the story. They rarely agree on the right approach, but all of them demand to be heard. Numerous photographs and artifacts (posters, pamphlets, and artwork) are reproduced in black and white throughout, and source notes and an index are appended. Readers may also be interested in Viral (rev. 5/19) by Ann Bausum, which covers the same subject, and her book Stonewall (rev. 7/15), whose topic is briefly covered in the first chapter of this one.

From the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.