Season 7 Ep 5: “Everyone could be their own book.” Featuring Nicole Pascarelli O’Brien on Preserving AIDS Action Boston

World AIDS Day has been observed annually on December 1st since 1988. This year, 2025, is the first time since 1988 that the United States government has not honored World AIDS Day. 

We took an opportunity, however, to commemorate World AIDS Day by interviewing Nicole Pascarelli O’Brien about her deep connection to the people involved in the early days of the AIDS Action Committee in Boston, and her efforts to preserve their stories.

At the end of this episode, you will hear a few voices from Nicole’s oral history archive: Larry Kessler, Linette Liebling, and Mary Clark.

History UnErased is putting LGBTQ history in its rightful place — the classroom. UnErased.org

Transcript

Deb Fowler: Hello, and welcome to UnErasing LGBTQ History and Identities — A Podcast. I’m Deb Fowler, co-founder of History UnErased. 

World AIDS Day has been observed annually on December 1st since 1988. It was the first-ever global health day established by the World Health Organization. Since its inception, World AIDS Day has been commemorated by governments, international organizations, healthcare institutions, community groups, and individuals through candlelight vigils, educational events, testing campaigns, and more to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, commemorate those who died, and show support for people living with the disease. The iconic red ribbon serves as the universal symbol of solidarity with those affected. 

This year, 2025, is the first time since 1988 that the United States government has not honored World AIDS Day. 

We took an opportunity, however, to commemorate World AIDS Day by interviewing Nicole Pascarelli O’Brien about her deep connection to the AIDS Action Committee in Boston and her efforts to preserve the lives and stories of people who responded to the HIV/AIDS crisis. 

And stay tuned to the end because you will hear a few voices from Nicole’s oral history archive at the end of this episode.

Take it away, Kathleen! 

Kathleen:  All right. Hi Nicole. Thank you so much for joining us.

Nicole: Thank you for having me.

Kathleen: To begin, could you tell us a little bit about how the AIDS Action Committee came into being?

Nicole: My experience comes from the research that I've done about AIDS Action, so kind of starting backwards, I guess. I was always one of those kids that liked to watch the news and read the newspapers. And in middle school, I distinctly remembered a story about Ryan White and he was the boy in Indiana who, he was a hemophiliac, contracted the AIDS virus, and his school wouldn't allow him to go to school. And I was in probably middle school and I didn't understand not being allowed to go to school and what was going on and why his house was being shot at or people were being so cruel. So that was kind of my first introduction to what exactly is AIDS in the AIDS epidemic was just people were being very unkind and someone is sick and people are being mean. And for me, that was just kind of baseline. I didn't understand. I don't think “sexually transmitted disease” or “intravenous drug users” or anything like that, was just, this was what was in the news. 

And then as I get into the nineties, and I should probably say I'm 46, so I was born in 79, so this is my whole kind of life in general. I guess the news started reporting on people who were dying or stories that were coming out. So we had the Arthur Ash story and Robert Reed, the Brady dad and Howard Ashman who did the music for Beauty and the Beast, and then Magic Johnson's announcement came out. And so these were kind of the stories I was hearing and I wasn't quite understanding. I don't think what exactly this epidemic was, but it was something that was very prevalent. And then I found out a friend's uncle was sick and had passed away. So I started doing a little bit more research.

And again, kind of that base understanding of it doesn't really matter what the disease is, people are being awful and treating groups of people really badly, and that doesn't seem right. It's just kind of a base. So, when I was going into high school in, it was the fall of 93, one of the statistics that came out at that time was that the largest fastest fastest-growing population of New HIV cases was women aged 25 to 44. And largely, they had contracted HIV during their college years. And I was going to an all girls Catholic high school, and for whatever reason, as a freshman in high school, I went to the principal and said, “This is this big issue and this is something that I've been reading a lot about, and I think we should do some sort of a day”. So I proposed World AIDS Day and we are actually recording this on World AIDS Day. So this is kind of a very full circle kind of day. 

So, I put together with a group of freshmen in high school this educational day, and it was again, very focused around compassion and understanding and that however people contracted aids, there was a need for information and education and understanding and compassion. And that continued when I was, all through when I was in high school. And when I talked to some of the organizations about coming and speaking, because in the early nineties in Boston, we had a number of organizations. There was one organization that I called the Boston Living Center, and they said, oh, we don't have a speaker's bureau. We are a community center for people living with HIV and aids, and we do dinners and we do holistic therapies and art classes, but here's some names. And I was like, oh, that's kind of a really cool place.

So when I needed a service project for high school, I was like, oh, that sounded like a really cool place to volunteer. So I started volunteering there in 96, so would've been my senior year, and I'm still in touch with people from there. Just the most incredible place, and I have incredible stories from there. But what ended up happening, fast forward 20 years, the last staff person from when I volunteered was retiring, and I was invited to the retirement party, and I looked around the room at these amazing people and I was like, oh, I can't wait to tell my kids these stories of these people. And I couldn't find them. I couldn't find a book or articles or anything like that. So I started talking to a couple of people after the party and just said, I want to record some of these stories.

I don't know what it will be. I still don't know what it'll be. But they were important stories, and they were really all centered around AIDS Action committee. So while I didn't have direct experience with the AIDS Action committee, it was the largest AIDS service provider in Boston, and it's executive director, Larry Kessler, had been there for over 20 years, so longest serving executive director. He had retired, but then came out of retirement to actually help out at the Living Center as their director. So he was at that party and I went over to him at the retirement party and said, “You don't know me, but I feel like you have some cool stories that I would love to hear. Can I go watch a coffee with you and talk to you?” And he was about to have surgery and there was some complications. So during his recovery time, I started talking to all these other people who all had these stories about Larry, about AIDS Action committee, and really kind of started putting together the pieces of why it was such a unique story and such a big part of Boston history that I really feel like was kind of lost.

So that's kind of my connection to AIDS Action, these amazing stories that I've had the opportunity to hear from people who worked there; people who were associated with there, other service providers, doctors, nurses. I think I've talked to about 50 people, I could probably talk to another hundred, but really just incredible stories. So it's a little bit of a long answer for you.Kathleen: That is an amazing connection. It's so fascinating to hear about kind of the spark that inspired this process. And as I listened to you talk, I'm thinking back on my own youth being roughly in the same age bracket. Same as you, I remember hearing all these stories on the news and all of these things that I didn't totally understand, but knew that it was something important and just how that kind of shaped you and shaped the person you've become and all of the things you've done. What would you say has stayed with you from hearing all of these many stories? Or, maybe was there a topic that surfaced frequently in your interviews?

Nicole: So I think something that really stayed with me was how many people would say, “I don't really think I have anything to contribute to what you're doing.” And then I would simply say something, “Tell me what it was like to work there. Tell me what it was like to volunteer there.” All of a sudden, an hour has passed, we've gone through a box of tissues, people were remembering things in real time. It made it, the challenge for me was always I feel like I'm traumatizing people. There's a little bit of PTSD because it was such an intense time and everyone that I talked to would talk about that, the intensity of trying to get information, trying to help people in real time, especially at AIDS Action, literally building the organization as you were going and trying to serve people while educating other people, while trying to raise money. So it was this intensity, and people will talk about it being the most difficult time and how many funerals they went to and how many lives were lost, but will also say, “I would do it again in a second,” and I still talk to this coworker, or I still remember this person. And I think that's kind of what I got out of so much of this is everyone has such a unique story. Every person I talk to could be their own book or their own documentary. And so many times, just as people started talking, they were in real time remembering something and like, “oh, and I forgot about this and this other thing.” And there were a couple of times where I talked to people and they have adult children now who are in their twenties or whatever, and their children don't even know the stories of what their parents did 30 years ago. And that's something I also feel like there's been a few people who have passed away since I started this, and just how many stories do we not know, and how many stories were lost? So I think that the storytelling part of it has been the piece that has really resonated with me, like whose story gets told and who remembers.

Kathleen: Absolutely. And it raises a question I think for me about how you and the people that you were interviewing, whether they were staff or volunteers, community members, how they really coped with a lot of loss during this whole period. As you were conducting these interviews, I'm sure you heard a lot of stories about how people within the organization, whether it's staff or volunteers or community members or even you, how you dealt with this idea of loss, which was a big part of the work.

Nicole: I think for a lot of people, there's a lot of repression, you know, that happened. I remember talking to Larry Kessler and him telling me how many funerals, and just, they all start blending together and wanting to be present and wanting to be there for loved ones and just it all, just kind of being a blur. And Mary Clark is someone, I know we have some audio from her. She tells this amazing story about keeping everyone's names. And there are other folks who were part of the NAMES project and the quilt panels. And so, I think everyone had their different way of coping. And I think it also, whether it's on World AIDS Day or whether there are different anniversaries, I think that come up that just to kind of mark the day for folks, and I think every year in June, Pride Month, we talk about history; It's a piece of that history and it's something that kind of shaped the LGBTQ community in addition to other communities. But I think the remembering is good and the storytelling, and I think that was something that the NAMES Project did a great job of having those quilt panels and having a way for people to take their grief. Because the other challenging thing about this was that sometimes, and, you know, I definitely heard these stories, people had kind of two lives. So when someone passed away, they had their family origin who saw them in one way and had a funeral and their community who maybe a partner wasn't recognized, maybe friends weren't recognized, maybe it was not acknowledged they were gay or they died of AIDS. So the duality of that as well, I think was definitely a challenge for that time. And you'll hear stories from people who will say, I remember going to this funeral and no one talked to us. I remember going to this funeral and someone making a comment. 

I remember hearing a story in the early eighties. There was only one funeral home that would take bodies of people who had died of AIDS because they didn't know anything like contamination or anything like that. So, I think there's a lot of grief and there's a lot of unprocessed grief, probably, for folks. And there's a lot of, it was interesting talking particularly to gay men who are in their sixties and seventies now who will talk about just not having a community, that significant part of their community is lost and it's still something that resonates with them today.

Kathleen: Can you talk a little bit about what you were hearing in interviews in terms of the needs of the community? What were some of the many different needs I think people were trying to meet within the community?

Nicole: Yeah, so as far as meeting needs, AIDS Action to me is just such an amazing story. And Larry Kessler is just such an amazing person for what he built. So the story of AIDS Action is, when people talk about the AIDS epidemic, they often look at July, 1981, that New York Times article that looks at the morbidity and mortality study saying, “41 gay men have this mysterious cancer”. So people look at that 1981 date. In the fall of 1982, Fenway Community Health Center in Boston had their first forums around what is happening. And New York tends to be a little ahead of Boston, so stuff's going on in New York, it's going to happen in Boston. So they held these forums at that time, by that December, I think there were only like 13 cases or something in Massachusetts. It was a small number, but they knew something was going to happen.

So Fenway Community Health Center, which largely served the LGBTQ population, kind of took the lead on let's educate people, and they formed a subcommittee. And Larry Kessler was on that subcommittee because he was a board member and he named it with some other folks, the AIDS Action Committee, because action was what was necessary. Action was like that keyword, we have to do something. He was actually hired the following year as the first employee, and they started in the basement of Fenway Community Health Center. And Health Centers actually only been around since the seventies, so the fact that this is the early eighties, really young organization and they're taking this on. And Dr. Ken Mayer was there at the time and he diagnosed some of the first cases. He still works at Fenway Community Health Center, the Fenway Health Institute. And he saw that report in 81 and started kind of sounding the alarms around, we need to do something. So that real idea of action was what kind of propelled things in Boston. 

And when you talked to Larry or you talked to folks, I actually got to talk to the first, Larry was first, the second, third, and fourth employees hired by AIDS Action, and it was the hotline, it was the Buddy program and it was education. So it was, we need something up and running that people can call and get some answers. We're going to do our best to educate anonymously through a phone hotline. The Buddy program was people need someone, companionship, help running errands, just someone to talk to, someone to not feel so isolated. And then the education program. So Linette Liebling was actually the fourth employee that was hired by AIDS Action, and she's got some amazing stories, and she was really hired to do a lot of education work. So she was literally the person educating nurses on, you don't need to wear a hazmat suit to go into a room. You can sit on someone's bed. She talked about when I met with her training firefighters and training first responders and just really being on the front lines of education. So the fact that those were kind of the first three big buckets that AIDS Action really was like, we need to go out, we need to educate people, hotline and education. And then also the Buddy program, like what do we need to do for people who are living with HIV and AIDS or was AIDS, just AIDS at the time. And then that expanded, so it became client services and transportation to get to appointments and food services and fundraising and legal services. And Mary Clark actually worked in the legal services department setting up to make sure people had wills and partners were protected. There's so many interesting things that come out of that time period around, there's people that will say marriage equality started in Massachusetts for a reason, and some of the legal work that was done around the AIDS epidemic kind of contributes to that in a way.

So it really expanded, at the height of AIDS action there were over 200 employees, case managers, folks, literally fundraising, AIDS walk, all of those different things that were going on. But really it started with that whole just educating people, being able to anonymously call and ask questions and the Buddy program. And from there it kind of grew and it always kept at the center people - who needs help and what can we do to help people, whatever category they fall in. It largely started as gay men, but obviously that spread pretty quickly into the straight community, folks that were in recovery, There was the time with blood donation; and some of those laws still exist around blood donation from that time period. But the education piece and making sure that people understood how AIDS was transmitted, how it was not transmitted, and making sure, again, compassion stayed at the center of that.

Kathleen: It really sounds like those were very unique contributions that were made here in Boston, right. Those contributions to education, especially education at the forefront, but also legacies in, as you said, things like legal policies or healthcare, you know, all came from, or were centered in, Boston.

Nicole: Yeah, it seemed, and I'm sure other cities have their stories too, but so much of this was new information to me. So Larry told me a story once about being in a clinic with someone and it was unquote AIDS clinic, and they're calling out patients names; and people were like, who gets up and who stands? And so some of the HIPAA laws that we have now around patient confidentiality and not talking about patients in elevators and things like that came from this time period because we want to protect patient privacy and we, it's very simple things. Again, trusts and wills and partnerships and all of those things, but they grew from that need at that time and this very crisis time. And again, I'm sure other cities have their stories, but when you go into an elevator in a hospital, you don't necessarily think of, well, why is that sign there and where did that story come from?

So to hear a different version of it, it's interesting. One of the things that always comes up is ACT UP New York. ACT UP was huge, and they had these “die-ins” and all of those things. And I remember talking to Larry about this and saying what was ACT UP like in Boston? And I'm sure everyone has their stories and every version, but we had a lot of support on the local and state level with funding that other states, cities didn't necessarily have. So the pushback with ACT Up was often with insurance companies. And there was a period where they were, I think it was, I don't want to name companies, but there was a company that was not funding a particular drug and the folks that Act UP were going to stage a “die-in,” and they were trying to get AIDS action to be part of it. And Larry was like, that's not what we do. We are not advocacy. You are advocacy and that is your role and you should do that. And they were really upset because AIDS Action has this big staff and this big outreach. And he was like, no, that's not our role. Our role is like clients and patients. And so he had his staff bring coffee out to the folks from ACT Up because he wanted to show support, but it was very clear that folks had their role in what they were doing. So there was this story about funding Massachusetts funded research and education at the state level before the federal government did. The federal government was a little slow on this one, and there was a doctor and someone from AIDS Action who were both talking on behalf of this funding and they knew what each other was doing so well that they were able to talk about what the other person was doing and why it was important.n And that was something I heard a lot from people talking about Larry Kessler was the collaborations and folks had their places. 

So back to, I volunteered at the Boston Living Center. They were a community center for people living with HIV and AIDS. They had a specific purpose. They did not have a speaker's bureau. You have Community Servings in Boston, which still exists. That creates medically tailored meals for people because wasting syndrome was such a thing. And the Jewish community built this whole organization and it still exists and it serves people with a myriad of different medical complications. So like, there was definitely in Boston this feeling of, or at least the version that I've gotten, of collaborations and not duplicating efforts but really the sum being stronger than the parts. And that's a different kind of leadership than I think we see now. So I think there's some real lessons to that.

Kathleen: Did you get a sense in your interviews for how the organization changed over time?

Nicole: It kept that people-centered focus. It always has. It's back as part of Fenway Community Health Center now, like I said, at its height, it grew to over 200 employees and client services was a big part of that and making sure that folks had whatever it was that they needed, whether it was rides to doctor's appointments or information about medications or the epidemic shifted a bit in the mid nineties. The good drugs came out, right? It's the protease inhibitors. So it went from like people dying to people living and what does it look like to live with a chronic illness? And sometimes there were side effects to that or so it wasn't a death sentence. So the organization had a shift a little and how it was serving people and making sure that people understood taking your medications and having conversations with partners and all of those different things.

I also heard from folks that talked about, you know, people who are social workers who went into this field and just jumped in and what do we do and what can we do? And as it evolved, it became more of a professionalism. So you could take a class on how to be a social worker for someone with HIV and AIDS. And I remember talking to someone who is a professor in social work now, and he's like, we didn't take classes, we just did it. It was just what do we need to do for people? And again, it goes back to that action model of just jump in and whether it's right or wrong, let's figure this out. 

For Larry, he ended up serving on the National Commission under George H.W. Bush, and there was a lot of frustration about what was going on nationally because we could do things faster as a city or as a state. And even George HW Bush did more than writing did, but it still never felt like enough. So there was a lot of frustration with that, and I'm sure, you know, other states felt that as well, but as an organization it was really, Larry was doing that, but there were so many people that were still pushing forward with the education piece, the Buddy program, get into the high schools. The advocacy was the center of what was going on.

Kathleen: So what is a memory from all of these interviews and all of your experiences that might seem small but has really stuck with you all of these years?

Nicole: I think so many times the stories that people would tell that just again, like, I struggle with what this project could be because there's something about the inflection in someone's voice when they're remembering something or the look on their face when they remember something. I remember interviewing someone that was talking about like, oh, I helped with client services. I don't really know what I can offer you. But then started talking about bringing in massage therapists that volunteered their time to neuropathy is a side effect of some of the medications. So, and listening to him tell the story of people who had not been touched by anyone and just what that did for someone to have their hands on someone else and just feel like for a few minutes they were human again. And I remember like, I remember him getting very emotional telling the story and him saying, “I didn't think this would bother me 30 years later.”

So stories like that, I think in just how people would remember someone, whether it was going to a funeral and just feeling like they wanted to honor a person and did their family know them the way we knew them, and they were so young, and so we did these things to commemorate. So I think those are the things that really stuck with me about the stories. 

Some of the big things, obviously with how the organization was founded, there's this great story about the ACLU taking up a case for AIDS Action because they created these really great ads for the T that the T decided were not appropriate and AIDS Action was like, “Nope, we're going to do it.” It was around education and they won. And I think Thet has rules about what they use now, but it was always about pushing the boundaries, not for the sake of pushing the boundaries and just for being out there, but you needed to catch people's attention - and you needed to make sure that education was happening in lots of different ways, and whether it was some really out there T ad or going to Club Cafe and making sure condoms were being passed out or all of those things, they were done coming from a place of education. And let's be bold to make sure that people understand how serious this is.

Kathleen: Was there anything in any of the interviews that really surprised you that you weren't expecting to hear about?

Nicole: I think I kind of had a basic, like, arc of the story. I think for me, because when I was volunteering at the Living Center, it was the mid nineties and it was when the good drugs were coming out and I was seeing what they called the Lazarus Effect, that those stories of how quickly people got sick and passed away and how quickly things turned. You know, I knew it, but I think it's still surprised me to hear one of the reasons that AIDS action in Boston was so successful was Larry was there for 20 years in some of the other AIDS service organizations in other places, they didn't have the institutional memory to continue to build the organization and to continue to grow the organization. And I think that's something kind of almost took for granted. I think there's a lot of stories of women, whether they're lesbian or straight, who had remarkable roles, whether they were social workers or nurses, or in lots of various ways contributed and helped the community that I think have gone unsung for a lot of this story. And it was a very conscious effort that for AIDS Action that Larry be the face and the voice. And every time there was something so that people got used to seeing the same person, but he would be the first to say, “But let me tell you about all the other people behind the scenes.” So I really appreciated when I would say to people, who should I talk to? The number of women, the number of people of color that would come up in those conversations that maybe don't look represented when you look back at newspapers or look back at archives. But they certainly had, like, a huge part of this story.

Kathleen: It's not the first population that you necessarily think of when you're talking about the AIDS epidemic, at least in the early years.

Nicole: Do just a whole book on women, honestly, the amazing women that are not recognized for the work that they did.

Kathleen: Well, thank you so much, Nicole, for joining us. As you mentioned, it is World AIDS Day as we are talking, and so we're really glad that you could be here with us to share a really important part of the story.

Nicole: Thanks. Can I tell you one more story? It's like one of my favorite stories. So this is my own story. When I volunteered at the Boston Living Center, I was serving dinner on Monday nights, so I was like 17. And you would tell people what the choices were for dinner, and then you would go over to the tables and it was very intentional. They were dinner, long dinner tables, and they were actual plates and actual silverware. We weren't using disposable things. It was to feel like actual dinner and you would serve dinner and then there would be announcements about upcoming events, and it was in English and Spanish, and they had an ASL interpreter. And then the volunteers were supposed to go in; you could eat with folks after you served everyone at your table if you chose. And then the volunteers were supposed to clean up and then serve dessert. And this was great, and I understood the routine, and I had my table and there was a person in charge of volunteers. And I started after many weeks having kind of the same regulars. And I'm sure a 17-year-old girl is like, what the heck is going on here? So a lot of folks are asking me about school and my boyfriend and all these things. So one particular night I sat down with the regulars and we started having this conversation and I figure out how to get out of the conversation to go do my cleanup job. And it was bothering me because I'm like, I don't know how to, so I'm just sitting and I'm just listening and I am watching everyone around me clean up. And then I finally finished the conversation and I went over to the woman who was in charge, and I was like, I am so sorry I didn't do my job. And we were talking and I couldn't figure out how to get out of the conversation. And I will never forget her saying, “Your job is not about cleaning up. Your job is to make people feel seen and to listen to their story, whatever that story might be, that particular night, I don't care if you ever clean up again, like that's the most important thing.” And that really stuck with me. And I will tell you, I don't think I ever cleaned up again after I heard that, because it was such an important lesson to just be present and hear stories. And I would think about that and I would think about her every time I would sit down for one of these interviews of like, it's just about listening to what the story is and being present. And, you know, whether it's somebody sharing the hardest part of their day or something they saw on television, it might be the only interaction someone was having that day, and it was so important. S,o that's something that I took from my time there and 30 years later still think

Kathleen: And that is a really beautiful and important lesson, I think, that everyone could be reminded of today, that sometimes we just need to listen and that's important. So thank you so much for sharing these amazing stories with us today.

Nicole: Thank you.

Kathleen: The AIDS Action Committee (or AAC) was founded in Boston in 1983 as one of the first community-based AIDS service organizations in the United States. You can find more information about AAC in this episode’s show notes. As she mentioned earlier, Nicole has interviewed many individuals associated with AAC. We are excited to share a few excerpts from these interviews that highlight the important and wide-ranging work undertaken by those affiliated with AAC. 

First, you will hear  Larry Kessler talking about the posters that prompted the controversy with the “T”, Boston’s public transit system. 

As Nicole shared earlier, Larry Kessler was a pioneering community organizer who co-founded the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts in 1983, and transformed a grassroots response into one of the country's most influential HIV/AIDS service organizations.

Next, you'll hear from Linette Liebling, the fourth person, and first woman, hired by the AIDS Action Committee in 1984 having just finished her masters in public health. Her role was education. She went on to work for the department of public health and was the AIDS point person for former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn.

Finally, you’ll hear from Mary Clark, who started as a volunteer for AIDS Action when she moved to Boston, helping out with the Buddy Program and legal services; putting her law degree to use helping people with wills and planning. She was hired in 1993 as the Associate Director of Financial and Legal services for the AIDS Action Committee.

Larry Kessler: Oh, and at that point, somebody came in off the street, “I've got an idea, you guys interested?” Tom said, “Sure.” And it was an ad for the Ts, and he had already done all the specs. He knew what the sizes were and everything. And I think there were 14, 12 or 14 different ads. And we liked them instantly. He said, “Okay, let's do it.” So we called the T and said, “We've got 14 billboards we want to put up.” And we had the money at that point. So we put them up and the week that they went up, and it was the other controversy, so the T said, “We're going to have to take them down because we're getting too many calls.” We said, “We're not taking 'em down. We have a contract with you guys. They've only been up a week. We still have three or four more weeks to go. No, no, no, no.” And so I said, “No, you're not taking them down!” 

And then I got a lawyer or somebody to call the T. He said, “You can't break the contract.” And at that point, a museum in New York had already asked for one, the Whitney in New York - it became part of their collection, the sixties or seventies, whatever, the seventies. But they loved it. And the one that they chose was a condom, and it was two talking bubbles, something like that. And it said, ‘Just tell'em you don't think, that you don't know if it will fit”. Something like that. And they all double entendre, and they were all very good, but that was the one that got into the Whitney. But some others that he said, “No, no, no, we can't have it.” “Well, if to take them down, we're going to sue you.” So ACLU to look it up for us. And we went to court. And the court was amazing because they decided that they weren't obscene, that they were not that controversial, but they were helpful in the sense that it was getting people talk about AIDS, and not much out there was doing that.

Linette Liebling: So when I went to the city, I had this mission of I wanted to open up a home for children with AIDS, children who were abandoned, because in those days, a gay couple wouldn't be considered foster parents; so those were the most likely people to adopt an HIV or a child with AIDS. And so I was able to, with the support of the city, we didn't do a freestanding house, they gave me an old abandoned ward at the old Boston City and we put that into a home for kids with AIDS. So that was tremendous support, and that was the first in the world that I was able to set up this home for kids with AIDS. 

Mary Clark: I remember in the early days, we would get a list of the clients who had died each week, on Friday, because they often worked with a number of different people in the agency. So to make sure that everyone knew that someone they had worked with had passed, we would get this list. And I think they were very long lists in the beginning. As medications started working better, later in the nineties, the lists became smaller. But when I left the agency, I had saved all of my lists of clients. And I think I had a stack of about an inch or an inch and a half of paper of all of the lists. And it was incredibly sobering, but it was also something that kept you really committed to doing the work.

Deb Fowler: Kathleen Barker is History UnErased’s Program Director and podcast host, and is a library and information specialist and public historian with over 20 years of experience as a museum and library educator. 

This podcast is funded by the New York City Council. It was developed by History UnErased and produced and edited by Dinah Mack, our Youth Equity Program Director and podcaster. 

And a very special thanks to Nicole Pascarelli O’Brien for speaking with us, and especially for preserving these vital stories.

Our theme music is “1986” by BrothaD via Tribe of Noise. Please rate this podcast and share! I’m Deb Fowler. Thanks for listening. 

And visit UnErased.org to learn how we are putting LGBTQ history in its rightful place - the classroom.

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The AIDS Action Committee (AAC) was founded in Boston in 1983 as one of the first community-based AIDS service organizations in the United States. Emerging during the earliest years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the organization was created by a coalition of concerned citizens, healthcare providers, and activists who recognized the urgent need for a coordinated response to a disease that was devastating communities, particularly gay men, but also affecting injection drug users, hemophiliacs, and other vulnerable populations. AAC provided critical direct services, including case management, housing assistance, legal advocacy, and emotional support to people living with HIV/AIDS. People with AIDS often found themselves abandoned by family, fired from jobs, and denied adequate medical care due to fear and misinformation. AAC responded with action and filled critical gaps by advocating for patients' rights, educating the public and healthcare workers about transmission and prevention, distributing safer sex materials, and embracing those affected by the disease with companionship and support for day-to-day living needs. The organization also played a vital role in pushing for increased research funding and compassionate public health policies during an era when government response was often inadequate.