Benefit advertisement, Roxy, 1995

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Title

Benefit advertisement, Roxy, 1995

Description

Roxy was a popular nightclub located in Chelsea, New York City from 1978 until it closed 2007.  The nightclub hosted weekly gay dance nights and held events benefitting AIDS-related charities like New York’s Gay Men’s Health Clinic.  The bar culture was criticized as part of the problem in the spread of HIV, but it also became a part of the solution.  The LGBT community used the bar culture to create a different sense of community—one that could help meet the challenge of AIDS.

 

“I think in the beginning what drove the movement of we gay people taking charge quickly was this sense of we need to protect ourselves.  We need to save ourselves.  We need to do whatever we can to protect our own because of all the political ramification of that, historically all the oppression and all that stuff.  You see, it was a new thing among gay people—the whole Stonewall thing was new.”

Interview with Moises Agosto, National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC), 1995
John-Manuel Andriote Victory Deferred Collection, 1901-2008

Source

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Collection