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a poster in orange and purple tones with a circular mandala design and a group of people marching
Gay Liberation Front poster
a painting depicting a battle scene with Native American fighters and horses of several different colors
Muslin painting by an unknown Lakota artist
A black poster with a pink triangle and in bold white text it reads Silence = Death
© ACT-UP
Silence = Death Project
“Silence = Death” poster

1987
ACT UP New York Records, Manuscripts and Archives Division

“Silence = Death” poster

A consciousness-raising group of gay men affected by the AIDS crisis began meeting in New York City in 1986, among them Avram Finkelstein, Chris Lione, Jorge Socarrás, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, and Brian Howard. Their discussions led them to create a poster to spur the LGBTQ community into action. To protest the U.S. government’s silence about AIDS, the design featured the pink triangle that homosexuals were assigned to wear in the Holocaust. This poster became the key symbol of the AIDS activist organization ACT UP, which emerged the following year.

: ACT UP New York Records, Manuscripts and Archives Division

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Not currently on view

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  • A black and white photograph that depicts several women and one man in front of a sign that reads Head-Quarters for Colored Women Voters

    The “Colored Women Voters” headquarters in Georgia

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  • a poster in orange and purple tones with a circular mandala design and a group of people marching

    Gay Liberation Front poster

    Not currently on view

  • A black poster with a pink triangle and in bold white text it reads Silence = Death

    “Silence = Death” poster

    Not currently on view

  • a painting depicting a battle scene with Native American fighters and horses of several different colors

    Muslin painting by an unknown Lakota artist

    Not currently on view

  • Detail of manuscript of James Baldwin's “Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis, in care of the Silent Majority”

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