By the late 1980s, the AIDS epidemic had impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people globally. New York City’s LGBT community was among the hardest hit, with infections and deaths occurring at an alarming rate.

Government inaction prompted activist Larry Kramer to give an impassioned speech in March 1987 at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center (now the LGBT Community Center) in Greenwich Village. As a result, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was formed a few days later as a political action group that sought to bring widespread attention to the AIDS crisis. “Silence = Death” became its motto.

One of its biggest fights was against Burroughs Wellcome, the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the high-priced AZT, the only approved AIDS drug at the time. On September 14, 1989, ACT UP led a noon rally of 350 people in front of the New York Stock Exchange, targeting Burroughs Wellcome and other companies that it felt were profiteering from the AIDS epidemic (the demonstration was planned to coincide with those held in San Francisco and London that day).