The high-water mark of AIDS activism probably occurred in the waning days of the Reagan administration.
Images are more readily discerned than the facts of what actually transpired.
We remember amazed, bemused expressions on the faces of some government workers leaning outside of the windows of their offices as activists in the street below attempt to shut down the building, but can't recall what that demonstration was about. Such powerful images chronicle the spirit of the late '80s, and that spirit contrasts sharply with the tenor of 1999. Their images collected thus far are heavily weighted on the '80s, and that prompts us to wonder how the present-time segment of the story of AIDS will be remembered graphically. If that is the case, that is a sad transition. It says something about our times, and it says something about ourselves.