Larry Kramer, groundbreaking author and Aids activist, dies aged 84
The groundbreaking American writer and tireless activist for gay rights and a national effort to tackle the HIV/Aids crisis, Larry Kramer, has died in New York.
Related: Coronavirus US live: cases still increasing in two dozen states amid push to reopen
Kramer, 84, died on Wednesday morning in Manhattan, the New York Times reported, citing his husband, David Webster, who said Kramer died of pneumonia.
Kramer was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the pioneering organization to assist those with HIV, and also a founder of the direct action group Act Up that demanded an end to the sluggish response to HIV treatment and research in the US as the Aids crisis worsened in the 1980s.
He wrote The Normal Heart, a largely autobiographical play that looked at the rise of the Aids crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group.
It became an Emmy award-winning television drama in 2014, starring Mark Ruffalo as the central character, and had been produced on Broadway in 2011, where it won three awards.
Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (Act Up) became an international organization aiming to end the Aids pandemic but retaining its grassroots style and Act Up New York tweeted on Wednesday: “Rest in power to our fighter Larry Kramer.”
Rest in power to our fighter Larry Kramer. Your rage helped inspire a movement. We will keep honoring your name and spirit with action. In the spirit of ACT UP, join us and chant this (three times). #ACTUPFightbackENDAIDS #ACTUPFightbackENDAIDS #ACTUPFightbackENDAIDS pic.twitter.com/4fAqeO6STW
— ACT UP NY (@actupny) May 27, 2020
Lambda Legal, the civil rights organization focused on LGBTQ rights and legal needs of those living with HIV/Aids, said: “He was a noted fierce gay activist whose confrontational advocacy with Act Up NY helped shock our nation into confronting the Aids crisis in the 80s and 90s.”
Larry Kramer has died.
He was a noted fierce gay activist whose confrontational advocacy with @actupny helped shock our nation into confronting the AIDS crisis in the '80s and '90s. May he rest in power. pic.twitter.com/19ij73sIlA— Lambda Legal (@LambdaLegal) May 27, 2020
The late Susan Sontag called him “one of America’s most valuable troublemakers”.
Sex advice columnist Dan Savage tweeted a poignant tribute:
Larry Kramer valued every gay life at a time when so many gay men had been rendered incapable of valuing our own lives. He ordered us to love ourselves and each other and to fight for our lives. He was a hero.
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) May 27, 2020
An interview piece by the Guardian in 2015 explained that Kramer came of age in an era when being gay was still illegal, “when that counterculture wasn’t just rebellious but in serious peril”.
He was a firsthand witness to the deadly costs of that taboo, because when Aids came and swept the city, it took a long time to get American health authorities to pay attention.
Kramer was there, in the front row, to catalogue and object to every moment of that neglect and he became a driving force behind loud direct action protests that drove American health authorities to take Aids seriously.
Don’t know a soul who saw or read The Normal Heart and came away unmoved, unchanged. What an extraordinary writer, what a life.
Thank you, Larry Kramer. pic.twitter.com/M3hA0cNrCU— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) May 27, 2020
Rest in power to an icon and true fighter until the very end. We thank you, Larry Kramer. https://t.co/arggtehkYx
— Janet Mock (@janetmock) May 27, 2020