The GMHC (formerly Gay Men's Health Crisis) is a New York City–based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization whose mission statement is to "end the AIDS epidemic and uplift the lives of all affected." Founded in 1982, it is often billed as the "world's oldest AIDS service organization", as well as the "nation's oldest HIV/AIDS service organization."
History
1980s
In early 1981, reports began surfacing in San Francisco and New York City that a rare form of cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma was affecting young gay men. In response, 80 men gathered in New York writer Larry Kramer's apartment on August 11, 1981, to discuss the issue of "gay cancer" and to begin organizing efforts to raise money for research. In January 1982, Nathan Fain, Lawrence D. Mass, Paul Popham, Paul Rapoport and Edmund White again met with Larry Kramer at his home and founded Gay Men's Health Crisis. GMHC took its name from the fact that the earliest men who fell victim to AIDS in the early 1980s were gay. The first meeting was held in the Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village. They organized the formal tax-exempt entity, which was incorporated on June 30, 1982. At the time, it was the largest volunteer AIDS organization in the world. Paul Popham was chosen as the president.
Rodger McFarlane began a crisis counseling hotline that originated on his own home telephone, which ultimately became one of the organization's most effective tools for sharing information about AIDS. He was named director of GMHC in 1982, helping create a more formal structure for the nascent organization, which had no funding or offices when he took on the role. GMHC operated out of a couple of rooms for offices in a rooming house at 318 West 22nd Street in Chelsea owned by Mel Cheren of West End Records. Popham's dedication to combating the AIDS crisis and his collaboration with stakeholders worldwide emphasized his commitment to public health. Upon receiving outreach from Gordon Price, a co-founder of AIDS Vancouver, Popham traveled to Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada, offering his invaluable expertise. This pivotal partnership culminated in the inception of the inaugural AIDS Information Forum on March 12, 1983. Notably, Popham's knowledge shared during this forum was immortalized on film, signifying a momentous stride in the nascent endeavors to tackle the epidemic. Larry Kramer wrote that by the time of McFarlane's death, "the GMHC is essentially what he started: crisis counseling, legal aid, volunteers, the buddy system, social workers" as part of an organization that serves more than 15,000 people affected by HIV and AIDS. In an interview with The New York Times after McFarlane's death in May 2009, Kramer described how "single-handedly Rodger took this struggling ragtag group of really frightened and mostly young men, found us an office and set up all the programs." Kramer resigned in 1983 due to his many disagreements with the other founders. From that time on, his public comments and posture toward GMHC were negative, if not hostile. Kramer's play The Normal Heart is a roman à clef of his involvement with the organization. On April 30, 1983, the GMHC sponsored the first major fund-raising event for AIDS – a benefit performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. By 1984, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had requested GMHC's assistance in planning public conferences on AIDS. That same year, the human immunodeficiency virus was discovered by the French doctors Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier. Within two years, GMHC was assisting heterosexual men and women (see Dennis Levy), hemophiliacs, intravenous drug users, and children. From 1987 until his death from AIDS in 1989, Doctor Barry Gingell served as a medical director for the Gay Men's Health Crisis. Gay Men's Health Crisis received extensive coverage in Randy Shilts's 1987 book And the Band Played On. The book described the progress of the pandemic, praising GMHC for its work and blaming the government, especially the Reagan administration and Secretary of Health Margaret Heckler, for failing to respond. Shilts was a gay man who later died of AIDS.
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