Founded by Larry Kramer, playwright, novelist and founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), in March 1987 in New York City. Kramer rallied a small group of gay activists to respond to the government’s refusal to deal adequately with the burgeoning AIDS crisis—a crisis disproportionately affecting homosexual men. Through an effective blend of agitprop street theater, massive protests and demonstrations at federal institutions, creative and media-savvy distribution of “safe-sex” information, and unified anger, ACT UP pushed the US government and the Food and Drug Administration into changing stringent and stagnant policies. ACT UP groups came into being across the country and eventually Paris and London also joined in. Without the activism of ACT UP, the US AIDS epidemic would have been even more devastating.