#arcw

June 27 is National HIV Testing Day

First observed in 1995, National HIV Testing Day is meant to encourage people to get tested for HIV, know their status, and learn about resources for care and treatment.  These postcards from 1995 come from the Brady East STD Clinic Records at the UWM Archives.  The Brady East STD Clinic (BESTD) first opened in Milwaukee in 1974 as a program of the Gay Peoples Union and became a prominent statewide leader in the battle against HIV/AIDS in Wisconsin during the 1990s.

The first documented case of HIV in Wisconsin was in 1983. The BESTD Clinic volunteers began their preliminary responses to AIDS in 1984 with the formation of the Milwaukee AIDS Project. The Milwaukee AIDS Project was a BESTD clinic committee and conducted the state’s first HIV outreach testing at local gay bars and clubs in Milwaukee. The Milwaukee AIDS Project became its own independent entity in 1986 as the complexity and demands of the HIV/AIDS crisis increased, later reorganizing as the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin.  Brady East STD Clinic continues to provide HIV/AIDS testing and prevention counseling.

These postcards can be found in Box 4, Folder 2 of the Brady East STD Clinic Records, UWM MSS 238.

-Lizzie, Archives Graduate Intern

Man 2 Man

Founded in 1985, the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW) is a national model for providing comprehensive, integrated health and social services to HIV patients. The ARCW started as a small provider with limited social services, but over the last few decades has expanded to the largest provider of HIV-health care services in Wisconsin and the most comprehensive AIDS service organization in the United States. 

One of the ARCW’s strategies for comprehensive care is providing AIDS education to the gay community. It has conducted massive prevention outreach campaigns with condom distributions at gay bars and the unique Bag Boyz program which encourages self-pride, safer sex, and HIV testing. The ARCW has also taken its prevention campaign to public sex environments and internet chat rooms where sexual liaisons occurred.

In the 1990s a second wave of the AIDS epidemic affected racial and ethnic minorities at a disproportionately high rate. The ARCW responded with a street outreach program bringing AIDS prevention and harm reduction counseling to minority drug users, women, and youth. Man2Man was an ARCW prevention campaign for gay men. The theme of this campaign, which is featured here, was "Take Pride, End AIDS.”

Today is World AIDS Day 

The 2017 theme for World AIDS day is “Increasing Impact through Transparency, Accountability, and Partnerships” which is a theme resonant with Milwaukee’s own long-standing history in the fight against HIV/AIDS.  

 Milwaukee activists organized quickly as panic spread in the early 1980s, driven first by the efforts of the Brady East STD clinic and the Milwaukee Aids Project.  By 1985 the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW) was established followed by a local ACT UP-Milwaukee chapter in 1990.  

As you can see from the photographs and campaigns above, Milwaukee activists have been vocal in calling for government accountability and transparency since the beginning while UWM students wrote numerous articles  in the UWM Post about how the crisis was affecting student behaviour and awareness.  Interested in learning more about Milwaukee’s response to the crisis?