Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS

Concerned about the current indifference to the continuing scourge of HIV/AIDS among gay men (especially those of color) in North America, Duberman (history, emeritus, CUNY Graduate Sch.; Stonewall) revisits the early days of the epidemic in this case study of two men: singer and AIDS activist Michael Callen (1955–93) and African American poet Essex Hemphill (1957–95), both of whom died just before the advent of effective drug therapies. The author interweaves their stories—Callen in New York and Los Angeles and Hemphill in Washington, DC—with the now familiar sociopolitical history of the disease: the apathy of the Reagan administration and the initial failure of the public health system to come up with useful treatments. Duberman stresses the undertones of racism toward black and Hispanic victims that still linger today.