- [Narrator] Coming up.

- ACT UP, fight back, fight AIDS!

- [Narrator] An epidemic was raging.

- They're dying, dropping like flies all around us.

- No one in the nation's capital gave a damn.

- [Crowd] Shame, shame!

- [Narrator] And one man was on a mission to fight hatred and indifference.

- Healthcare is a right!

ACT UP, fight back, fight AIDS!

Now, people know that we are a force to be reckoned with.

- [Narrator] His cartoons gave hope to a community under siege.

- [Cleve] Well, they were raw, they were angry, they were funny.

Danny was brilliant.

He was brilliant.

- [Narrator] And he confronted the powerful.

- Ineffective, misleading.

- That mayor couldn't go any place without Danny blowing a whistle and opening up a banner.

- [Narrator] As he was battling AIDS.

- You could not ignore Danny Sotomayor.

- [Narrator] "The Outrage of Danny Sotomayor," next on American Stories.

- [Crowd] ACT UP, fight back, fight AIDS!

(inspiring music) - [Announcer] Major funding for "The Outrage of Danny Sotomayor: An American story" is provided in part by The Negaunee Foundation.

Additional funding is provided by these donors.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Danny Sotomayor was standing tall.

On April 23rd, 1990, the 31-year-old activist had boldly trespassed into the county building in downtown Chicago to let the world know that people like him, people living with AIDS, were scorned, neglected, and left to die.

- If we didn't do this, they wouldn't listen, and it is war.

- [Narrator] Many wanted to look the other way, but Danny wouldn't let them.

- ACT UP, fight back, fight AIDS!

- [Narrator] It was an unlikely path that led Danny to become one of the most effective AIDS activists of his time.

And it all began just two years earlier.

In the late 1980s, Danny Sotomayor was an openly gay artist struggling to make a living in Chicago.

- I knew Danny from street fairs where he would make money by doing caricatures, and he always had a bird.

- He had these vibrant green eyes.

They were very piercing.

Everybody liked him.

- He liked to test people.

He just wanted to see what he could get away with.

- [Narrator] When he was just 29 years old, Danny was diagnosed with AIDS.

- Do you fight back?

Do you scream out?

Do you die without fighting?

- Honestly, he did not have a political bone in his body.

It was AIDS that had turned him into an activist.

- [Narrator] At the time, a person living with AIDS faced a terrifying future.

- We didn't know how to deal with these patients.

We just, we tried to support them and they died quickly.

- Funeral homes were refusing service.

Dentists were refusing service.

- There was no support, there was no empathy, there was no nothing.

- [Narrator] By the summer of 1988, 50,000 Americans had died of AIDS.

Tens of thousands more were infected, and there was still no cure.

- I think people were happy that gays were dying.

You know, I think we were disposable to a vast majority of the population.

- [Announcer] Gerald Woods Morton, Joseph Erikia.

- [Narrator] A quilt memorializing those who died of AIDS allowed the community to bear witness to the staggering losses.

It was displayed around the country.

- [Cleve] The very first display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt when we had 1,920 panels.

- [Announcer] Marvin B.

- [Narrator] Each panel on the tapestry honored a different person, handmade by their loved ones.

- The three by six panels are approximate size of a grave, to give one a notion of how much ground would be covered if all of the bodies were laid out head to toe.

- And it felt as though the moment you entered into the actual physical presence of the quilt, all sounds ceased.

And then as sound gradually came back, all you heard was weeping.

- The enormity of the loss just hit you.

It would be like having all the COVID patients just come forward toward you.

- [Announcer] Jose Ramirez.

- Danny said, "That's gonna be us one day.

We're gonna be on this quilt, but we're here now and let's make our time count."

- [Narrator] Danny Sotomayor grew up in a working class neighborhood just east of Chicago's Humboldt Park.

- We lived in a two-bedroom frame house.

My parents had their room and five of us had ours, that one room.

- [Narrator] His father was Puerto Rican and his mother was Mexican.

Danny often felt like an outsider.

- We were the first Puerto Ricans, Mexicans to move into the neighborhood.

And the famous line that always stuck to my head was, "Go back to Puerto Rico where you came from."

- [Narrator] Violence was common in the Sotomayor household.

At just 12 years old, Danny witnessed unspeakable horrors.

- Danny was with me when we saw violent acts by my father towards my mother.

My father had a knife and had it thrust in his hand.

And I can remember Danny and myself being there.

(no audio) It was he who came to her aid and, you know, ended that conflict at that time.

- [Narrator] Danny worried his conservative parents wouldn't accept that he was gay.

His worst fears were realized when he came out to his mom at 19 years old.

- Mom, I'm gay.

And the next thing I knew she had her hands around my neck, choking me.

- But that rage he felt as a child and young adult quickly got transferred to his activism while he started fighting for everybody's life, including his own.

- [Narrator] Danny was ready to live life on his terms.

In his early twenties, he moved to an LGBTQ friendly neighborhood on the city's north side.

- He wanted to live an openly gay life.

- When I'm in a group full of other Hispanics, I'm a gay man first.

But when I'm in a room full of gay men, white gay men especially, I'm Puerto Rican first.

I think about how high you are, how high you are, right?

- How tall you are.

- How tall you are.

- I remember so well walking down Broadway in Chicago, in Lakeview.

And my partner would say that person's gay and that person's gay, that person's gay.

And I go, "How do you know?"

- There were places where you could go and be LGBTQ and not have to worry about anything.

- Danny and I were about the same age, and, you know, we would go out to the bars all over the place, lots of nightlife.

There was one period, I remember, I closed Berlin 14 nights in a row.

Yeah, that was fun.

- What does it say?

Kiss the cook.

Ah, well, um, you know.

- Hanging out was where I first learned how funny he was, and, really, such a kid.

- [Narrator] Danny had built a close circle of friends, but they faced homophobia and bigotry nearly every day.

- I know people who lost their jobs as soon as it was disclosed that they were gay.

You know, people were getting beat up, things thrown at 'em, things yelled at 'em.

- [Narrator] And the public's fear of contracting the virus made a bad situation worse.

- I read "The New York Times" article, "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Gay Men."

- Which, of course, started it down the very wrong path of stereotyping it as a gay disease.

- They didn't know what the hell to call it, but they knew something was out there.

- We were in our twenties and thirties and forties.

Young people didn't die.

And then they did, and then they did.

- Initially, we didn't know what caused it, of course.

So we realized that there was something connecting these different groups and probably bloodborne.

- [Narrator] The bloodborne disease was named acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS.

The HIV virus that causes AIDS attacks the body's immune system.

People died of everything from pneumonia to cancer.

The virus was spread by sexual contact, shared needles, and blood transfusions.

- Danny was probably the first person I knew who had AIDS.

- I thought I would never have sex again, you know, or I'll never meet somebody who would wanna be with me.

- This disease came on the heels of gay liberation, and now you're being told you can't have sex.

I think that was, it made people very angry.

- And you'd see a friend, and then you'd look at them and they were wasting away.

Or you'd see one of your neighbors, you know, healthy young man, and then he had lesions all over him.

And I remember I was visiting my grandmother, and she got a call and one of her friends had died.

And she said to me, "Ricky, you don't know what it's like to have all your friends die."

And I said to her, "Yes, I do."

- [Narrator] Danny would be in and out of the hospital in the years ahead, fighting off different illnesses caused by the virus.

- [Danny] It's very lonely.

- [Narrator] In the fall of 1988, Lori Cannon and Danny traveled to Washington DC to see the quilt.

Danny had been living with AIDS for 10 months.

The quilt had more than quadrupled in size in just one year.

- Nancy and old Ronald Reagan took their little helicopter and flew out over the ellipse and spent the whole weekend away and never once acknowledging the quilt.

- [Narrator] The Reagan administration was apathetic to the AIDS crisis.

And after seven years, the federal response was still uncoordinated and inadequate.

- [Activist] Release the drugs, release the drugs!

- [Narrator] During that fateful trip to DC, Danny discovered a group that was taking matters into their own hands.

They called themselves ACT UP, which stood for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power.

And they were protesting at the Food and Drug Administration demanding the agency speed up approval of the drug AZT.

At the time, it was the only hope for someone with AIDS.

- It was a glimmer of hope.

- It might have prolonged your life enough to get to the next drug, to the next drug, to the next drug.

- [Narrator] ACT UP was the scream to the silence and tears of the quilt.

- It was a three-ring circus actually, you know, of activism.

Oh, you have something going on over here.

You have something going on over there.

- [Dr. Slotten] When you're fighting for your life, nothing is irrational.

- It was theater, but it was so finely honed.

- I went to Washington to see the quilt, and it just snowballed from there.

- It was a new day in Chicago when Danny came back.

He was a man on a mission.

- [Narrator] Danny had found his purpose, fight to improve the lives of people like him, people living with AIDS.

He approached a local AIDS direct action group and convinced them to create the first Chicago chapter of ACT UP.

- The dynamic energy of ACT UP inspired Danny of what he thought we could do.

- [Narrator] ACT UP showed the nation a style of civil disobedience that shined a light on the neglect and marginalization of people with AIDS.

- [Crowd] Shame, shame, shame!

- In a world that has suddenly gotten dark, hopeless, suddenly this power appeared.

- What ACT UP did is showed a different light on gay people who are standing up and being proud and throwing their shoulders back and telling folks, "Do not (silence) with us."

- You take one look in the eyes of any of the ACT UP folks, and you were seeing something we did not have.

It was folks who were literally fighting for their lives, and were not gonna take no from anybody.

- [Rick] We hadn't seen that before.

- None of us knew how to respond.

ACT UP would go after folks they thought were not doing the right things.

And if that included gay people, so be it.

Scared the (silence) out of most people in our community.

- [Crowd] Healthcare is a right, healthcare is a right!

- [Narrator] Danny jumped into actions in Chicago and around the country.

- [Crowd] Healthcare is a right!

ACT UP!

Fight back!

- I'm real proud to be sort of down in the trenches with everyone else.

I mean, this is a war.

- Stop killing us, stop killing us!

We're not gonna take it anymore!

(whistles blow) - And I'm not on the sidelines.

I feel that the movement needs me, and I need the movement.

- [Narrator] Danny would wage the war on multiple fronts, out in the streets and also through his art.

He put pen to paper and began creating editorial cartoons.

- The cartoons reached a wide audience, and they had an impact that something ACT UP didn't have to do.

All you had to do was be a person who picked up "Gay Chicago Magazine" and opened it.

- [Owen] His cartoons were sort of the visual editorial of a lot of the things that ACT UP was doing, in that his cartoons were very much like a zap, a political action, a one time thing designed usually to embarrass.

- I remember the cartoon with the AZT with the guy pulling the wagon "Bring out your dead."

- [Narrator] Within months, Danny's cartoons were published in gay newspapers around the country from New York to San Francisco.

- I am coast to coast now.

I'd like to hit all the markets in the United States at the gay markets, and maybe cross over to the straight press.

- [Narrator] His cartoons were witheringly honest, and no one was off limits.

- Danny's cartoons were powerful.

They were raw, they were angry, they were funny, they were sarcastic.

The one I've always remembered the most shows Bush the first and Barbara reading the newspapers and it said some appalling number of dead from AIDS.

And George says, "Nothing in the news today."

Danny was brilliant, he was brilliant.

- When I found out from him how little he got paid to do those.

And, I mean, it's a sort of a travesty of underground journalism, I guess, but I think if he even got $40 for a cartoon, I'd be surprised.

- As soon as we can get done with the ads, we can go pick up the coffins.

So that's gonna free up everyone who's gonna put coffins or carry around coffins, So I'll help put it.

- I got to know Danny through those meetings.

He just said, "Hey, look, I'm a person with AIDS.

I might not be here in six months.

Let's get this done now."

We had a lot in common.

We were the same age.

We were both little guys.

We both came from dysfunctional families.

We both were HIV positive.

- When I talk to people now about ACT UP, people like have this notion that it was thousands of people.

It was dozens of key people.

- [Narrator] And those key people were experienced street activists.

But Danny also knew that political change couldn't happen without help from inside the halls of power.

So he courted a handful of mainstream gay and lesbian advocates who were well connected and politically savvy.

- We could be heard by some people that didn't wanna hear from Danny.

And it also worked out where, you know, if people didn't listen to us, if we didn't get our meetings, well, okay, you know, Danny will be visiting you, you know?

- [Narrator] Laurie Dittman was the director of a respected, progressive political watchdog group.

Danny called her constantly.

- At all hours.

I mean, there wasn't any like, you know, pattern.

It was just kind of, I think, whenever he was just like, you know, I need to talk to Dittman and she needs to do more.

(laughs) - [Narrator] Danny worked with bar owner and longtime civil rights advocate Art Johnston.

- Danny was a natural leader.

Whatever Danny wanted you to do, you would do.

You could not ignore Danny Sotomayor.

- [Narrator] And Danny also tapped city hall lobbyist Rick Garcia.

- We'd work on strategy together.

The suits and the activists were in constant contact, and supported one another.

- [Narrator] With a powerful team assembled, Danny was ready to take action.

He would find inspiration for his first cause on an ordinary train ride.

- Danny and I were sitting on the elevated one day, and he looks up and he sees an ad and there's a condom, and it reads, "Don't think of it as birth control.

Think of it as death control."

It outraged him.

- This message that it was sending out was so horrible.

I immediately tore it down.

- [Narrator] Danny wanted to give the public the facts about safe sex instead of preying on fear.

- We contacted CTA and asked them to meet with us several times to talk about these posters, and they would have nothing to do with us.

- There's a lot of work to be done beforehand.

- [Narrator] So he got started on his own ad campaign and rallied ACT UP to get behind him.

- Danny created the placards that would fit on the city buses.

- Save it for the buses.

- They were in English, they were in Spanish.

All of it was sex positive, yet informative and educational.

- I remember this one poster was, I always got a kick out of it.

It had like the dancing condom.

- [Danny] Wrap it up, wrap it up!

- [Narrator] The group gathered near a north side bus terminal on a Saturday in May, 1989.

- Hey.

- [Crowd] Fight back, fight AIDS!

- ACT UP.

- I'm glad your brother is here too.

- Yeah.

Fight AIDS!

ACT UP!

- Demonstrations were scream therapy, and it was scream therapy in a community.

It was like this massive release of anger and just this cry for change.

It was incredibly empowering.

- We have to change and learn about safe sex.

Thousands of gay people desperately need information and support to protect themselves.

Public monies must be spent on gay and lesbian communities.

- He was pretty intimidating, and he wasn't a large individual, but he had a voice and he had a determination.

(whistles blowing) (people cheering and yelling) (energetic music) - I laid down and the next thing I knew a cop just grabbed me and it was a woman cop, and that her hat flew off and she had me in a headlock, and she bent over to pick her hat and she just dragged me away like a rag doll.

- And they would throw them like garbage into the paddy wagons.

- The last one they got who came kicking and screaming was Danny.

- CTA, you can't hide!

We charge you with genocide!

CTA, you can't hide!

We charge you with genocide!

- [Demonstrator] Be careful, you're hurting him.

- You can't hide.

- The cops said, "I have four white males," and Danny yelled, "I'm Puerto Rican."

And they took us to the police station at Addison and Halsted and they were chanting, "We want Billy."

- [Crowd] We want Billy, not billy clubs.

We want Billy, not billy clubs.

- The woman police officer who was processing me said, "They make it sound like you're some kind of a political prisoner or something."

And I said, "well, I am."

- Where is Bob?

- I don't know.

- Hey!

- Mr. Mob action.

- Mob action.

- Boy, oh boy, oh boy, yikes, your head.

- They got me a little bit here too when they dropped me.

They plucked out what they thought were the leaders to end the demonstration.

And I was innocent.

I was not doing any mob action.

Good job, good job.

- [Activist] ACT UP, fight back, fight AIDS!

- And then after that, we all went to this great Mexican restaurant.

- [Narrator] Danny and ACT UP had made their point.

Within a week, city officials agreed to meet with Danny and other activists.

Ultimately, the city scrapped the ads.

- Now, people know that we are a force to be reckoned with.

- You either respected him and adored him or hated his guts.

And he had as many people in our own community who hated his guts as who admired him.

- He caused fear among people, and maybe a little bit of jealousy that he could be so free to be active.

- There were some that maybe didn't approve of his tactics.

- [Narrator] The media, however, knew a great personality when they saw one.

- Danny was that spitfire that was a media darling.

- And you keep referring to the general population in terms of your ad campaign.

Why can't the phrase "avoid blood and semen," "talk about safe sex," "use a condom."

- He was very charismatic.

He was very photogenic.

- [Reporter] Daniel Sotomayor is a syndicated cartoonist and AIDS activist.

- He used those tools to the advantage of the movement.

And it was very important to have someone to represent that AIDS was not just impacting white gay men.

His Latino identity was as important to him as his gay identity.

- This is World AIDS Day, and the AIDS issue has moved to the back burner of public discussion.

- [Narrator] By the summer of 1989, the death toll pushed 85,000.

- More and more people were getting sick.

More and more people were dying.

More and more people were feeling desperate and hopeless.

- [Narrator] Danny knew all too well the challenges for people living with AIDS.

- I get fatigued a lot and shortness of breath and I get pains in my chest, and they're pretty constant.

- [Narrator] And he wanted to spotlight the continued inaction and ignorance of elected officials and the medical establishment.

- Instead of scaring people, we wanna educate people.

So we produced our own safe sex ads.

- [Narrator] In late 1989, ACT UP Chicago began to organize an ambitious, multi-targeted demonstration to rival anything Danny had seen around the country.

They put out the call to ACT UP chapters nationwide.

Thousands showed up.

- The weather was beautiful the day of the demonstration.

Everyone was loud, everyone was spirited, lots of chants.

I was gonna just go there and yell my head off.

- We were there for the cause.

We were also there because Danny asked us.

I can't imagine our saying no to anything Danny asked.

- [Narrator] The demonstration kicked off at the Prudential building on April 23rd, 1990.

The insurance company was accused of overcharging LGBTQ people.

- They doubled and tripled premiums.

- [Narrator] The demonstrators then marched on to the American Medical Association to protest the high cost of AIDS medication and denounce doctors who refused to treat people with AIDS.

- [Activist] Come on.

We want your blood!

We want your blood!

- They had people in white coats with blood on the lapels and stuff, and money that had been smeared with blood.

- [Reporter] It was when ACT UP took to the streets that the police became excessively violent in shoving matches and used mounted police to physically intimidate and injure at least two demonstrators.

- I guarantee you my inclination toward activism did not include lying down in the street in front of police on horses.

But did we do it?

Absolutely, we did it.

- And, of course, a lot of the cops back then were wearing rubber gloves.

- [Victor] They were afraid to touch any of the people.

- And so we were chanting "Your gloves don't match your shoes.

They'll see you on the news."

- And then onward to City Hall.

- [Narrator] At the time, women with AIDS were denied treatment at the County AIDS Ward.

- There was a saying, "Women don't get AIDS, they just die from it."

- They had this lame excuse because the bathroom wasn't working.

There was only one bathroom, so they couldn't have women in there.

- [Narrator] So dozens of women from ACT UP blocked the downtown intersection with 15 mattresses to highlight that inequity.

- So part of the planning literally was where to stash the mattresses so that they were along the route of where to go get them and where nobody would take them.

- [Demonstrators] Women are dying!

15 beds!

Women are dying!

15 beds!

The whole world is watching!

The whole world is watching!

The whole world is watching!

The whole world is watching!

- It literally became pulling us, dragging us physically.

And I remember at the time thinking, I should be afraid.

(silence) them.

You want me outta here?

You're gonna (silence) drag me by the hair.

- The very first one was allowed into the AIDS ward at Cook County Hospital the day after we demonstrated.

- And they said it had nothing to do with our demonstration, which, of course, we thought was total BS.

- [Tim] While that was going on, we went to a county building.

- [Narrator] Danny and four others had one final action planned.

- But we couldn't talk about that with anyone else because loose lips sink ships.

- [Narrator] The group needed to find a way past the throngs of police and into the county building.

- We just walked in.

They were like so focused on the outside, I don't even think that they were aware that we had entered.

- [Narrator] They headed to a third floor office overlooking Daley Plaza.

- There was this middle aged woman sitting there, and she said, "Can I help you?"

And we said, "No."

We just walked right by her.

- And they went into the offices that connected to the overhead balcony, blocked the door.

- We started pushing this big heavy desk up against the door.

And then she got on the phone and called security.

- And suddenly something took her attention, and we looked up and there riding high like a cloud was Danny and the other folks from ACT UP.

(energetic music) (crowd roars) The banner said, "We demand equal healthcare now."

I swear I could see his smile.

I could see his bright shining eyes.

I could see when he raised his fist into the air.

- [Billy] It was just electric.

- [Tim] I stood on the window holding it closed, and then somehow they pried the window open, and I was the first person to be dragged in.

And I was pretty banged up from that.

(crowd roars) (whistles blow) - [Billy] And then Danny and Paul were the last ones out there.

- Danny was on the balcony and he was saying, "I'm a person with AIDS.

I don't have anything to lose.

If you don't get away from me, I'm gonna jump."

The demonstration was so operatic, it was larger than life.

- And it was one of those moments where you don't really consciously think this is history in the making.

It did not take on this sort of mythic quality until after we saw it reflected in the media.

- [Reporters] As many as 1000 protestors clashed with police.

A hundred protestors were arrested.

- Yeah.

- It's probably the most empowering, the most visible thing that ACT UP Chicago ever did.

And that was the only time that we were arrested where they actually gave us a bologna sandwich in jail.

- [Narrator] Danny was now the leading face of AIDS activism in Chicago.

As his star was rising, he met Scott McPherson, an accomplished playwright who was also living with AIDS.

- He wrote "Marvin's Room," this incredible, compassionate play about caregiving before he ever met Danny.

- [Narrator] The two fell in love and moved in together.

- They were so different personality wise.

I think Danny needed someone mellow to be with.

And I think Scott was galvanized by Danny's passion.

They had their wonderful boxer named Scout who was just such a sweet, sweet dog.

And I remember a picnic that we had in their place.

I think it was my favorite memory that I have because it was about having fun and nothing more.

It was so precious.

- [Narrator] Meanwhile, the city's AIDS wards were reporting a tripling of deaths.

The LGBTQ community feared Chicago's newly elected mayor, Richard M. Daley, didn't understand the urgency of the AIDS crisis.

- He was old school gay friendly, right, like time and a place, time and a place.

We'll get there, we'll get there.

- We were determined to prove to a doubting world that Chicago has grown beyond the politics of division and name calling.

(audience cheers) - [Narrator] In time, Daley would be praised for expanding services for people with AIDS, appointing gays and lesbians to key city posts and hosting the 2006 Gay Games.

- Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community have contributed to Chicago in every imaginable way.

They deserve to have the city of Chicago standing on their side.

(audience cheers) - [Narrator] But Daley's initial AIDS budget was woefully underfunded.

And one key City Council member was pleading for more money.

- And we need to triple the spending on AIDS.

And he said something to the effect of "Over my dead body."

- We found out that the city spends more money on rat poison than they do for AIDS.

- At this point.

- [Narrator] Danny was outraged.

Increasing the AIDS budget became his focus, and Daley became his new target.

- Today, we are all Chicago Cub fans.

- [Art] Wherever Mayor Daley was, there was a camera, and Danny Sotomayor understood the importance of media.

- That mayor couldn't go any place without Danny blowing a whistle and opening up a banner.

- [Owen] Daley, tell the truth about AIDS.

- Many people disagreed vehemently with his approach and him going after Mayor Daley in particular.

- Chicago's gay and lesbian community.

- [Danny] I want to speak!

- Has proven- - [Danny] I want to speak!

I'm a member of the gay community.

- Strength, dignity, determination.

- [Danny] You cannot do this!

- And he would say, "Why is that young man always yelling at me?"

- That kid has a name.

It's Danny Sotomayor.

Do you ever listen to what he says?

- [Narrator] The mayor said he was ready to listen.

So he accepted an invitation from the wider LGBTQ community to attend a public forum.

- He put a whole group of angry AIDS activists in a room together.

And you bring the person they hate most and you give them a microphone, what do you think the chances are that there's anything that individual could say that's actually gonna draw people over?

- It went downhill almost right from the get go.

- [Billy] Some people started yelling about the AIDS budget.

- The trigger point, it had something to do with someone asserting to Daley that he had no idea what it felt like to lose someone.

And Daley had very recently lost a child to, I think, spina bifida.

- [Mike] Mr. Mayor, let me.

- Oh no, wait, don't, don't wait.

My son died.

My son died.

- Mayor Daley, Mayor Daley.

- Can I just?

- Hold on.

- Is he trying to say I'm not human about people's illnesses in this city?

- Mr. Mayor.

- Please, don't ever do that to anybody in this city.

- Mr. Mayor.

- [Laurie] Daley just lost it.

- I want to rephrase this so you can understand what we're asking for.

- But everyone feels sorry for you when your kid dies from spina bifida.

Most people, when they found out someone was dying from AIDS on some level believed they deserved it.

- Mr. Mayor.

- [Narrator] Daley walked out.

- [Tracy] And then Danny took over the microphone.

- I would like to address the new AIDS prevention ad campaign.

(crowd cheers and applauds) The main thrust, the main thrust behind the ad campaign is the slogan "I will not get AIDS."

This slogan is more than ineffective, it is dangerous.

- The old power couldn't contain the new power.

- [Narrator] And the new power had affected change.

Many of ACT UP's targets were beginning to adopt the policies the group had demanded.

But there was dissension in the ranks about where to go next.

- What is going to happen?

- We're too divided.

We really don't work together.

- There was a discussion about shifting strategy.

You have their ear.

These demonstrations have been successful, where do we go from here?

And to even broach those conversations was like a fire keg.

I remember seeing Danny's face red, you know, with the anger.

- I'm on the phone, which is rude.

You stick your finger, and get the (silence) outta my face right now.

I don't wanna talk to you.

- There was a lot of bitterness there that basically, understandably, made him a lot less fun to be around.

- I think Danny felt we were spending too much time on prisoners with AIDS.

I think Danny thought we were spending too much time on women with AIDS or IV drug users.

- One person can say.

- He wanted us to be focusing more on gay men with HIV.

I think, also, Danny was feeling that he was losing the battle.

- He was tired.

He felt it was time to step aside.

And that for the time he had left, he'd be with his partner and they would be together and see Scott's future, try to stay well, and he wished everybody good luck.

- [Narrator] In August of 1990, Danny Sotomayor left the organization he had been so instrumental in starting just two years earlier.

- It was devastating.

It was very sad.

I didn't want him to leave ACT UP.

No one wanted him to leave ACT UP.

- [Narrator] Danny was now a one-man protest movement focused on Daley's AIDS spending plan.

Danny took note when Laurie Dittman's new gay and lesbian political action committee IMPACT announced the mayor would be attending their 1991 gala.

- It was a big deal for the mayor to come to the IMPACT Center because it really signaled a coming of age for the community.

You couldn't invite someone like that to an affair and then assault them or accost them in some fashion.

And they knew that was exactly what Danny was gonna do because that's what he did all the time.

- [Narrator] Danny did not make the guest list, but he had an in.

That evening, Lori Cannon was working the door.

- And Danny's able now to gain entree.

Danny and the mayor are just about nose to nose.

The banner is now out of my purse.

I have my whistle and there's a mini action.

It's caught on camera.

- [Victor] All the different looks on the faces of the people in that picture.

They all look like they were photoshopped in from another picture because no two people have the same reaction as to what's actually taking place at that time.

- At that point, they called security and were ushered.

I said, "Oh, Danny, we didn't even get dinner."

- He made his point and he made it clear.

- [Narrator] Danny had no intention of backing down.

He skewered Daley in his weekly cartoons.

And even the mayor's press conferences weren't off limits.

- Help educators, activists.

- Danny started to ask questions rapidly one after another.

And the mayor looked at him with this badge around his neck and said, "Excuse me, are you a member of the press?"

He goes, "Yes, I am."

And he held it up, but it was masterfully created, I'll tell you.

The signatures, the picture, it looked pretty legit.

- Danny probably definitely made his own press pass.

- [Narrator] His newspaper swiftly fired him.

He was then hired by another LGBTQ paper and fired again for mixing activism with his cartoon work.

- And I said to him, you know, "Danny, I'll be your place of last resort.

We'll publish you in "Outlines and "Nightlines.

Whatever you wanna say, we're happy to be your landing place."

- [Narrator] By late 1991, Danny had been hospitalized nine times for complications related to AIDS.

Cannon remained by his side throughout.

- One late night at Rush Hospital's AIDS unit, I'm watching an old movie with Danny.

A resident walks in, "Oh, I see you have company.

I'll come back later."

He goes, "Oh, that's Lori.

Whatever you have to say, go right ahead."

"Well, I'm sorry to tell you, you now have full blown AIDS."

And I said, "Danny, do you have AIDS again?"

The doctor is beside himself.

I said, "Doctor, he was diagnosed full blown a year ago.

It's not in the chart?"

Just to see Danny laugh.

(Danny laughs) - [Narrator] Laughter provided much needed relief as Danny was about to begin an intense bout of chemotherapy to treat a growing cancer in his lungs.

- Danny was at Illinois Masonic for some time, and the stare that he had in his eyes was just so depressing.

- It was shocking sometimes.

Sometimes you'd walk in.

This little old man is sitting in the bed, and it was Danny.

You know, he lost all his hair.

He lost his weight.

- Danny was never great about doing all of the things his doctors wanted him to do.

I'd heard him say, "If I do all those things, it means I'm accepting that I'm gonna die.

I know I'm gonna die, but I don't have to accept it.

I'm a living person."

- [Narrator] As Danny languished, his partner Scott McPherson was finding success with his play, the story of two sisters caring for ailing relatives.

- "Marvin's Room" was a hit.

The whole country liked it.

- [Narrator] And so did Robert De Niro.

The actor produced it as a movie with Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton playing the sisters.

- Oh, Dad.

(pills clatter) - [Narrator] But McPherson's health was declining quickly.

- We all shifted into caregiver mode.

We were proud to play that role for him.

- [Narrator] In early 1992, Danny was rushed to the hospital with shortness of breath.

Weeks later, his treatments were failing, and he was nearing the end, but he was due one more moment in the spotlight.

IMPACT, the organization whose gala he had crashed the year before now planned to honor him.

- How dare IMPACT give Danny this award?

But we did.

It wasn't a hard decision.

We all knew the work and everything that Danny did and put into making life better for people with AIDS.

- [Narrator] Danny was too weak to attend, but with help, McPherson was able to go in his place.

- We arranged to sneak Scott out, as sick as he was.

We wanted Scott to experience the grandeur of evening gowns and tuxedos.

- [Narrator] Cannon and Victor Salvo accepted the award on Danny's behalf.

- Victor Salvo gave a wonderful speech that night that we are all in this together.

- IMPACT, which leads this community from its center, has taken a bold step into the future of gay activism in choosing to honor the unrivaled contributions of one of our more colorful and controversial figures.

No one should underestimate the statement of solidarity we are making tonight to those who seek our votes as much as they seek to conquer us by dividing us.

(audience applauds) - I was just very moved by those words because I did think it was true.

- Danny was someone who did not get accolades at all.

Everything he did in his life was a fight to get people to pay attention.

- We must begin here and now to realize that it's never too late to say thank you.

We don't say it or hear it enough.

(audience applauds) - And it was a smash.

And Scott got back.

He says, "Would you wheel me up to Danny?

I want to tell him what a beautiful evening."

And he would say, he always called him Honey Pie.

"Oh, Honey Pie, you should have seen this room.

Oh, it was beautiful."

- Scott was like, "They were all applauding for you.

They were all cheering for you."

You kind of hope he heard it.

- Danny and Scott were in the hospital at the same time and in the same room.

And they literally had the beds close enough so that they could do this.

- That was the night of the 2nd.

And, of course, he passed on the 5th at 7:05 AM just as the sun was coming out.

- I just sobbed for 20 minutes.

I had the pillow over my face.

I was worried my neighbors were gonna call the police.

- I had last seen him within hours before he died.

And one of the last things he told me was, "You will miss me.

Six months from now, you will miss me."

And he was absolutely right.

- [Narrator] Hundreds attended the wake of Daniel Sotomayor.

- So many things happened that day that weren't supposed to happen.

- [Tim] And the mayor showed up.

- Daley was kneeling in front of the coffin, and we're all standing at the back and just staring with our mouths open.

And I don't know which one of us said it first.

It was probably me.

"Well, we know for sure he is dead (laughing) because he'd be sitting up strangling him if he wasn't."

- The family wanted a mass and Danny didn't want a mass.

- If I die, I don't wanna be in some damn Catholic Church.

- [Victor] If there was anything he hated more than Mayor Daley, it was the Catholic church.

- And this is on tape guys, so no church for this one.

- They not only, you know, bring a priest in, but they basically hold a mass with communion in front of his coffin.

- [Narrator] Danny's friends and comrades in activism held their own memorial a few weeks later.

It was their chance to say goodbye in a way they knew Danny would have appreciated.

- And it was packed with people, but it felt empty.

How could we talk about Danny and have him not be there?

- [Narrator] Danny was gone, but he had left one big piece of unfinished business for ACT UP to champion, increasing the city's AIDS budget.

- The mayor was always like, "You want the money, find the money."

We had gotten a copy of the budget.

Someone within the Daley Administration got it to ACT UP.

Five or six of us sat for several hours going through the budget and saying, "Oh, let's take money from here, let's take money from here."

We shared that with Helen Shiller.

- When she made her presentation, Mayor Daley was gobsmacked.

Where did she get her information?

- In wards like mine, there is such a tremendous tension.

- [Narrator] Alderman Helen Shiller worked with a coalition of AIDS organizations to write a new spending plan.

And this time Daley was receptive.

- He presented me with an ordinance that tripled the spending on AIDS.

It was the easiest, hard fought campaign.

- [Narrator] Loved ones who were left behind had waged Danny's final battle and won.

Now, friends gathered to design a quilt panel in his memory.

- [Tracy] Danny's panel in the quilt was not just one panel.

- We wanted Danny to have a 12 by 12 for himself, so.

- [Lori] The quilt Victor designed was Danny's signature cartoon, George and Barbara Bush, and it is a perfect recreation along with snippets of T-shirts and buttons and personal comments from an inner circle.

Scott wrote a love letter to Honey Pie.

- [Narrator] They brought it to Washington DC for the 1992 display.

- And it caught the attention of the entire crowd.

Danny was the big show, his efforts, his life, and now his death.

- Yeah, not many people get a whole 12 by 12, but I think it's fine to make an exception for Danny.

- [Lori] And Danny knew that one day he would be on that quilt.

- [Narrator] McPherson was too sick to make the trip, so his friends hosted what they knew would be his final birthday party.

- The cake was in the shape of a typewriter.

Instead of keys, pink triangles.

He said, "Should I make a wish?"

I said, "Make a wish, Scott."

He said, "Okay.

I hope I live longer than Jesus."

And Scott died at 33, just like Danny.

(serene music) - '92 to '96 was a very dark period in terms of HIV, thinking that there really was no end in sight.

- [Narrator] But in 1996, a groundbreaking treatment was finally discovered and approved for use, a class of medications called protease inhibitors stopped the HIV virus from developing into full-blown AIDS.

Today, contracting HIV is no longer a death sentence.

- We've been remarkably successful at controlling the infection, making it a chronic problem that you can live an entire normal life with.

Take their medication, HIV is in the background, it's not doing anything.

The vaccine and cures are still the holy grails, which we've not gotten to yet.

- I think everyone has an obligation to participate and add something to their environment.

- Just bear with us and we're heading down that way.

- I am proud of my brother.

I am proud of what he did.

- The man who inspired us all.

- I've seen firsthand how one person like a Danny Sotomayor can change the world.

- He left his mark, he left it on us, he left it on the city.

- He fought to hold government officials, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies accountable for their actions.

He fought to do away with the stigma of AIDS and being gay.

- But he was fighting more for the people in the future.

- Danny used to say one day would be survivors.

- This is a framed copy of a cartoon that Danny did just for me and signed.

I don't mind being in the position of fighting dragons.

- If Danny Sotomayor could have hope for the future, what kind of slacker would I be if I couldn't have hope too?

- And I wish he was here.

- And these stories need to be told over and over and over.

They can never stop.

Otherwise, silence will still equal death.

(whistles blowing) - [Protestor] You're murdering us!

(dramatic music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Major funding for "The Outrage of Danny Sotomayor: An American Story" is provided in part by The Negaunee Foundation.

Additional funding is provided by these donors.

(upbeat music) (energetic music)