Fall 2018
A Collaborative Course
Our first class on HIV/AIDS was inspired by a shocking statistic: Richmond was then ranked seventeenth nationwide for its rate of new HIV infections. While today, HIV/AIDS is concentrated in poor communities of color, in the 1980s and 1990s, HIV/AIDS became a catalyst for the gay liberation movement in Richmond.
Project Details
01
Class
We dug deep into the history of anti-gay laws and practices in Richmond, and documented the resistance to these laws. Students researched the LGBTQ+ community from the 80s and 90s, and learned about the support networks that helped AIDS patients who had been cast out of their families. Students used this research, as well as oral histories that we had previously gathered, to create a docudrama about the early days of HIV/AIDS in Richmond.
Rodney Lofton speaking during the community conversation after the performance of RVAIDS. Photograph by Tania del Carmen Fernández.
02
Community Partners
Rodney Lofton, then deputy director of Diversity Richmond, the city’s oldest LGBTQ+ organization, visited our class to discuss his AIDS-themed novel No More Tomorrows. At Health Brigade, a free clinic that has been in the forefront of responding to AIDS, we learned about new approaches to diagnosing and treating HIV—as well as the history of the free clinic’s community interventions. At VCU Libraries Special Collections, archivist Ray Bonis assembled a treasure trove of materials from the beginning of the epidemic. And on performance night, Zakia McKensey of Nationz Foundation parked her HIV mobile testing unit outside the Richmond Triangle Players theatre so that anyone who wanted could get a free test.
03
Docudrama
RVAIDS drew upon archival sources and oral histories of people living with HIV, health care providers, those who lost loved ones to AIDS, and AIDS activists. Our documentary drama incorporated poetry, archival recordings, and images to honor those affected by HIV and to call attention to the current crisis. We performed our play on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2018, hosted by the Richmond Triangle Players, a theater founded in 1993 in response to the AIDS crisis.
Photography by Tania del Carmen Fernández
Community Conversation —
Photography by Tania del Carmen Fernández
04
Community Conversation
Following the performance we held a community conversation moderated by Rodney Lofton, Deputy Director of Diversity Richmond. Panelists included Lisa Cumbey, sister (and primary caretaker) of painter J. Alan Cumbey, who died of AIDS in 1992; Karen Legato, Executive Director of Health Brigade; Zakia Mckensey, Founder of Nationz Foundation and UR Student India Henderson, Class of 2021.
