NCOD was started in 1988 by lesbian Jean O’Leary and gay man Robert Eichberg, on the theory that LGBTQ+ people were so ostracized from society — and AIDS was not a priority — partly because most people didn’t realize their own brothers, friends, uncles and colleagues were gay.
It was a matter of life and death. They hoped more awareness of the queer community would mean more attention paid to the AIDS crisis, which activists accused President Ronald Reagan and the federal government of largely ignoring. By the end of 1988, at least 46,134 Americans had died of AIDS, many but not all of whom were gay men. Activists wanted both more funding for federal research into drugs to treat AIDS and a faster drug approval process from the Food and Drug Administration.
The fear of AIDS especially permeated the gay community, where transmission, infection and death rates were highest.
“I was scared to my marrow,” said AIDS activist Jay Blotcher, who worked for many years with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). “I was frightened of the predatory aspect of AIDS. I was doing everything to avoid it. I was very grateful that I had not contracted it. And I suppose in my mind, I made a deal with God and said, ‘I’ll become the activist. I’ll do things for people with AIDS; just make sure you spare me.’”
Discrimination against AIDS patients skyrocketed, as did discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.
It was in this charged environment that Eichberg and O’Leary wanted gay people around the country to come out — a risky declaration, but one they felt would be worth it.
Eichberg and O’Leary chose Oct. 11 for NCOD because it was the date, one year earlier, of the Second Gay and Lesbian March on Washington, when hundreds of thousands of queer people and allies marched on the Capitol in Washington to demand action on AIDS.
“People came from all over the country,” said Andy Humm, a reporter for Gay Cable Network, the premier LGBTQ+ news outlet, who reported on the ground that day. “They came from places where they were too afraid to march in their own states or in their own cities.”
Hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ people from more than 30 states marched down Pennsylvania Avenue behind dying AIDS patients pushed in wheelchairs. Footage of the march from the Gay Cable Network archives shows streets full of people of all ages lifting banners and rainbow flags skyward. Whoopi Goldberg, presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson, and a young first-term congresswoman from California named Nancy Pelosi all marched in support.
“The Great March,” as it became known, was a major turning point in public and political discourse. For the first time, the LGBTQ+ community was seen as a political bloc that had to be reckoned with.