"Shilts was a journalist. Though he died at 42 years old, he lived his life with purpose. He did his best work against the backdrop of human suffering and decided that he was not going to go back into the closet to get a job professionally. When the San Francisco Chronicle hired him in 1981, the mainstream questioned his ability to report gay issues without bias."
"He gained notoriety for writing about San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk in his book, The Mayor of Castro Street, but made a name for himself tracing the origins of the AIDS epidemic when he wrote And The Band Played On about the earliest days of the AIDS Epidemic. He described the story as, "actually the focus of it as a sort of a medical mystery story, and I brought the first five years of the epidemic.""
Randy Shilts made the United States aware of AIDS beyond perceptions of it being confined to the gay community. He pursued journalism with purpose and lived openly as a gay man until his death at 42. He joined the San Francisco Chronicle in 1981 and faced mainstream skepticism about his ability to cover gay issues without bias. He wrote The Mayor of Castro Street about Harvey Milk and authored And The Band Played On, tracing the first five years of the AIDS epidemic as a medical mystery. He reported amid widespread human suffering and served as an interpreter for people living with AIDS. The public focus shifted further when Rock Hudson disclosed his diagnosis.
Read at ABC7 San Francisco
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