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Home » Video » Independent Lens | We Were Here | Trailer

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  • Independent Lens

Independent Lens | We Were Here | Trailer | PBS

Duration: 02:19
Program: Independent Lens #1326
Broadcast Date: Jun. 7, 2012

Premiering June 14, 2012. Check local listings: www.pbs.org We Were Here documents the coming of what was called the "Gay Plague" in the early 1980s. It illuminates the profound personal and community issues raised by the AIDS epidemic, as well as the broad political and social upheavals it unleashed. It offers a cathartic validation for the generation that suffered through, and responded to, the onset of AIDS. It opens a window of understanding to those who have only the vaguest notions of what transpired in those years. It provides insight into what society could, and should, offer its citizens in the way of medical care, social services, and community support. Early in the epidemic, San Francisco's compassionate, multifaceted, and creative response to AIDS became known as "The San Francisco Model." The city's activist and progressive infrastructure that had evolved out of the 1960s combined with San Francisco's highly politicized gay community centered around the Castro Street neighborhood, and helped overcome the obstacles of a nation both homophobic and lacking in universal healthcare. In its suffering, San Francisco mirrors the experience of so many American cities during those years. In its response, The San Francisco Model remains a standard to aspire to in seeking a healthier, more just, more humane society. It has been 30 years since AIDS descended. Like an unrelenting hurricane, the epidemic roiled San Francisco for two decades, and only began ...

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Post Date: June 7, 2012