Remembering AIDS Activist Larry Kramer: An Interview with Arthur Fitting, VNSNY’s LGBT Program Manager

For Arthur Fitting, VNSNY’s LGBT Program Manager, the recent death of longtime AIDS activist, playwright and author Larry Kramer was a personal loss. Arthur has been with VNSNY for 30 years, and his experience working as a clinical field nurse in Manhattan caring for AIDS patients in the early days of the epidemic provided unique experiences and memories that he carries with him today. Kramer’s powerful advocacy for people with AIDS during that time made a particularly indelible impression on him.

Arthur continues to apply the lessons he learned from Kramer in his current role, working with community organizations, VNSNY’s hospital partners and VNSNY’s own staff to improve access to quality health care within a safe space for the LGBT community. “The need for advocacy, which Larry understood so well, is as strong today as it was at the time of the AIDS epidemic,” he notes. Frontline spoke with Arthur recently about Larry Kramer’s impact, then and now.

Legendary activist Larry Kramer (photo credit: Catherine McGann/Getty Images)

Larry Kramer was one of the founders in 1981 of GMHC, the first service organization for HIV-positive people. He went on to found ACT UP, which took a more aggressive approach to the AIDS crisis. What was your connection with Kramer?

I was an early member of ACT UP, and I’m a member today. At that time, there was no real face or voice to HIV/AIDS. Larry taught us how to advocate for ourselves and to see our own value. I had lost a partner to AIDS, and at that time we were fighting for our lives. We didn’t know how or what to do, since there were no approved treatments or direction—but Larry did.

How does your work with Larry and ACT UP in the early days of the AIDS epidemic impact your work today?

Larry taught a lot of people, myself included, important lessons that I still use with the communities I serve today. One thing I take with me wherever I go is how to advocate for people, and how to be an advocate for a cause you care about. It’s wonderful that I’m working at VNSNY, which advocates for all patients and plan members today as it has for 127 years. VNSNY is really out there in the community, asking questions, listening, and really supporting the people in all communities, including the LGBT community.

Were you doing AIDS work in the early years of the epidemic?

Yes, as a clinical nurse in the West Village, which was “ground zero” in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. In addition to administering infusion therapy, I and some of my co-workers were able to help develop new programs for VNSNY, so that AIDS patients could receive quality care and get the support they needed to be safely cared for and, in so many instances, be able to die with dignity in their own homes.

What was Larry Kramer like to work with? He had a reputation as being pretty tough.

Larry never stopped the call to action to end AIDS. He always reminded us that we were not doing enough, and that we could always do more—and to do it now. He always focused on the urgency of the situation, and united us while he sounded the call to action.

Does the COVID-19 pandemic remind you of the early days of the AIDS crisis?

For me, initially, COVID-19 was a flashback to the AIDS crisis. There are great similarities but also many differences—especially the fact that, in the early days of AIDS, there was a delay in response time and support by many public figures, as well as the fact that nobody knew how AIDS was contracted.

Larry Kramer (Photo by Donna Aceto)

What do you see as Larry Kramer’s legacy?

Larry was a very unique and rare teacher, as well as an advocate for people who couldn’t advocate for themselves. At VNSNY, I sometimes think we may not realize how much we advocate for patients and members, since it seems to be done automatically and with such a great passion by everyone in their own way. I think everyone at VNSNY has a mission of advocacy that is similar to Larry’s mission, and that mission continues today. I believe Larry Kramer and Lillian Wald would find much to talk about, as they were both very unique people who advocated for people and communities that nobody else would advocate for, each in their own time period.