Larry Kessler, the nationally prominent community organizer from Boston who helped lead Massachusetts’ and the United States’ responses to the AIDS pandemic, died Thursday, February 1. He was 81.
Kessler’s legacy in Boston spanned more than 50 years, starting as a community-activist transplant from Pittsburgh who went on to confront the misinformation, fear and prejudices of the AIDS pandemic.
The nation’s longest-serving executive director of an AIDS organization (1983–2003), Kessler co-founded the AIDS Action Committee (AAC) of Massachusetts in 1983 shortly after the first cases of the disease appeared among gay men in Boston. The AAC staff and volunteers went on to educate generations of people about AIDS/HIV, cared for thousands living with and dying from the virus, secured funding for services and prevention programs, and advocated for progressive local, state and federal HIV/AIDS policy.
Originally its only paid staff member, Kessler and a small corps of volunteers from the AIDS Action Committee orchestrated a grass roots community response to combat the AIDS epidemic through service, education, advocacy and outreach. At the time, there were 13 cases of AIDS diagnosed in Massachusetts. Kessler went on to direct a staff of 100 full-time employees supported by several thousand volunteers. Under his watch, the community-based organization also grew to provide AIDS education and prevention programs for health care providers and the public.
Under Kessler’s leadership, AIDS Action started the Commonwealth’s statewide AIDS hotline; secured Medicaid coverage for low income people with HIV; lobbied for safe needle-exchange programs; instituted the annual AIDS Walk to raise critical funds for AIDS services; successfully challenged the MBTA ban on explicit AIDS prevention ads promoting the use of condoms on subway cars before the US Court of Appeals; and, most importantly, provided direct assistance and support to the thousands of men and women living with or affected by AIDS/HIV in Massachusetts. In 2013, AIDS Action became part of Boston-based Fenway Health, one of the country’s leading care and research centers for LGBTQIA+ people.
Since the onset of the AIDS pandemic, Kessler played a leading role in advocating at the state, local and federal levels for fair and effective AIDS policy and funding. He was an original member of both the Governor’s and Boston Mayor’s task forces on AIDS, under appointments by Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and Mayor Raymond Flynn, respectively.
Kessler was a founding board member of the former National AIDS Network, which was created in 1985 to provide technical assistance and information to community-based AIDS education and service organizations throughout the country. He was also a founding board member of the AIDS Action Council in Washington, the only national organization devoted exclusively to shaping policy on the HIV epidemic.
In 1989, Kessler was nominated by the US Senate to serve on the independent, bipartisan 15-member National Commission on AIDS. The Commission was created by statute to make recommendations to the White House and Congress for a consistent national policy concerning the HIV epidemic.
He also served on the advisory board of the Harvard AIDS Institute, on the board of directors of the National Leadership Coalition on AIDS and as executive director of the Boston Living Center (2013–’15).
Previously, in the 1970s, after moving from Pennsylvania and becoming director of the Office of Peace and Justice at the Paulist Center in Boston, Kessler’s many contribution to the Center included expanding its annual Walk for Hunger into the year-round anti-hunger program Project Bread, which is still helping feed those facing food insecurity in Massachusetts today.
A Memorial Celebration will be announced at a later date.
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