Rise Up!

Jamie Bauer (They, Them) trained over a thousand ACT UPers in nonviolent civil disobedience over the six or seven years that ACT UP was most active and remains one of the foremost trainers in the progressive movement to this day. Jamie went to MIT to study civil engineering, architecture and urban planning and earned a Master’s degree in transportation, which had a one-in-eight women-to-men ratio. In 1981, they returned to New York to work for the MTA, eventually as director of subway schedules. About two decades after their time in ACT UP, Jamie started to live as nonbinary. In the early 1980s, Jamie joined Women’s Pentagon Action, a mobilization to create a large women’s peace action directly confronting the Pentagon that included Grace Paley, Vera Williams, Eva Kollisch, Donna Gould, Sharon Kleinbaum, Toni Fitzpatrick, Laura Flanders and Harriet Hirschorn, among others. Jamie learned a lot about organizing, dealing with the police, insisting on the right to take space, and everything about doing politics on the street.

Jay W. Walker (He, Him) has been involved in activism surrounding LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS issues for over 20 years. In 1998, he helped form the October 19th Coalition which used direct action activism to raise awareness of hate crimes targeting LGBTQ communities. He also volunteered with GMHC’s NY Citizens AIDS Network legislative public policy initiative. A founding member of Gays Against Guns and Rise and Resist, and a co-founder of the Reclaim Pride Coalition and The Queer Liberation March, Jay has conceived, produced and co-produced numerous fundraising events, public awareness campaigns, rallies, marches, and direct action protests focusing on hate crimes, gun violence prevention, HIV/AIDS, Anti-fascism, and to protecting and restoring our democracy.

Jackie Rudin (she/her) has been an activist since the war in Vietnam, fighting for women’s rights, civil rights and LGBTQ rights. She was a lead activist with OFA (Obama for America) the campaign to re-elect Barack Obama and was a founding member of Rise and Resist and Gays Against Guns. As a co- founder of The Reclaim Pride Coalition which launched the first Queer Liberation March and Rally, she was lead producer of the rally on the Great Lawn of Central Park. Her photography documents direct actions and demonstrations for radical and progressive politics, the LGBTQ community and civil rights, and it chronicles the work of artists, performers and activists. Using social media, she documents, publicizes and amplifies their work and cultural contributions.