Mark Wyn:
CLASS OF 1976
Ottawa Hills High SchoolClass of 1976
Grand rapids, MI
Columbia University - Law SchoolClass of 1982
New york, NY
Princeton UniversityClass of 1980
Princeton, NJ
Ridgeview Junior High SchoolClass of 1972
Grand rapids, MI
Brookside Elementary SchoolClass of 1970
Grand rapids, MI
Mark's Story
In the movie "All About Eve", Bette Davis makes the pronouncement, "Fasten your seat belts ...... it's going to be a bumpy night." That sort of sums up my life after leaving Grand Rapids for college at Princeton.
I did well academically at Princeton, was elected to student government and began the process of coming out as a member of the gay community. I left Princeton a year early as part of a program that allowed me to start Columbia Law School while taking courses to finish my undergraduate degree while in law school. Another reason I left Princeton early is that I had fallen in love my junior year with a wonderful man from Jamaica named Gordon Brown who lived in New York City.
Gordon and I got a tiny apartment together and I thrived at law school and enjoyed New York City and married life very much. Little did I or anyone know that we were at ground zero of the AIDS pandemic.
After law school, I went to work for a large Wall Street law firm. I was there from 1982 until 1990 and specialized in banking transactions and project finance. The hours were long, but the people were nice and the work was challenging.
Life at that time was vastly overshadowed on a personal level by the AIDS plague. Out of the blue, young men in New York were getting sick with strange diseases and dying in their 20s and 30s. No one knew why. Respected conservatives were calling for the tattooing of people infected with HIV and sending them off to concentration camps. It was a time of fear and confusion and grief and anger as friends I loved like family began getting sick, wasting away and dying. Gordon and most of my closest friends died from AIDS during the 1980s and 1990s.
America was living in the time of Reagan and Bush (the elder). I felt like I was living in a war zone with so much death and dying around me while most people, unaware and unaffected, went on with their normal lives oblivious to the plague. It seemed as if nobody in the government or in American society cared about those getting sick and dying; educating the public about how HIV was spread; o...Expand for more
r funding research for a cure for AIDS or the opportunistic infections that were killing people living with HIV.
In 1987, I became very involved with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), a diverse nonpartisan group of people united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. Through bold and creative non-violent demonstrations, actions and disruptions, we were able to get the attention of the media, the drug companies, the government and society-at-large to begin focusing on a cure for AIDS, on support and treatments for those infected and on educating the public about preventing the spread of HIV.
I was mentally and physically burnt out by the end of the 1980s and moved to Washington, DC to start a new life in a new city. I became a legislative lawyer for the Food Stamp Program of the USDA. I also co-founded the DC chapters of ACT-UP and Queer Nation, ran support groups and delivered meals to PWAs. I retired in 1992 for health reasons and almost died in 1993, 1995 and 2001. Since then, I have worked on trying to stay healthy, mentally and physically. I volunteered for President Obama's campaigns and hope to volunteer for the person who will be our first female president.
I moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 2004 to be closer to my sister and to get to know my 2 nieces better before they finished high school and went off to college.
I have a soulmate in Baltimore named Richard who I have known since 1984 who has been with me through good times and bad. Someday we may marry. I live with my dachshund named Zora who brings so much love and joy into my life.
I have had HIV at least since 1979 and feel blessed to be alive. I feel a responsibility to witness for all the men I knew and loved who died from the plague and witness to the terrible times we lived through. Those who died are remembered as the strong, loving and courageous men that they were who died way too young. So much of my history died when they did.
(January 28, 2016) - Google [ aids "mark wyn"] plus 1. stlmag // or 2. thevitalvoice // or 3. boom//
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