"Never Silent" Author Coming To Doylestown's Rainbow Room

DOYLESTOWN, PA — Peter Staley, a gay rights activist known primarily for his work in HIV/AIDS activism, will be in Doylestown on Wednesday for a student-led discussion on his new memoir, "Never Silent: Act Up & My Life of Activism."

The event takes place at the Rainbow Room (inside Salem Church) at 186 East Court Street, Doylestown, on Wednesday, May 3 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The evening will include a book signing, nibbles, powerful conversation, community, empowerment and activism.

The book reveals Staley’s wild ride from Wall Street bond trader to ACT UP poster boy, and the explosive and sometimes painful years to follow — years filled with triumph, humiliation, joy, loss, and persistence. ACT UP – the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power – changed the course of HIV/AIDS, pressuring the medical and political establishment to finally respond with research that ultimately saved millions of lives.

Staley organized some of the group’s most spectacular actions, from shutting down trading on
the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to putting a giant condom over the house of Senator Jesse Helms.

Staley has been a long-time HIV/AIDS and gay rights activist, first as an influential member of ACT UP New York, then as the founding director of TAG, the Treatment Action Group. He was a 2016 Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics and is a leading subject in the Oscar-nominated documentary “How to Survive a Plague.”

More recently, Staley co-founded the PrEP4All Collaboration and the COVID-19 Working Group – New York.

The special community event is hosted by Planned Parenthood Keystone’s Rainbow Room and Youth 4 Unity and will be facilitated by local queer youth activist and organizer Eva Houlton (they/them).

The event is hosted by The Rainbow Room and Youth4Unity and is sponsored by FACT Bucks, • PFLAG Bucks County, Family Service Association of Bucks County, Bucks County Suicide Prevention Task Force, YWCA Bucks County, NAACP Bucks County, Human Rights Campaign, New Hope Celebrates, Desis of Doylestown, Doylestown Pride Festival, GLSEN Bucks County, Rise Up Doylestown and Pair Up Society.