By Tim Kingston
Martin Delaney, who died Jan. 23, had more lives than one could imagine. The word “Zelig” has even been used. Delaney was an AIDS activist, the founder of Project Inform, a thorn in the side of the Government, an HIV treatment smuggler, a disreputable associate of the bad boys of Level 242, the creator of a cuddly corporate mascot (we still can’t talk about this), but more than anything else he was an inspiration with a wicked sense of humor and a talent for spurring people onto activism.
It seems ages ago now. HIV was AIDS and a death sentence in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. There were few drugs, but Martin Delaney inspired people to stay alive and active. “What stands out is the extent to which Marty traveled from city to city when there was no hope,” said Curtis Ponzi, AIDS activist and early collaborator with Delaney. “He went places where there was no hope, not L.A., not San Francisco. He went places where people had no help, and he spoke about hope. He spoke about the need to get treated and tested, and that there were things you could do, when everyone else was saying pack up your bags and get ready to die. He was a lion.”
Delaney died at 63 of liver cancer, brought on by cirrhosis caused by Hepatitis B, the disease that first brought him to California from Chicago in 1978 for an experimental treatment. The treatment worked and cleared the disease, but the damage had been done, although he lived far longer than he would have otherwise. It is entirely possible that early experience with an experimental treatment gave him a foundation of hope when everything else looked damned to failure in the early days of HIV.