ADVOCATE: Activists mark 45 years since the start of the AIDS crisis with rally against Trump's health cuts

Hundreds of people brought candles to New York City’s historic Christopher Street on Friday afternoon for a vigil marking 45 years since the first reported cases of AIDS and protesting cuts to HIV care and public health programs under President Donald Trump.

The New York City AIDS Memorial partnered with numerous health and advocacy groups for a vigil and march through the historic heart of LGBTQ+ New York, ending at the Stonewall Inn. Forty-five years prior, on June 5, 1981, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported five cases of an unknown disease eventually identified as AIDS.

“The New York City AIDS Memorial was built as a place for commemoration, but also as a place for action,” Dave Harper, the memorial’s executive director, told The Advocate. “It’s very appropriate that those two things are converging here today.”