Bill Jesdale on the Health Department Protest

Bill Jesdale on the Health Department Protest

"Interview with Bill Jesdale and Duncan Smith" (2006). Underground Rhode Island. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:147355/

"In 1987-88, the legislative session in Rhode Island, there was a bill introduced that would've made, it would have been required for anybody getting married, getting family counseling – family planning counseling which basically means a birth control pill prescription or abortion – anybody seeking drug treatment, anybody going to prison, and anybody going to a hospital for any reason at all... to be tested for HIV regardless of their consent and if they were positive to have their name reported to the health department. So that was the legislation that was sponsored by the health department by H Denman Scott who is now a professor at uhh... in Brown's public health department. I'm sure he's a nice guy, he'll always be a villain in my head because of this. Umm, it'd actually be very interesting to hear his side of the story. He said something like “My instincts recoil at not knowing who these people are” or something like that... but it was 1987, give the guy a little leeway, I'm sure he was well intentioned but poorly manifested... umm, and so basically they came up with this horrendous legislation and that was one of the major, that was sort of the first major focus of ACT-UP in Rhode Island was fighting the... and this is, this was just to give you a little context, this was also in the time where there was serious discussion of concentration camps for people who were HIV positive? And although nothing like that was being proposed in Rhode Island, the fact that prominent members of the US house and senate were talking about that sort of idea at the time, even though it had no actual chance of passage... the fact that those things were being discussed was very scary. Much more scary than “Oh no, you can't get married”. [laughs] Sorry, that's my little dig there. Point being, so this legislation was being proposed in Rhode Island that would test virtually everybody but under the guise of treating everybody as one of these 7 high risk populations that should be scorned at any decent part. And then to report the results to the health department which would then do what with it I dunno, but probably contact tracing. Which worked in Cuba. But would not have worked here. That's a whole nother discussion, the contact tracing thing. Anyway, so it was the HIV testing that we were exercised about. And we had a couple of trainings that were run by the Quakers. They didn't really understand what the issue was but they did understand about how to deal with police and public actions. So they gave us a couple of trainings that were very helpful. Things like don't bring drugs with you because if they, if you get arrested for this and they find drugs with you then, A, nobody will help you and B, you'll be stuck in there for a long time. Simple things like that that you wouldn't necessarily always think of. And what it means to resist arrest, what it means to go passively, what it means to avoid arrest, sort of all these little scenarios they went through with us. Anyway so then like two weeks later we were ready to do it. And what ACT-UP was going to do was go into the health department and occupy the offices of H Denman Scott and demand that this legislation be pulled – knowing that we'd be arrested and hauled out, but that was our demand and as soon as our demand was met we would've left peacefully, right? Umm, so... we advertised very heavily and there was widespread knowledge that this was going to be happening. And so... sorry if my timetable's a little off, but basically so there were all these, I think the group outside was actually mostly RISD kids cause most of the Brown kids, like now, are too apathetic to actually show up at anything. And they had all these great posters and everything like that one – there's a picture on my mantle of Eliza [Jackson] holding this ACT-UP Rhode Island poster, although that particular demonstration was like a year later. Anyway so they knew we were coming, they had state police mounted at the doors. And the six of us who were planning to get, well planning to have our demands met or be arrested, went in separately and each one of us had a reason to be there. So one of us was looking for a birth certificate, one of us was I dunno going to get a license for this, one of them was paying a tax bill on that, one of them was doing... so each of us had a legitimate reason to get past the police and into the building. And so we each went in separately and then met in the lunchroom downstairs and all got together, had a little breakfast...So umm somebody went upstairs, the director's office was on the 4th floor so it was 5 floors away... we'd decided not to take the elevators incase somehow they were onto us and stuck the elevators. So our, I dunno what... well I dunno, anyway, we took the stairs. But somebody went up and scoped it out and came back down to the little breakfast nook there and said “You're not gonna believe this. There's already a demonstration up there about nurse midwives.” Apparently the health department was also trying to create this very stringent certification process for nurse midwives and they were demonstrating against that or, I don't remember what the details were... so we're like, should we go ahead and do it or not? And meanwhile we can hear the RISD kids out there shouting and having a good time. So we decided to go ahead and do it. And we went up the stairs, and literally the moment we got there the police were escorting the midwives out of the office. And we were wearing suits and ties and dresses and stuff - so as not to look like people with AIDS. Umm, as though a person with AIDS wears a shirt that says that or something... so as not to attract attention anyway. So anyway, there was all this hubub cause all the secretaries and everything were watching the midwives leave. So they were coming out and we went in and went right into his office, sat down. And it took them a little while to figure out that there was actually another demonstration going on then. But eventually somebody came and talked with us or something and we said we're waiting until the director gets here, cause you know he's the one that can do what we need to get done. And of course he didn't come. But the police came, they said “if you don't leave within ten minutes we'll be forced to arrest you” la da da... “if you don't leave within five minutes we'll be forced to arrest you”... “if you don't leave within two minutes we'll be forced to arrest you.” Anyway, so finally they came in and we each stood up in turn and allowed them to handcuff us from behind. By then they were using those plastic zip cuffs which I guess are standard practices now but I'd never seen one at that point. So we were walked out of the building, one officer for each person. It was me... this is a matter of public record cause we were all arrested and arraigned so it's ok... me, Steve Gendin, Christopher Gervenin, Eliza Jackson, Liz Deschaen, uhh... I dunno if there was, I dunno who the 6th person was if it was James or John or... anyway, so there were 6 of us. 4 guys more or less and 2 more or less girls. And so in terms of, ok, all of that's very interesting we get walked out, there are all these people cheering and carrying on... umm and uhh... actually the guy who drove me to the police barracks was very nice. He was like, what were you doing, what was it about... he didn't agree, he didn't disagree, he just sort of... which was actually, I appreciated. And then we were, where were the barracks, Coventry maybe? Anyway they brought the 6 of us there to the barracks and then started processing us, fingerprinting and all of that. Because there were 2 women in the group they had to rush around and find a female state police officer – which only took them 2 hours. So we were basically waiting and waiting and waiting and after 2 hours, because we were such a threat, they decided to strip search us. So they brought the 2 girls out, brought in 2 male officers, and strip searched us. They didn't touch us, they didn't go through our clothes, they didn't ask us to open our pockets or anything to display whatever threat it was we were to them. They just had us strip and stand in front of them and turned around. And then they left again. I think they did a very similar thing with the women, but you'd have to ask Liz or Eliza about that. Umm, so you know, it was just to be degrading. And then after we got fingerprinted and put the rest of our clothes back on, for whatever reason I was the last person out of the room and so one of the officers threw me a bottle of bleach and said “You. Bleach this room down, clean every surface before you leave.” So I had to bleach the whole thing and go around with paper towels and wipe the bleach solution up. And then they just let us go. And then there was the arraignment and all that stuff, so... that's, I mean that's as close I can come close to saying we were mistreated by law enforcement, but come on. We were privileged white kids and as demeaning or whatever as that is, that's nothing. Nothing. So I hardly feel justified complaining about it. So that's the story of the health department. And it goes on for years after that, but…”