Established in 2005 as part of NLGJA’s 15th anniversary celebration, the LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame was launched to honor LGBT journalists who have shown courage and resolve by telling the truth, including their own personal truths, whatever the cost and whatever the difficulties.
Randy Shilts was inducted in 2005. Here’s an excerpt from his biography for the LGBT Journalists Hall of Fame:
“The name Randy Shilts is inextricably linked with the modern AIDS epidemic. As a reporter for The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle and as the author of the 1987 book And the Band Played On, Randy spent the bulk of his career covering the disease that, sadly, took him from us at the young age of 42. His reporting helped dispel, if not end, America’s prejudice and denial about this plague that has now claimed more half a million lives in the United States alone.
“Like the gay author/activist Larry Kramer, Randy did not mince words. He wrote about unsafe sex in gay bathhouses with the same fervor that he brought to his critical coverage of lawmakers and scientists who dismissed the seriousness of AIDS.”
Click here to read the complete biography.