But another point of my story is that both approaches are often necessary. Yes, Staley did great work with Fauci after starting TAG, which was absolutely necessary. But the earlier angry confrontational tactics of Act Up can almost certainly be said to have made rapprochement possible.

Why were CDC officials willing to sit down with Staley? Because his work with angry Act Up brought him to national prominence. Without earlier angry confrontation, he would have been nobody anyone would have cared to talk to. He was a stock broker, not a virologist or public health expert.

My story isn’t about how one approach is better than the other, but about how different approaches matter, and that rarely, as in the case of Staley, they can exist in the same person.