When he died on Feb. 5, 1992, Danny Sotomayor was only 33 years old, his life stolen by AIDS and his last four years spent in a bold fight against its ravages, the diagnosis of which was then a virtual death sentence. But he also spent those last years as one of the most powerful and passionate of the early AIDS activists, fighting for research funds, for respect.
His newspaper obituary was only a couple hundred words long so it barely told his story, which makes it important for us to have a fine and forceful “The Outrage of Danny Sotomayor,” part of WTTW’s documentary series “Chicago Stories,” airing at 9 p.m. Friday on WTTW-Ch.
11. (There is also a fine accompanying website , filled with more information and, indeed, enlightenment). In addition to celebrating one of the great heroes (and, yes, that is the right word) of the AIDS activist movement, it is also a reminder of the fear and uncertainty that shadowed the earliest days of AIDS.
It is a valuable history lesson, at once harrowing and heartbreaking. Sotomayor was born in 1958, the son of a Mexican mother and Puerto Rican father, and grew up in the Humboldt Park neighborhood where his father’s frequent rages made for a violent household. He came out at 14, graduated from Columbia College with a degree in graphic arts, and was starting to make his mark as a political cartoonist and actor.
But all around him, friends were getting sick and dying and in 1988 he was diagnosed with AIDS. As the film shows, he qu.
