AIDS: THE LOST VOICES
BRIAN CARMICHAEL
& COMRADES
1992: Brian Carmichael [Photo: Jane P. Cleland]
California’s Medical Facility in Vacaville had long carried a reputation for poor care of inmates diagnosed with AIDS and HIV. By 1992, Brian Patrick Carmichael — though HIV negative himself at the time — began speaking out after witnessing friends and fellow prisoners die of undignified deaths at the hands of the prison authorities; he helped establish Pastoral Care Services, organising round‑the‑clock vigils to accompany those in their final days and hours. With the support of fellow inmates Charles Perry, Laos Schuman, Peter Yvanovich and more than 100 others, Carmichael alerted the press, politicians and the public to the appalling conditions, undertaking medication protests and hunger strikes to force attention and change.
Although the changes were slow, they began to take effect, and with the support of ACT UP San Francisco and fellow inmates, Brian never relented in his advocacy. That persistence, however, came at a cost: while incarcerated he and his comrades suffered retaliation from prison authorities, and on release—after being diagnosed HIV‑positive—his activism had made him a marked man, exposing him to what seemed to be further reprisals by the police. Despite the personal danger, Brian continued to press for reform, refusing to be silenced even as the stakes and the consequences escalated.
1987: concerns first raised around HIV/AIDS among inmates at the California Medical Facility five years earlier had culminated in legal action by prisoners then in custody; the suit prompted an out-of-court agreement in which the state committed to make specified improvements to medical screening, segregation policies, treatment access and staff training, acknowledging systemic failures and setting a precedent for more accountable healthcare practices within California’s prisons. Yet Brain Carmichael and his comrades raising the same concerns in 1992 demonstrated that the prison authorities didnt keep pace with the AIDS Pandemic.
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INMATE ACTIVISTS
Brian has been clear in recent interviews that he cannot accept sole praise for the activism that transformed conditions for prisoners with HIV/AIDS; he insists that the real credit belongs equally to his fellow comrades—men who were themselves incarcerated and diagnosed with the disease—whose collective courage, organising and daily struggle for dignity and better care drove the campaign forward, often at great personal risk and sacrifice.
L.A. Times 29 October 1993
We are still learning more about Charles Perry….
"big, violent, tough guy"
-Brian Carmichael, jovially talking of friend Charles Perry
AIDS Quilt 5002
Peter Anthony Yvanovich, born in Hong Kong and later naturalised in the United States, was remembered on the AIDS Memorial Quilt as an exceptionally gifted classical pianist whose refined technique and deep musical sensitivity made him a familiar name in San Francisco and across California’s concert listings. Yet his musical promise was tragically eclipsed by an act of extreme violence: he stabbed his mother some 37 times and his younger sister more than 30 times, the sister surviving the assault leading to a sentence of 38 years behind bars. The brutality of those attacks — and the baffling contrast between his public artistry and the private collapse that produced them — remains deeply disturbing. In court he indicated he might plead insanity, a claim that invites painful questions about his mental state.
When researching individuals like Peter, who were incarcerated with an HIV/AIDS diagnosis, there is a risk of allowing the brutality of their crimes—here, the killing of his mother and the severe physical and psychological harm inflicted on his sister Laura—to harden our responses into unsympathetic verdicts that extend to their illness and death; ethical inquiry demands that we separate moral accountability for criminal acts from humane treatment of disease, recognising that the presence of a devastating diagnosis should neither erase the harm done nor licence indifference to suffering, while still allowing careful consideration of how illness, punishment and responsibility intersect in both personal histories and institutional responses.
Peter died in the new AIDS Hospice inside California Medical Facility, that he, Brian, Charles, Laos, Law and many other inmates campaigned and advocated for.
Brian Carmichael shared that Peter was an exceptional pianist and keen chess player.
Lawrence “Law” Wilson was an extraordinarily successful lawyer whose career saw him employed at the office of the chief of police, where his remarkable record of activism spanned campaign work for racial integration, vociferous opposition to the Vietnam War, and pioneering efforts to open employment opportunities for gay and lesbian officers within the police force. As a board member of San Francisco’s Athletics and Arts and a key organiser of the Gay Games, he fused civic leadership with gay and lesbian cultural and sporting advancement.
His 1987 arrest for possession and dealing of drugs such as LSD and methamphetamine — substances that, for better or worse, were widely used on the gay scene at the time — complicated his legacy; he pleaded not to be sent to prison in part because he argued he would be unable to access life‑saving AIDS medication (then likely AZT) if incarcerated, a stark reminder of how the criminal justice system intersected with the early AIDS crisis.
Fellow inmate, friend and prison activist Brian Carmichael suggested that Law’s friends and family may have felt embarrassed by the turn his life took, yet the irony is stark: it was Law’s first-hand experience of the appalling conditions on the AIDS segregation wing at California Medical Facility that turned him into a relentless advocate for change. Drawing on his contacts, he wrote tirelessly to anyone who could raise awareness—lawyers, journalists, policymakers and prison officials—and even while weakened by AIDS he never rested; he taught fellow inmates to read and to use computers, equipping them with skills that would be invaluable on release. The reforms sparked by that advocacy transformed treatment and care not only in California and across the United States but resonated globally, as delegations from other countries visited California Medical Facility to learn how best to treat incarcerated people with HIV/AIDS, and Law’s surviving family should be incredibly proud.
“He was a beautiful person and wonderful friend.
He will remain loved, missed, and remembered”
- Brian Patrick Carmichael
AIDS Memorial Quilt
United States
"Everyone was crying,
and it was another life-altering
event for a lot of us"
-Brian Carmichael, reflecting on the Quilt being displayed at CMF, the firstexhibition in a prison in 1992
In February 1992 the AIDS Quilt arrived at Vacaville, only to be subjected to prison protocol: panel by panel searches, drug-sniffing dogs traipsing across the hand-made quilts, a humiliating theatre of suspicion that, for Carmichael, epitomised the prison’s institutional contempt for people with HIV and AIDS. "That's what we were up against, every day, trying to get access to the segregation units, hospitals, etc.," he recalls, the indignity folded into routine security postures. Yet the indignation did not extinguish the Quilt’s power; hundreds filed through the chapel to view the dozens of panels on display, and the room was thick with grief and recognition. "Everyone was crying, and it was another life-altering event for a lot of us," Carmichael says, underscoring how, despite demeaning procedures, the memorial created a profound communal shift within those walls.
Visit & Explore the United States AIDS Quilt at: AIDSmemorial.org
PART 2 of 2
Out On: 7th March 2026
