“If all you’re doing is taking,” Cheren said, “you’re not really part of us. You have to give something back. And your community is in trouble. Figure out what you can do to help.”
At the time, the AIDS epidemic was shrouded in fear, misinformation, and political silence. Many Americans viewed AIDS as someone else’s problem, confined to gay neighborhoods in cities like New York and San Francisco. Earle challenged the country to look directly at the crisis and at the people being abandoned by it.
Born in 1951, Earle grew up in Lockport, New York, traveling into Manhattan as a teenager to immerse himself in theater and the freedom of gay New York. He visited the Stonewall Inn before it became synonymous with resistance, and happened to be bar-hopping nearby on the night police raids erupted into the 1969 uprising.
By the late 1970s, Earle had built a happy life in New York, co-creating plays with composer Peter Link and studying under the famed acting teacher Uta Hagen. He embraced long-term relationships over fleeting flings and built a tight-knit group of friends.
By 1984, the epidemic was no longer abstract. “I was drowning in grief,” Earle said. “My friends were sick. My friends were dying. And no one seemed to care. I wanted to respond in a positive way.”
Earle’s 70-year old mother, Marion, a retired schoolteacher, volunteered immediately to help. Her role was to drive ahead to set pace, then behind to shield him from traffic. A Winnebago trailed with a small team organizing press stops, public meetings, and fundraisers.
Marion in the car that set the pace from the AREA run in 1987. —Courtesy Brent Nicholson EarleImmediately, they felt the financial pinch. Gas and food cost more than they’d budgeted, and shoes wore out fast. Donations came in fits and starts, often through sales of A.R.E.A. T-shirts and buttons. Still, Earle believed the details would work themselves out.
The social climate was no kinder. In 1986, AIDS was still widely misunderstood. Powerful religious leaders described the epidemic as divine punishment. The White House had only addressed the crisis the year prior, offering a brief mention in response to a reporter’s probing question. Stigma and fear provoked hostility. Marion’s pace car with flashing lights and A.R.E.A. banners made them visible targets, provoking the very fear Earle was trying to confront. Drivers screamed slurs. Bottles flew from car windows. Once, someone leveled a shotgun at them. Cars intentionally swerved close to spook him, sending him into the gravel more than once.
Along the route at potlucks and receptions in churches, bars, schools, and living rooms, Brent spoke and listened. He met the sick, the fearful, the closeted, the skeptical, and the curious. His mother’s presence proved to be a true superpower during these cross-country stops. Marion embraced homosexual sons abandoned by their families, approached hardened parents with gentle persistence, and planted seeds of acceptance where there had only been fear.
By the time Earle completed the roughly 9,000-mile circuit in Oct. 1987, nearly two years after he began, he had become a national symbol of AIDS activism. Hundreds of supporters joined him for the final stretch into Manhattan, where crowds gathered in Times Square and Union Square to celebrate his return.
As the epidemic continued to accelerate, Earle threw himself into the newly formed ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, demanding urgent government action to develop treatments. In 1989, he was arrested during a notorious demonstration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Then came his own diagnosis. After testing negative in 1987 and 1988, Earle tested positive in 1989.
The virus came from a long-term partner he loved deeply, a man who would later die of the disease.
“She was so proud of me,” he said. “We had a true partnership.”
Today, for those with access to treatment, HIV is no longer the near-certain death sentence it once was. Over 40 million people worldwide live with HIV, and advances in HIV prevention, particularly PrEP, have reshaped the landscape. Yet the epidemic is far from over. In 2024 alone, an estimated 630,000 people worldwide died of AIDS-related illnesses, while 1.3 million more were newly infected.
On Dec. 1, 2025, for the first time since World AIDS Day was established in 1988, the U.S. State Department refused to recognize it officially. Earle lived through a time when government indifference allowed a virus to devastate an entire generation. That history makes today’s retrenchment feel chillingly familiar.
At 75 years old, Earle still carries the belief that first sent him running across the country decades ago. Change does not require authority or certainty, only the willingness to take a single step.
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