Hi, I'm Shannon, the podcast producer here at C-SPAN.

Over 100,000 people died during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

One of the faces that emerged from the epidemic was Ryan White.

Ryan was diagnosed with AIDS after a blood transfusion in 1984.

When he tried to return to school, he faced AIDS-related discrimination in his Indiana community.

He lived until 1990 and died one month before his high school graduation.

This week, Florida State University history professor Paul Renfro discusses the life and death of Ryan White. More after this.

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With the upcoming presidential election this November, C-SPAN is once again providing middle and high school students across the country with a platform to tell us about the issues

that are important to them and their generation.

Our 21st annual Student Cam documentary competition is now open to submissions and will award

$100,000 in cash prizes to the top 150 videos. For more information, visit student cam.org.

So thank you all again. I want to begin with a vignette.

So in a 1993 interview with Playboy magazine, the playwright activist and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power or Actup co-founder Larry Kramer expressed his admiration for Ryan White.

The person most Americans associate with AIDS is Ryan White, the Indiana boy who died of AIDS in 1990.

The interviewer at Playboy told Kramer before asking where Ryan ranked on Kramer's list of AIDS leaders,

heroes, and villains. I think little Ryan White probably did more to change the face of this

illness and to move people than anyone. Kramer replied, people respond to courage. Ryan was courageous by confronting the issue

...