OUT100: Kalaya'an Mendoza

Photography by JUCO | Retouching by Anna Glen at Wet Noodle

The Moment: March 24, 1987: The first ACT UP demonstration, on Wall Street in New York

Kalaya'an Mendoza has rebellion in his blood. Now a senior organizer with Amnesty International USA, he's directed his fury into nonviolent protest efforts, like the one that brought him to Ferguson, Mo., this August, to monitor police tactics after the killing of unarmed teen Michael Brown. But Mendoza is as much a lover as he is a fighter. "Aside from supporting movements worldwide," he says, "I'm trying to find a revolutionary who knows how to tenderly flush tear gas from my eyes and make out with me in front of a police line as a form of civil resistance."

Photographed at Milk Studio, New York on September 19, 2014

Styling by Michael Cook. Hair and makeup: Angela Dicarlo.

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