Mpelembe :: African American Leaders Make AIDS in Black America a National Priority

TORONTO, Aug. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- The African American Leaders Delegation of The Black AIDS Institute (BAI) today made a historic pledge to work with the entire African American community to accept personal responsibility for ending the devastation of AIDS in the Black community. The Delegation, which is part of BAI's recently launched Black Mobilization Campaign, announced their pledge from the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, where member organizations and individual leaders had gathered, including civic, political, religious, social service, media, education and civil rights groups from across the nation that have a tradition of serving the African American community.

"We call on leaders to lead," said Julian Bond, Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Delegation member. "The story of AIDS in America is mostly one of a failure to lead and nowhere is this truer than in our Black communities. We have led successful responses to many other challenges in the past. Now is the time for us to face the fact that AIDS has become a Black disease. It has invaded our house, and our leaders must accept ownership and fight it with everything we have. The Black AIDS Institute's African American Leaders Delegation has begun this work today."

Black people are disproportionately impacted by AIDS in this country. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Blacks account for half of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is the leading cause of death for black women between the ages of 25 and 34. Overall, Black people are seven times more likely to die from AIDS than other at-risk groups.

"Because of poverty, ignorance and prejudice, AIDS has been allowed to stalk and kill Black America like a serial killer," said Rev. Jesse Jackson, Chairman, Rainbow PUSH Coalition and member of the African American Leaders Delegation. "But we have also been a compliant victim, submitting through inaction. We have a lesson to learn from our gay brothers and sisters who fought back when AIDS attacked their communities two decades ago. They started to save themselves, in part by using strategies from our civil rights playbook. It is now time for us to fight AIDS like the major civil rights issue it is."

The Delegation's Response

According to Phill Wilson, Founder and Executive Director of BAI and coordinator of the African American Leader's Delegation, it is only by mobilizing all corners of Black America that AIDS can be overcome. "For years we thought that bringing attention to the impact of AIDS in Black America would be enough to stop its destruction," said Wilson. "We know now that attention will not end AIDS any more than a smoke alarm will put out a house fire. Action is what will save us and it is action that we are pledging to take. Our member organizations have long ministered to the traditional African American community and today stand ready to rally them to this new cause."

The Delegation's action begins with a formal Pledge signed today by members of traditionally Black American organizations and other African American leaders to make deep and sustained transformations in the ways their organizations do business so that AIDS becomes an integrated priority. To do this, each group will appoint a national AIDS Director, develop a strategic five year plan, build AIDS goals in all group mission statements, and spotlight AIDS through various communications to their staff, members and Black communities.

From this organizational level, Delegation members will drive sustained change and support community-wide action to:

* Reduce HIV rates in Black America over the next five years

* Increase the percentage of African Americans who get tested and know

their HIV status

* Increase access to appropriate care and treatment for African Americans

Already, specific plans were laid by some Delegation members at the Toronto meeting today:

* Julian Bond of the NAACP pledged to make AIDS the next chapter in his

organization's decades of advocacy for access to quality healthcare

among African Americans. The NAACP will do this by including HIV

testing and education at each of its seven regional Civil Rights

Advocacy Training Institutes and Annual Convention, as well as

integrating HIV/AIDS information in all appropriate organizational

communications. Chairman Bond also pledged to lobby Congress to

reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act to assure continued funding of local

AIDS drug programs while also creating an "Infrastructure and Capacity

Expansion Program" to provide resources to assist community-based

organizations in providing high-quality medical care and support to

rural and urban communities for underserved minority populations.

NAACP will also lobby to increase the Congressional Minority AIDS

Initiative. Finally, Chairman Bond pledged to advocate for federal,

state and local implementation of AIDS testing for prisoners of the

country's penal system both upon entering and leaving facilities, as

well as assured care for HIV positive prisoners.

* Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) pledged as a representative of the

people and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus to fight to assure

that Black Americans are adequately represented in all Federal AIDS

programs, including the Ryan White Care Act and The Minority Health

Initiative. She also pledged to use her position to speak out whenever

possible to raise awareness of the impact that this disease is having on

Black America. Finally, as a citizen who takes her civil

responsibilities very seriously, she pledged to become involved

personally to help her community slow the spread of AIDS.

* Pernessa Seele of the Balm in Gilead pledged to continue to work with

the African American church, which she believes has a critical role to

play in dismantling HIV/AIDS stigma and distributing messages supporting

an informed response to AIDS in the community. Specifically, Seele

pledged to continue her organization's recent successes in placing

National Health Directors in the governing bodies of three national

Black denominations and to work to have a Health and HIV/AIDS

Coordinator in every historically Black church who would mobilize

congregations and communities to address the epidemic.

* George Curry of the National Newspaper Publishers Association pledged to

run a 25 week op/ed series starting the week of August 21 featuring

Black leaders addressing varying aspects of HIV/AIDS.

* Cheryl Cooper of the National Council of Negro Women and the National

Coalition of 100 Black Women pledged to sponsor a national conference on

AIDS and Black Women on February 7, 2007.

The African American Leaders Delegation will reconvene in December, 2006, to review progress made on these and many other pledges as they continue their campaign to slow the spread of AIDS in Black America.

About the Black AIDS Institute (http://www.blackAIDS.org)

The Black AIDS Institute is the first Black HIV/AIDS policy center dedicated to reducing HIV/AIDS health disparities by mobilizing Black institutions and individuals in efforts to confront the epidemic in their communities. The Institute's mission is to stop the AIDS pandemic in Black communities by engaging and mobilizing Black institutions and individuals in efforts to confront HIV. The Institute interprets public and private sector HIV policies, conducts trainings, offers technical assistance, disseminates information and provides advocacy from a uniquely and unapologetically Black point of view. Oversight of the Black AIDS Institute is provided by its board of directors, a diverse group of medical, community, political, and media experts committed to the organization and its mission. Guidance for BAI's training and education programs is provided by a scientific advisory board comprised of most of the country's leading scientists and public health experts.

For more information on member organization activities or to learn how to become involved with the African American Leaders Delegation's campaign to defeat AIDS in Black America, you can log on to the Black AIDS Institute's web site at: BlackAIDS.org or call (213) 353-3610. SOURCE The Black AIDS Institute

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