
I'm excited to be back as a regular contributor to Black Voices as we commemorate both Black History Month and National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Sunday, February 7th. This is "Greater Than AIDS," a new monthly column that will run in conjunction with the national Greater Than AIDS movement. Our goal is inform Black people about activities that our community is already engaged in -- and to enlist your support in what we still need to accomplish -- to overcome HIV/AIDS and bring the epidemic to an end.
Black people have been greater than any challenge we have confronted in the past. We were greater than the Middle Passage. We were greater than slavery. We were greater than Reconstruction. We were greater than Jim Crow. And, we will be greater than AIDS as well.
Yet each year more than 56,000 Americans contract HIV -- almost half of whom are Black. Black people account for two-thirds of the infections that occur among women. Among youth, that number rises to 70 percent. Research conducted among young Black gay and bisexual men suggests that about half of them are HIV-positive. And the AIDS rate in our nation's capital is as high as that of many African countries. These are the challenges we face. These are the challenges we cannot afford to ignore.




