Charting Our Course to Health
Welcome to the 2006 report on the State of AIDS in Black America, The Way Forward.
It is both fitting and ironic that this report is being released on the sixth annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness day as we all say our final goodbyes to our beloved Mrs. Coretta Scott King. Of traditional Black civil rights leaders, Mrs. King was the first and most courageous to join the ranks of heroes in the struggle against AIDS Black America has suffered tremendous losses in the last year.
With the passing of Delores Tucker, Rosa Parks, and now Mrs. King, the ranks of brave leaders who put themselves on the line during the dangerous, heady days of the late fifties and early sixties have become desperately thin. Coretta and Martin are finally together again. It’s been 43 years since Martin had that dream, and 38 years since he stood on that mountaintop and saw our destiny. Now, however, we are faced with a devastating disease running rampant through our communities that threatens not only to prevent us from getting to the mountaintop, but to roll back much of the progress Dr. and Mrs. King fought for.
“AIDS is a human crisis, no matter where you live,” Mrs. King said while addressing a gathering of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “Anyone who sincerely cares about the future of Black America had better be speaking out about AIDS, calling for preventive measures and increased funding for research and treatment.”
Those words have never rung more true. Since we released this report a year ago, much has changed—and too much has remained the same. For the second year in a row, the President raised the specter of AIDS in the African American community and called on America to act. While we don’t underestimate the importance of the President keeping the AIDS epidemic in Black America in the public eye, we can’t help but note the glaring disparities between his words and deeds. That is a tragedy.
But this report is not about the President or Congress or any kind of “them.” This report is about a collective us. As the motto of the Black AIDS Institute says, “Our People, Our Problem, Our Solution.” As outlined in this report, when we have the courage to act we make progress; when we don’t we lose ground.