Black Women Told to Take Charge in AIDS Fight

By Robert Jablon THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

AIDS is the new civil rights challenge for black women and they must take responsibility for fighting a disease that hits them harder than most other Americans, speakers said Thursday at a national conference.

Conference officials noted at a press conference in Los Angeles that it was the 50th anniversary of the day that Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, a pivotal moment in the modern civil rights movement.

“For black people in America today, the bus is AIDS” but instead of being told to give up their seats, “we are being told to give up our lives,” said Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute. The institute and other groups were holding the first national conference to focus on AIDS and black women in America.

It was among events around California to mark World AIDS Day, including candlelight gatherings in West Hollywood and the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles.

Figures released last month by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that blacks were eight times more likely than whites to be diagnosed with the AIDS virus, although the rate of newly reported HIV cases among African-Americans had dropped.

Last year, according to the CDC, blacks accounted for 68 percent of newly diagnosed infections among women.

As of 2002, AIDS was the leading cause of death for black women between the ages of 25 and 35.

Unveiled at the news conference was a billboard that is part of a nationwide campaign urging black women to take responsibility for preventing AIDS.

Black women need to demand that their sexual partners wear condoms and be tested for HIV, speakers said.