As the United States marks National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD) on February 7, Black people are 12-13% of the U.S. population, yet 40% of HIV diagnoses, 40% of those living with HIV, and more than 40% of deaths among people with HIV, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics.
NHBAAD was first marked in 1999 by the Black AIDS Institute as a grassroots education effort to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS prevention, care, and treatment in Black, Latino and Indigenous communities.
“One of the biggest barriers for people of color in particular is still stigma around HIV and AIDS,” stated Gerald Green, co-executive director of the Minority AIDS Project in Los Angeles. He was diagnosed in 1995 when approximately 50,000 people died from HIV/AIDS during the height of the epidemic.
“The stigma, the shame associated with it continues to have our community at a disadvantage because they won’t seek the help that they need,” Mr. Green told The Final Call. He feels that Black churches could do more to carry messages about the critical issue in their pulpits.
Advocates point out that stigma may stem from plain misinformation, cultural shame, or religion, but it is a powerful force. Also, there is still a lack of access to quality healthcare.
Outreach and programming led by Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities and by Minority AIDS Project late founder Bishop Carl Bean was instrumental in saving his life, said Mr. Green.
People are more willing to get the service they need when they see someone who looks like them and who is dealing with or empathetic to it, he explained.
Wraparound services were key for his survival as well as his willingness to open up about his status to his family, once he got over the initial shock.
The key takeaway is for people to know that HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence if it is treated.
“The most important thing is to get into treatment. Process through therapy or any kind of support group that you might need assistance in understanding what’s happening with you.
And know, you can live because years ago I thought I would be gone by now and I had to reinvent my thinking that life with these new medications and new ways of surviving HIV is that you know that you can live,” added Mr. Green.

The fact that over 40 years into the HIV/AIDS epidemic that Black people are still disproportionately impacted is concerning.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has for decades, warned and cautioned Black people and the human family about the dangers and impact of HIV/AIDS.
“… There is an AIDS pandemic, as we speak, in the Black community. And the Black woman, it is said, is the ‘No. 1’ carrier of the HIV virus,” stated the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, during Part 37 of his 58-week lecture series “The Time and What Must Be Done,” in 2013.
During a 2010, interview with Cathy Hughes, then host of TV One, Minister Farrakhan noted that, “With this sexual revolution, we’re spreading our own death through our need for pleasure and our disrespect of ourselves and our women.”
He added, “When [Black men] go to prison, they check you coming in. They know you don’t have it. But nobody checks you coming out. And … they take these young men and turn them while they’re in prison having sex with one another.
Then they come home, their girlfriends are waiting for them. So, they have sex with their girlfriends or their several girlfriends, but they’re passing the virus that they may have gotten in prison.”
In part 38 of his 2013 lecture series Minister Farrakhan noted some of the statistics at that time stating, “Black males have almost 7.8 times the AIDS rate as White males. Black men are seven times as likely to die from HIV/AIDS as White men.
Black females have 23 times the AIDS rate as White females. Black women are 15 times as likely to die from HIV/AIDS as White women. Black children are twice as likely to be diagnosed with HIV infection, as compared to the White children. In 2011, African Americans were 8.6 times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV infection, as compared to the White population.”
The HIV/AIDS epidemic affects 40 million people worldwide more than 40 years after it first plagued America in 1981, according to statistics by HIV.gov, a program funded by the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund.
Black women are disproportionately affected due to social determinants such as poverty and lack of access to healthcare, according to Cynthia Davis, assistant professor at the College of Medicine and College of Science and Health at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. She stressed the importance of education and regular HIV testing among preventive measures.
“It still is a big problem for us in the United States, because you have a whole new generation who have no idea 40 years ago what it was like when HIV first came on the scene. There was no medications, no cure, and people were just dying,” Ms. Davis told The Final Call.
Since the existence of effective treatments, such as medications to help non-infected people from getting the disease, people have dropped their guards to a certain extent, observed Ms. Davis.
“People don’t think it can happen to them, or it’s the attitude, ‘Well, if I get infected, I can just go on these medications and still live.’ It’s not an automatic death sentence like it was 45 years ago,” she stated.

Ms. Davis urged primary prevention education in schools, vigilance beyond looking at biomedical models, accurate information dissemination especially on Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, and taking an annual HIV test, among some solutions.
“HIV is not going away. We have to be as vigilant as ever in terms of protecting ourselves and educating and informing other members of our community in what they need to do to protect themselves,” concluded Ms. Davis.
While global statistics note some progress in that HIV infections were an estimated 1.3 million worldwide in 2023, marking a 39% decline since 2010 and a 60% decline since its peak in 1995, advocates say Black people are still impacted at alarming rates due to racial injustice, a lack of investment and expedition of new treatments, information and advancements.
Non-Hispanic Black men were diagnosed with HIV infection at 7.6 times the rate of non-Hispanic Whites in 2022 and the rate in non-Hispanic Black females was 18 times that in non-Hispanic White females, according to the Office of Minority Health.
Cleo Manago, CEO of the Black Women’s and Black Men’s Xchange, a human rights, educational, anti-oppression, and advocacy organization, emphasized the need for intentional Black parenting and self-sufficiency to combat HIV/AIDS and other societal issues. More community and media focus on HIV/AIDS, are necessary, he explained.
“Frankly, the issue has not been on the radar in a meaningful, particularly communal way for some time. The people that used to keep it in the press all the time have moved on to other things. Those aren’t necessarily Black people,” stated Mr. Manago.
When White people were at the helm of the disease discussion, HIV/AIDS was all over the press, but when they lost interest, the press lost interest, he told The Final Call.
The number of Black men affected by HIV is still relatively high, but the treatments and other factors have made it less deadly, according to Mr. Manago. “People are still dying, but it’s not part of the public discourse anymore. We don’t talk about it,” he said.
“The solution of HIV is the solution to everything for Black people,” he stated and pointed out that the solution is for Black people to be more sufficient.
“But in an anti-Black society, which this society has always been, parents and leaders and even medical leaders have to be intentional about guiding Black people toward self-respect, self-love and sufficiency,” continued Mr. Manago.
He also stressed the importance of cultural affirmation and critical thinking to counter internalized White supremacy and prevent HIV transmission. “HIV is preventable. It was preventable back in the 90s. It was preventable in the year 2000 in terms of not putting yourself at risk,” stated Mr. Manago.
HIV/AIDS activist Tony Wafford criticized mainstream media’s pharmaceutical advertisements. “You turn on the television and you see folk that are HIV positive, smiling and playing on the beach and getting married and things like that. It is as if there’s no longer a problem in our community,” he told The Final Call.
Mr. Wafford is saddened that people look at places like Los Angeles, New York, and big cities as a model for what’s happening within the HIV world, but forget about populations in the South. “Most of our people are (in) Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and they’re still disproportionately impacted and affected.
Those states are still underfunded as it relates to the resources needed to address HIV pandemic among Black people, and we’re not having that conversation, and that saddens me,” he said.
Mr. Wafford called for a community-led approach, arguing Black people did not benefit when the dominant society used them as poster children for HIV/AIDS to get funding and attention for social justice issues.
“All things can be solved but you can’t fix something if you don’t talk about it. … But what do we do about it after that point? Do we just forget about it until next Feb. 7?” he questioned.