Illinois: AIDS: "A Silent Storm"

Though much has been done in HIV/AIDS prevention work in the last 20 years, AIDS activists say something dramatic needs to happen to reverse the foothold the disease has established in the African-American community, where HIV infection rates continue to rise.

Churches, the cornerstone of the community, can play a role, but pastors have been reluctant to preach about HIV prevention. Gina Lathan-Whitener, assistant chief of the HIV/AIDS section of the Illinois Department of Public Health, told a recent gathering of clergy at Chicago's Liberty Baptist Church, "Twenty years into this epidemic, there is no vaccination and the face of HIV has changed to the color of yours."

In Illinois, more than half of those people living with AIDS are African-American, even though they comprise just 15 percent of the total population, said Lathan-Whitener. Almost 69 percent of HIV-positive women and 65 percent of women living with AIDS in Illinois are African-American, she said.

"Clearly we have a problem," said Lathan-Whitener, who started an HIV ministry at her church. "Often we don't like to talk about certain lifestyles and behaviors. But through our silence, we have created a silent storm, a silent merciless storm that fills the hearts of its victims with loneliness, fear and shame."

A recent survey of 100 black Chicago ministers found that 80 percent had some kind of HIV ministry in their churches, and many also provide faith-based social services.

But, the black church must rid itself of the stigma -- spiritual and social -- attached to HIV/AIDS, said the Rev. Doris Green, corrections coordinator for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. Green said many ministers have had difficulty bridging the gap between a spiritual responsibility and the reality of many of their congregants' lives, where sex and often drugs are part of life.

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