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FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE TO END HIV/AIDS AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS: Co-chaired by Bishop T.D. Jakes and Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, Prominent Government, Education and Healthcare Leaders Join Clergy in Historic Meeting.
The National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (NBLCA) will host the first-ever strategic planning session dedicated to developing a five-year plan to significantly reduce cases of HIV/AIDS in the African American community.
The meeting will be co-chaired by world-renowned pastors Bishop T.D. Jakes and Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, on October 8 and 9, at the AOL Time Warner building in New York City.
The meeting will mark the first time that leaders from all sectors of the African American community, including clergy, scholars, government and health agencies, have joined forces to fight HIV/AIDS. Meeting attendees will include Congressman Charles Rangel; former mayors Willie Brown and David Dinkins; Dr. Kevin Fenton, Director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Garth Graham, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health, Office of Minority Health; and Dr. Gail Wyatt, Associate Director of the UCLA AIDS Institute.
"While the struggle with HIV/AIDS in any community is tragic and devastating, the battle within the African American community is a unique one," said Bishop T.D. Jakes, senior pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas. "African Americans wrestle with socioeconomic issues, a lack of education, delays in early detection, treatment and prevention, and insufficient access to affordable care and medications. These factors contribute to a rapid and startling ascent of African Americans who contract and are dying from the disease."
The numbers facing African Americans are staggering:
- According to the 2000 U.S. Census report, Blacks make up 13% of the population; however, in 2005 Blacks accounted for 49% of the estimated new 37,331 AIDS cases.
- The rate of AIDS diagnoses for Black adults and adolescents was 10 times the rate for Whites and nearly three times the rate for Hispanics.
- The rate of AIDS diagnoses for Black women was nearly 23 times the rate for White women. The rate of AIDS diagnoses for Black men was 8 times the rate for White men.
- Of the 68 U.S. children (younger than 13 years of age) who had a new AIDS diagnosis, 46 were Black.
"It's a crisis," said Rev. Dr. Butts, Chairman of the Board for the NBLCA and senior pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, the historic African American church in Harlem. "Once you hear the numbers, you realize the impact, the unthinkable loss of lives that we as a community are facing. You absolutely know that a lot of this could be prevented."
Meeting attendees will spend two days creating a comprehensive, strategic and measurable plan to tackle an HIV/AIDS epidemic that is more pronounced among African Americans in this country than it is in several third-world countries.
"This meeting is not about theology, it's not about my agenda, it's not about anyone's agenda," said Bishop Jakes. "It's about coming up with a solution to a health problem that is killing our people at rates never before seen."
