HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Black Leaders Convene AIDS Summit

By William J. Cromie

Gazette Staff

While cases of AIDS in the U.S. are declining among whites, they are rising sharply among blacks. The disease is now the leading cause of death among black men and women aged 24 to 44 years.

To deal with this situation, blacks leaders held what they called an "emergency one-day summit" at Harvard on Tuesday. Given the name "Leading for Life," the announced purpose of the meeting was "to catalyze a national response to the AIDS crisis among African Americans."

Almost 100 people from public and private organizations were listed as participants in the summit, organized by the Harvard AIDS Institute (HAI) and funded by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

"AIDS now accounts for one in three deaths among African-American men aged 25 to 44," noted Alvin Poussaint, a member of the HAI policy board and clinical professor of psychiatry at the Medical School. "It kills twice as many black men as homicide. And more children with AIDS are African-American than all other race and ethnic groups combined. Every day in the U.S. about 100 people of color become infected with HIV [the virus that causes AIDS]. We call on black leaders in academia, business, government, religion, athletics, and entertainment to unite in an effort to raise national awareness and speed a response to this devastating epidemic."

Call for Action

Participants produced a Call for Action, which was read at a press conference by Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard. It calls on all black professionals and federal, state, and local government officials to "support, develop, and enhance community-based programs for education, care, and prevention of HIV/AIDS."

The action plan appeals "to the President of the United States to convene an emergency meeting of the appropriate cabinet-level officials and community leadership to address AIDS within African-American communities."

It also calls upon "the congressional black caucus to hold meetings and take a leadership role on the impact of HIV/AIDS on our community."

The statement "acknowledges the challenge of these difficult issues," but points out the consequences of doing nothing. "If we fail," Gates read, "our children will face the upcoming millennium with sorrow in their hearts, rather than the hope of a new generation. And we will have to ask, 'Did we do all we could to stop the deaths and the devastation?' "

Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, called the conference "a long overdue and historic meeting." She urged the participants to "go back home and reach out to your communities with passion, persistence, and commitment. We cannot sit back and watch our people pass away."

"More than two-thirds of all women in the U.S. who are infected with the AIDS virus are black," Edelman noted. More than 3,000 HIV infections have been reported among U.S. black children under age 13, and 95 percent of them acquired their infections from their mothers during pregnancy or at birth. She called for the expansion of government programs to cover prenatal and neonatal care for all poor women and their children, black or white.

Asked about the possible impact of drug combinations that appear to dramatically enhance survival among AIDS patients, Mario Cooper of HAI's international advisory council noted the high cost of such treatment -- $12,000 to $20,000 a year. "These treatments can't do blacks and Latinos much good unless they are accessible to them," he said.

Cooper noted that the issues discussed at the summit transcend AIDS. "It is important for black communities to bolster the self-value of individuals," he said. "Society may be blamed for poverty and lack of affordable health care, but individuals must take responsibility for drugs, violence, unprotected sex, and illegitimate births. We must be held accountable for our own actions."

According to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus has caused 78,700 cases of AIDS among women in this country, 43,300 of whom are black. Comparable numbers among men are 462,100 and 141,500. Total AIDS cases as of June 1996 were 540,800, 34 percent of which occurred among blacks of all ages.