AIDS activists demand resources
By
Gerry Scoppettuolo
Boston
Published Nov 5, 2005 10:30 PM
“We must come
together to demand the resources that we need to fight this epidemic in
communities of color and everywhere!” With that declaration, Rev. Franklin
Hobbs of Healing Our Land opened the Northeast Campaign to End AIDS HIV/AIDS
Caravan freedom ride to Washington, D.C., at the Greater Love Tabernacle in
Dorchester, Mass.
Leaders from AIDS service organi zations, Black
churches and especially two dozen people living with the virus spoke, sang,
clapped and stood unified with a single demand. Everyone agreed to push for full
implementation of the City of Boston’s declaration of an HIV/AIDS state of
emergency in communities of color in Boston. Healing Our Land worked three years
for passage of the proclamation, which was declared last March 30.
Four
Boston City Council members were present and/or represented at the event,
including Chuck Turner, Charles Yancey, Felix Arroyo and Maura Henni gan, all
co-sponsors of the state of emergency.
Only a few other cities in the U.S.
and one state, Alabama, have passed such proclamations. Pastor Martin M. McClee,
chair of the HIV Committee of the Black Ministerial Alliance, said:
“Emergencies call for action. Now is the time for action. Funded programs
result in action. Now is the time for funding.”
Other faith leaders
taking part included Pastor William Dickerson, Greater Love Tabernacle, and
Evangelist Vernessa Fountain of Healing Our Land.
Robert Traynham, a
leader in the Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Local 8751 USWA, and the Troops
Out Now Coalition called upon all attending to participate in the Dec. 1 Day of
Absence Against Poverty, Racism and War. Rev. Hobbs, who has been HIV positive
for 18 years, is an endorser of the Dec. 1 actions that are being organized
across the country in honor of the late civil rights fighter Rosa
Parks.
The event was organized and endorsed by Healing Our Land, the
Campaign to End AIDS, Troops Out Now Coalition, the Cambridge Health Alliance,
the Multi cultural AIDS Coalition and the Fenway Community Health Center.
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