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Black churches put AIDS in spotlight
Sun Chronicle
Attleboro, MA
03.05.01
Boston (AP)- For 18 years, nothing could shake Thomas Scott's cravings
for heroin and crack cocaine - not detox clinics, not his awareness
that injecting drugs spreads the AIDS-causing HIV virus, not even
the deaths of his friends.
It took a visit to his local pastor at the Born Again Evangelistic
Outreach Ministry to quell the deadly addiction - a move that probably
saved his life, Scott said.
This week, faith groups and churches with predominantly black congregations
in Boston and throughout the nation are making AIDS and HIV the
centerpiece of their services to highlight the urgent need to confront
the disease ravaging black communities in America.
"This is a very important Sunday in a very important time,"
said Bishop Hessie Harris, Scott's minister, preaching to several
hundred members of his congregation Sunday. "We cannot afford
to wait for someone to come and do it. You've got to do it for yourself.
Do you hear me?"
Nine black churches and a mosque in Boston are participating in
the 11th annual "Week of Prayer for Healing of AIDS 2001,'
under the broader sponsorship of a New York based organization called
the Balm In Gilead.
While health organizations report measurable progress combating
AIDS, communities of color disproportionately bear the burden of
the disease, according to the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts.
Eleven percent of the state's population is either black or Latino,
yet 51 percent of people living with AIDS, and 60 percent of new
infections occur in those ethnic groups.
Nonwhites make up 62 percent of all AIDS cases ever documented
among women in the state. In cases of AIDS infections from injection
drug use, 63 percent have occurred in nonwhite men.
Nationally, deaths from AIDS in 1998 were almost 10 times higher
among blacks than among whites, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, and AIDS is the leading cause of death among
black men age 25 to 44.
Belynda Dunn, 49, founded the Who Touched Me Ministry, a faith-based
education program of the AIDS Action Committee that targets Boston's
black community, in 1993.
She said until recently, black churches were in "total denial"
about how AIDS affects their community, and it took years to convince
church leaders to confront the disease.
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