Articles from Black Leadership AIDS Crisis Coalition

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) together with its affiliate organizations and affinity group BLACC—the Black Leadership AIDS Crisis Coalition—is spotlighting the groups’ years-long history of civil rights and health care advocacy, messaging and services in events scheduled for Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, formally observed this year on January 19th.

It is appalling that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has made a decision to prohibit high school students from being availed the knowledge of the impact of racism on Black Americans, as well as their invaluable contributions to the growth and development of this country, all of which is a part of American History. To reject African American studies, and state that it “lacks educational value”, is racist at its core, and personifies his real disregard for the over 3 million Black Americans that reside in the state and actively contribute to its economic and cultural vitality. The Black Leadership AIDS Crisis Coalition (BLACC), an organization that focuses on the elevation and empowerment of Black Americans, and addresses the social justice and public health issues impacting Black Americans affirms that racism is a public health issue and hence calls on the Florida Department of Education and the College Board to immediately rebuke these racist actions.

The Black Leadership AIDS Crisis Coalition powered by AIDS Healthcare Foundation has joined forces with the Compton, California based organization, Young Moviemakers of America (YMA) to work with Duncanville high school students, through a partnership with the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas, to guide them through an immersive, rigorous program, teaching them the skills of filmmaking while creating a 20-minute, short documentary, scheduled to have its red-carpet premiere on Saturday, April 9, 2022, starting at 1:30pm at Youth World, 1121 W. Whitehead Rd., Dallas, Texas.

“The Black Leadership AIDS Crisis Coalition (BLACC) powered by AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is pleased to join our fellow Americans, of all racial, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds to celebrate the 53-47 Senate vote to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first African American woman to serve on the Supreme Court. We know that she will continue the legacy of fighting for justice like Fannie Lou Hamer, Coretta Scott King, Shirley Chisholm, Dr. Dorothy Height and so many other sheroes who paved the way for this moment in American history.”

Like so many across this country, over the last year, men, women and families across the globe have witnessed the senseless loss of Black lives at the hands of those that were hired to protect “all people.” It has become all to common for those that killed our Black brothers and sisters, to be held to a different standard of justice than the very lives they murdered. Over the last year, the cry that “Black Lives Matter,” has echoed in communities across our globe, as the ugly face of racism has continued to fester and permeate across the nation. Today, as we heard the Derek Chauvin verdicts, we join our brothers and sisters across the country, to pause and recognize that for this moment, though it doesn’t bring life back to Mr. Floyd, true justice prevailed. The outcome of the George Floyd murder trial, is a step in the right direction, but let us not be complacent to think that there is not more work to be done. For as our nation continues to battle critical public health issues like HIV and COVID-19, we are also confronted daily with the reality of racism as a public health issue. So long as any Black life is taken at the hands of police brutality, acts of racism or violence, then there is more work towards the healing of this country and the true realization of “liberty and justice for all.” #StandAgainstHate