Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, Oct. 30, 1997
Venise Wagner of the Examiner Staff
The San Francisco-based Black Coalition on AIDS already has signed on with six religious organizations to develop ways to increase awareness among African Americans about AIDS and HIV prevention.
Ministers from Third Baptist, Double Rock Baptist, New Liberation Presbyterian, Jones Memorial United Methodist, the San Francisco Christian Center and the Nation of Islam Mosque in the Bayview District will start the educational campaign this month.
On Nov. 30, the day before World AIDS Day, ministers will call for a special collection that will support the BCA.
Thursday, representatives from this partnership will announce the start of the campaign.
The black church, the African American community's oldest institution, has been under attack for the last decade for ignoring the disease and its far-reaching effects on the community. The campaign comes at a time when churches are slowly recognizing the devastation of the epidemic. Though African Americans make up only 12 percent of the population in the United States, they accounted for 41 percent of new AIDS cases in 1996.
"People have been asking me, "Where is the African American church in this?"" said Duane Poe, executive director for the Black Coalition on AIDS, which offers counseling, housing and support services to 1,200 HIV-positive and AIDS patients a year. "People find renewed and replenished spiritual conviction when they become ill. But the church has not responded. We still have this shame about this."
The campaign, Poe said, is an opportunity to bring together the church, which can deal with the spiritual aspects of the disease, and BCA, which can handle the social and health issues of the disease.
The Rev. Cordell Hawkins, assistant pastor of Double Rock Baptist Church, said that his church was one of the few in San Francisco during the late 1980s to take the lead among black churches to educate its congregation about AIDS and support those with the disease. Because Hawkins was involved with AIDS outreach programs at the time, through the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation, he knew how to help the church develop its own program.
Hawkins blames the church's absence in the fight against AIDS on a lack of knowledge among clergy about the virus.
"People have a right to criticize the church," he said. "The church should be the No. 1 place where people get information and support. If the pastor tends to not know, the congregation will not know."
Even while general knowledge of the virus advances, he said, many clergy are still in the dark. In March, for example, Hawkins said,he ran a full-day seminar on AIDS for the Baptist Ministers of San Francisco, an association of clergy from black churches in The City.
"This was HIV 101," Hawkins recalled. "A lot of them still thought they could catch it by following someone, touching a door knob, hugging someone."
Yet Hawkins said he was encouraged that the association had called him to make the presentation, indicating that perhaps there was a move within the church to take responsibility for supporting and educating its flock.
"The awakening call is when you're stricken with something," he said. "You don't know about it until someone you know is hit with it."
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