Bay Windows - Local News, April 29, 1999
Beth Berlo, Bay Windows staff

Among other achievements, Rustin was instrumental in organizing the 1963 March on Washington at which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his, I Have A Dream" speech.

Sponsored by the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts (AAC), organizers say the mission of the breakfast is to both bridge the gap between gay men and lesbians, and reflect the spiritual values and sense of purpose in the community at a time when people of color are disproportionately HIV-infected.

As the breakfast was winding down, and presenters readied to deliver their speeches, the room dulled to a whisper while a trio of women Djembe drummers snaked their way between tables from the back of the room to the stage, slapping out hypnotic African rhythms to a string of chanters.

We are 16 years into the pandemic in spite of the promise of protease inhibitors," said Michael Melendez, board of directors member at AAC. We are still in the battle for the lives of our community and we are fighting in a time of ever shrinking resources, growing mean-spiritedness and indifference. While we acknowledge that the new medications promise some hope, it is not victory. We know that for many, the medications do not work, and that for many they produce life-threatening side affects, and that for many, many more, they are simply unavailable or inaccessible."

Keynote speaker, the Rev. Rainey Cheeks, who has been HIV positive for 16 years, delivered a charismatic speech, weaving humor between his near-death experiences. While the crux of his speech was to offer inspiration, Cheeks more often had the crowd stomping their feet and howling with laughter. He recalled a harrowing night in the hospital when his pain became so unbearable he demanded a midnight one-on-one conference with his God. But before he began his time on stage, he earned his first laugh by saying, I'm going to try to adhere to a rule that I teach my ministers at times like this: Be good, be brief, and be GONE."

But the packed room which overlooks the Boston Harbor succumbed to laughter even more when Cheeks recounted his oft- told experience of a night in the hospital: One night I had an interesting conversation with my God. You know, on some Sundays when you go to bed and you have a pretty prayer," Cheeks said, playfully. Oh heavenly father, this is your child and I am in pain. But, after a while, this prayer changes. Understand that I was in so much pain, I would take two sleeping pills and two Percocets, and in about four or five hours I would wake up and the pain was just driving, constant, and as much as I've learned about mind control and being able to control pain, when it's 24/7, it's like, o-ho-kay, I've been in this pain for so long. It's like, okay God, it's you and me. If it's time to die, take my breath and let me go, but if it's not time to die, show up! And the winds were blowing, and I said, no-no-no-no-no-no!"

The room collapsed in laughter. Cheeks continued: I want you to show up and talk to me, and in the middle of my [praying], a presence touched me and laid me flat down in my bed and said, 'You will be okay, I'm here.' Now understand, I got absolutely silent, because I was screaming, 'take my breath away,' and I didn't know if that meant ... you will be okay because I'm about to take your breath, or you will be okay because I heard you."

Cheeks was featured in the January issue of POZ magazine, and is the founder of the Inner Light Unity Fellowship Church and Us Helping Us: People Into Living, an advocacy agency.

After Larry Kessler, executive director of AAC, was thanked for coming to the breakfast every year since its inception, he talked about the abundance of current tragedies the world is enveloped in. I don't know how Kosovo happens, I don't know how AIDS happens, I don't know how Colorado happens, but there is a pattern," said Kessler. It's called complacency and it's called denial. In the same way that bullets and bombs rips families apart, HIV and AIDS does that, too."

Kessler presented the Spirit Award to Gary Bailey. In addition, the breakfast handed out two courage awards to Pamela Scott, an HIV educator, and to the partner of the late Mark Randolph Williams, who died in November, 1998.

Scott, who is HIV positive, and has been through two major surgeries and is facing another in a few weeks, remembered her early days of diagnosis saying, I didn't do anything to protect myself from getting the virus. I got tested because I was getting into a new relationship. She didn't leave me. My friends didn't leave me. My first HIV support group was in Brookline where I was the only black woman there." Scott is long-time volunteer at AAC and has conducted several public speaking workshops at many organizations in and around Boston.

Community speaker this year was Shirley Royster, a local activist who spent 10 years working in the field of domestic violence.

Co-Chairs were Philip Robinson and Mia Anderson who will both step down after this year and hand the reigns to Al Whittaker, Jr. who serves on the Bayard Rustin Committee.

Entertainment was provided by poets Letta Neely, Makeda N. Ama, and Thomas Grimes, and the group Lady Soul.

Best known as an openly gay black man who was one of the chief organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, Rustin was considered the resident theoretician of the non-violent Civil Rights revolution. Rustin was the founder of the Young Communist League, and was a loud protester to the bus segregation in Montgomery in 1947.

Rustin headed the New York-based A. Philip Randolph Institute for Racial Change from 1964 until his death in 1987 at age 77.
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