Bay Windows - June 6, 2002
Beth Berlo

While sitting at a red light recently at the corner of Morton Street and Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan, Fuller glanced up at the ever-changing billboard that towers into the sky across from the Area B-3 police station. It was then, she said, that the idea for a billboard campaign struck her.

"I thought," she said, "let me try and submit a proposal." Wasting little time, Fuller with the backing of the AIDS Action Committee pursued a grant from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, a major HIV/AIDS drug manufacturer that extends money for campaigns that encourage people to get tested and treated. They applied and received $20,000 of the $24,000 it will cost for billboards that are expected to stay up for one month.

Fuller took over the Who Touched Me Ministry after founder Belynda Dunn died in April from a failed liver transplant. Dunn, a prominent HIV-positive activist who for years urged black churches to be more proactive in the war against AIDS, won the hearts of many, including Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino, who raised the money Dunn needed for the transplant with a Life Fund after Dunn's drawn-out battle with her HMO.

It was something he had to do, Menino said: "Belynda was a symbol of what's wrong with health care. I saw Belynda needed help and because of the bureaucracy couldn't get the help she needed. The bottom line is, the system needs to be fixed."

According to Fuller, the billboards will depict Dunn's face with the message: "AIDS affects every community. Our spiritual leaders are now sounding the call," and asks people to contact the AIDS Action Committee's Who Touched Me Ministry.

Fuller, who belongs to Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan, approached her minister to add his name to the billboard campaign. The Rev. John M. Borders happily obliged. Since then, Fuller has convinced 20 more clergy to follow, including the Rev. Martin McLee, pastor of Union United Methodist Church in Boston's South End.

McLee agreed to sign onto the billboard campaign, he said, because, "I think it's a timely response to an urgent situation. As a clergy person, we are responsible to help meet the needs of our people. ...The statistical data is showing [HIV/AIDS] is not diminishing in communities of color."

In fact, according to Kevin Cranston, deputy director of the HIV/AIDS Bureau at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, blacks in the Bay State -- proportional to their numbers in the general population -- are 10 times more likely than whites to be living with HIV/AIDS.

"It's critical that black churches are involved in this epidemic," Cranston said. "They're organizing entities and social centers and carry moral authority in the community. So, when black church leaders focus on the epidemic, it helps focus the attention on the congregation."

While some black churches have been proactive in reaching out to families infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, most have not, AIDS activists say. Some believe it's because of the long-held stigma associated with the disease: a gay male disease, a disease that IV drug users and prostitutes got.

For years, gay black writers and political activists have openly acknowledged the stigma that continues today in the black community around homosexuality -- much more so, many believe, than in the white community.

It's something, they say, that keeps many gay black men in the closet, which in turn has spiked infection rates among black women.

Incarceration is also a factor in trying to understand the lopsided infection rates between races. When men are released from prison, Fuller says, "They come back to their wives, girlfriends and significant others who don't know what took place behind bars."

What first has to happen, McLee believes, is that the disease not be viewed from a blame perspective, but rather a medical perspective. "Most people in the world have not wanted to acknowledge AIDS," he said. "AIDS has carried a stigma of shame. Even in the gay community, there's a stigma of shame, particularly among the younger population who thinks it's an old person's issue. The shame and ignorance or embarrassment has caused people not to get involved and the church has unfortunately played into that à The black church has always responded to emergencies in our community and this is an emergency."

The billboards, Fuller said, are expected to go up in July and stay up for one month -- longer if no one is scheduled to rent the space after them -- and will be spread out through the Mattapan, Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods.

The billboard campaign reflects an effort in Dunn's legacy. "The doors she had already opened made it a lot easier for me to step through and continuing doing the work she started," Fuller said. "If it wasn't for Belynda, we wouldn't be where we are with the churches."

Beth Berlo is a staff writer at Bay Windows. Her e-mail address is bberlo@aol.com.

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