Activists launch Campaign to End AIDS

Thousands of HIV-positive people and AIDS activists are preparing to travel across the United States in 10 caravans during October, stopping in more than 150 cities across the country to promote HIV prevention, increase AIDS awareness, and urge greater local, state, and federal involvement in the AIDS fight. The caravans will converge in Washington, D.C., on November 5 for four days of prayer, lawmaker visits, protests, and a rally called the March to End AIDS.

The caravans are part of The Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA), a new, national coalition endorsed by more than 400 organizations. C2EA brings together longtime HIV-positive people and veterans of the activist group ACT UP with more recently diagnosed Americans—many of them women and African-Americans. Together, they're demanding that governments fund AIDS treatment worldwide, promote science-based HIV prevention and protect the rights of HIV-positive people.

“It’s 2005. We have the drugs to treat HIV, and good science shows that condoms and clean needles for injection-drug users can prevent it,” says C2EA cochairman Charles King, an HIV-positive Baptist minister and CEO of the New York-based AIDS service organization Housing Works, in a press release. “But these tools are being withheld due to spending cuts, treaties blocking generic drugs, and federally funded programs teaching abstinence-only. Our leaders are taking us backward as HIV rates increase. They must change course.”

The March to End AIDS will be held on November 5, beginning near the White House. On Sunday, November 6, the Reverend Ronald Braxton will host an interfaith service focusing on AIDS at the Metropolitan AME Church. C2EA participants will stage nonviolent demonstrations throughout the city on Monday, November 7; and on Tuesday, November 8, they'll make visits to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

C2EA planned to launch its caravans in September, but the devastation of Hurricane Katrina forced organizers to postpone. C2EA is intent on bringing relief to the 8,000 people with HIV affected by the hurricane. Half of all money raised at C2EA events nationwide will go to HIV-positive Gulf Coast residents. C2EA’s Soul of the South caravan, which travels along the Gulf Coast, also will collect relief supplies to be delivered in Baton Rouge, La.

Caravan departure cities include; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles; San Diego; Brownsville, Texas; Miami; Boston; and New York City. Washington D.C. will host a “symbolic caravan,” with AIDS awareness events and fund-raisers taking place throughout the district. While most caravan participants will travel by bus, van, or car, the New York City caravan will travel to D.C. on foot, starting with a march through the Lincoln Tunnel on October 15.

For more information about the caravans, the cities the caravans will visit, and the rally in Washington, go online to www.CampaigntoEndAIDS.org. (Advocate.com)