The Black Church and the NAACP Work Together Against HIV/AIDS

Lee Edwards | As of Thursday, December 5, 2013

The Nation Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) South Side and West Side presented The Black Church & HIV: The Social Justice Imperative (BCH) at US Bank, 815 W. 63rd, on October 10. The BCH presentation called upon several leaders of the black clergy throughout Chicagoland to engage, learn and speak about their personal experiences dealing with HIV and other taboo topics with their congregations and their personal lives.

National HIV Manager for the NAACP Rev. Keron Sadler and Pastor Steven Blunt of First Baptist Church Mahan, Suffolk, VA, led the candid presentation that discussed issues such as the role of the black church, the black church’s political power, sexuality orientation in the black church, congregational responses to taboo topics and pastors assessing themselves and their messages.

“It is the business of the church, it is in the church and what the Lord calls us to. To be a people who are a people of faith, a people who are standing against the ills of existence, to be those who are standing up for a model of passion and embodiment of advocacy, there’s no way we can be part of the church and not do that,” said Pastor Blunt about speaking out and openly about taboo issues in the church.

Blunt has been a pastor for 17 years and at his current church for 11 years.

The BCH has been a NAACP initiative since 2010. Initially, 12 cities identified by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) with the largest populations of African Americans with HIV/AIDS, was the focus of the initiative’s research. The cities identified by the CDC were: Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington, D.C., Miami, Detroit, Jackson, MS, New Orleans, Houston and Los Angeles.

The NAACP’s research has been compiled into a manual. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) is an initiative of the Clinton Foundation established in 2005 gathers the world’s leaders to speak about issues concerning the globe and devises solutions and implementation plans. The BCH has grown from 12 cities to 30 cities.

“[Thursday] has come about due to our research we did a couple of years ago when we convened the pastors and asked ‘why aren’t you preaching and teaching from the pool pit?’ We learned the barriers, we learned the challenges, we sat down and began to write the manual and now the manual is available so now we’re going back to the cities in which we trained to train them on how to utilize this tool kit to address the barriers and issues that they talked about previously,” Sadler told the Chicago Citizen Newspaper. “If we, Black Americans, were our own country, we would rank 16th in the World in AIDS/HIV.”

The Black Church & HIV: The Social Justice Imperative activity manual – which is available online for free – is a collection of HIV/AIDS statistical data, local and national resources, testimonials and anecdotes from faith leaders from across the country, etc. that all focuses on the African American community. The manual was created from an interfaith consensus but it is a Christian based document.

“We have a tool now to take away all the challenges and all the barriers to move address health equity and HIV as a social justice issue,” said Sadler.

“There have been so many disparities, information, availability of actual care and the pure ignorance of what HIV/AIDS virus is, what it does in a community, and we in the African American community are always trying to do a game of catch up so this was brought together,” said Brenda Sheriff First Vice President, NAACP South Side.

“For the first time, a national organization such as the NAACP has come forward to offer its structure as an arm in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and because of history and it’s reach in the community plus it’s coming forward on a platform of partnership with the black churches,” said Rev. Joel Washington of New Reformation Lutheran, 11310 S. Forest, in the Roseland community. “I’m taking back the good news that there is a call for partnership at the city, state and national levels between the NAACP and black churches for a national black initiative about this HIV/AIDS problem.”

According to the CDC, “HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. It is the virus that can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. HIV affects specific cells of the immune system, called CD4 cells, or T cells. Over time, HIV can destroy so many of these cells that the body can’t fight off infections and disease. When this happens, HIV infection develops into AIDS.

For more information visit www.theblackchurchandhiv.org.

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