NAACP Raises Alarm Over Growing Cases of AIDS in African-American Communities: Poverty, Lack of Health Care Causes Disproportionate Rate Amongst African-Americans

Washington- In observance of World AIDS Day, December 1st, the NAACP stands united in the global fight against HIV and AIDS.  The World Health Organization established World AIDS Day in 1988 to provide national AIDS programs, faith organizations, community organizations and individuals with an opportunity to raise awareness and focus attention on the global AIDS epidemic.
NAACP chapters and branches across the country, including California, New York, Michigan, Colorado, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and Texas will use World AIDS Day 2010 as a day to highlight the AIDS issue in their communities and will host a number of community events including community-wide forums, education sessions and free screenings. In addition, the NAACP is working to mobilize pastors in states with the highest concentration of HIV-infected African-Americans to have open discussions about the HIV epidemic and direct parishioners to services in their communities.
HIV and AIDS has hit African-Americans the hardest, shattering families and destroying lives.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cite the reasons for the racial disparity as not just related to race, but rather to barriers faced by many African-Americans. These barriers include poverty, access to health care and the social stigma associated with HIV/AIDS.
“We must not forget the devastating effects HIV/AIDS has on communities of color across this country,” stated NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. “That is why the NAACP has partnered with a number of national organizations and our local units to put a stop to the ‘forgotten epidemic’. The NAACP is committed to being a major force behind the education of communities and a strong advocate for better health services and HIV/AIDS testing. Knowledge is the first step to better health and access to services is critical if we are to overcome this crisis,” concluded Jealous.
Even though Blacks account for about 13 percent of the US population, they are almost half (49 percent) of the people living with HIV and AIDS. African-Americans represent 51 percent of the 42,655 (including children) new HIV/AIDS diagnoses and 48 percent of the 551,932 persons, including children, living with HIV. AIDS is the leading cause of death among Black women ages 25-34 and the second leading cause of death in Black men ages 35-44 years. 1 in 30 Black women and 1 in 16 Black men will be infected with HIV in their lifetime.
“It is staggering to think that a group of people that makes up only 13 percent of the country’s population includes over half of the newly diagnosed HIV-infected individuals each year,” stated Roslyn M. Brock, NAACP Chairman of the National Board of Directors. “The uneven distribution of HIV infections indicates that there are specific challenges faced by the African-American community that are resulting in an astronomical increase in the rate at which African-Americans contract the HIV virus,” concluded Brock.
The NAACP is also a partner with the Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative (AAALI) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health and Gilead Sciences.
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

EMBRACING TREASURES: THE ART OF SURVIVING

Ten years ago, Our Time Press christened three blocks on Malcolm X Blvd., between Halsey Street and Decatur Street, “Antiques Row.” 

Our Time’s effort and intention was to help MXB antiquarians pick up business from the October 1999 “Come On Home to Bedford-Stuyvesant” Brownstone Tour.  It did.

Within two years, the corridor had extended from Anthony Smith’s Odd Things’ Collectibles at Decatur and MXB to Morton’s Antique Memories at the northwest corner of Putnam Avenue.  Clarence Barber, veteran of them all, and Paul Tyner and Greta Niles, who rented a space inside Tyner’s place, across from Barber’s, enjoyed steady traffic.   

Dalton Taylor’s The Victorian on Tompkins Avenue South, Ken William’s high-end Mercantile on the corner of Fulton Street and Irving, and Eddie Hibbert’s cave of a treasure chest on Myrtle, attracted collectors from all over the city. 

All of the furniture dealers had a common goal: to keep business going, and to prosper.

Now only Mr. “C” survives on the original Antiques Row.  Greta may be in Florida, site of her dream Antiques emporium.  Tyner and Morton have not been heard from, although Morton may be residing nearby. Mr. Smith is retired to stately Savannah, GA, his Odd Things replaced by the high-scale Thompson’s Interiors – hardly a place, now, for stuff. 

Taylor and Hibbert are still around, plying trade amidst salvaged architectural gems, from pier mirrors, painted wood mantles and victor-victrolas to brass hinges, old Ebony and National Geographic magazines, spinster’s diaries and framed photos of high school class pictures of the 50′s, and tons of other bits and pieces.

Business is slow.  “All small businesses are suffering because of the economy,” Taylor told us.  “Nearly 40 antique shops along Atlantic Avenue (site of 1999′s real Antiques Row) have closed their doors for good.  If you can keep the doors from closing, you’re doing OK.”

Plus a lot of folks are accessing their shopping via the Internet and selling their secondhand things for first-class prices on Craig’s List.   But these stalwarts are hanging in there.  Not because they love the business.

The answer to why Taylor, Hibbert and Mr. C are still around walked into The Victorian last week.  She asked to see Taylor’s doors.  Turned out the doors he showed her were too small to fashion a 6-ft dining table out of one of them.   Taylor advised that she visit Eddie Hibbert, where she would find exactly what she wanted. After all, Eddie is the door king.  Particularly antique and old one’s.

“Eddie sends three to four people a day over to my shop,” says Dalton. 

Small businesses are being forced to create commercial alliances to stay afloat. It commands integrity and respect and an understanding that sharing customers is the only way to go.  “It’s a buyers’ market, and people are not buying.”

It doesn’t hurt, either, that Taylor strips furniture, makes repairs, refinishes and executes a range of other artisan skills, including wainscoting and crafting moldings. He knows that in today’s economy, it pays to be multifaceted. 

Mr. C’s been a fixture on the avenue for close to 40 years, and admits that real estate investment and stock market tinkering has a lot more to do with it than the occasional sale of a rare, vintage mahogany mantle or a junked lamp.

Hibbert’s super-rare finds are stored in and sold from an open, easy-access warehouse situation at Greene & Gates, the heart of Clinton Hill’s brownstoner neighborhood.  He oversees the work of a Class A wood-stripping team, and he is known for his almost-uncanny ability to “attract” great pieces of furniture and unusual finds – the kind you see oil-polished in House & Garden.  Or that you used to see in the now-defunct H&G.

In 2001, Mr. Hibbert introduced us to Jomo Oliya, a cabinetmaker who said that antique dealers, “have a soul connection with nature, and with the builders and carpenters of the past.  They hold a piece of wood.  They understand it. They respect it. They know it was shaped from the heart.  They have a special knowledge.”

Mr. Taylor shared “knowledge” about brownstones, the final havens for much of Hibbert, Mr. C’s and Taylor’s objets d’art: “They are extraordinary treasures.  Like living within a work of art. And sometimes people fail to see that the beauty of them also is in the fact that they are always being fixed up, repaired, nurtured; they are living things.  They were made when craftsmanship was king.  They can never be replaced or built ever again.”
(Note:  Please see Our Time Press Business Directory for location and contact information for The Victorian and Eddie’s Treasures.)
- Bernice Elizabeth Green