Bond: AIDS now a black disease

Bond: AIDS now a black disease
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published August 15, 2006

TORONTO, CANADA -- It is time for the African-American community "to face the fact that AIDS has become a black disease" and find ways to defeat it, said Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, at the international AIDS summit Monday.

Bond, Jesse Jackson and other African-American leaders urged their community to accept responsibility for ending the devastation of AIDS, which has claimed more than 200,000 black Americans since the epidemic began 25 years ago.

They blamed the disaster on a lack of will and pledged to do more.

"We have led successful responses to many other challenges in the past," said Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "Now is the time for us to face the fact that AIDS has become a black disease."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-Americans account for half of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.