It's a real issue in the deep South, especially in black churches, especially regarding women. In Mississippi, for instance, according to the most recent figures, 28% of those reporting new HIV infection were heterosexual black women. Our report is from Judy Valente.
JUDY VALENTE: Twenty-year-old Easha Roney spends most days at home, keeping house for her uncle. Like many young women in the Mississippi Delta, she never finished high school and can't find a job. Sadly, Easha is like a growing number of her peers in another way. Last year, she tested positive for HIV.
EASHA RONEY: I just burst out crying. That was my first time hearing it. I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. I was scared. I mean, I didn't understand how I could get it at a young age. How could somebody not tell me what was going on with them?
VALENTE: Here, where cotton is still king, and life for many is a hardscrabble fight for survival, the AIDS epidemic has taken deep root.
Nationwide, women now account for a fourth of all newly diagnosed AIDS cases, double the percentage from ten years ago. A disproportionate number of those women are poor, young and African American. And this poses a particular dilemma for most African-American churches.
Reverend MELVIN LEWIS (Pastor, Locust Grove Baptist Church): We just can't be sanctimonious and church folks and not be involved. It's the leading cause of death among blacks and our young men and women between the ages of 25 and 44. What are we doing?VALENTE: Yet African-American churches -- a major force in the rural South -- have been reluctant to address AIDS prevention, fearing it might undermine the churches traditional Bible-based teaching on extramarital sex.
Reverend MILTON GLASS (New Green Grove Baptist Church): We're teaching people against fornication and adultery.
Reverend LEWIS: We don't want to encourage it in no way, form, fashion at all.
VALENTE: Dr. Hamza Brimah, a Nigerian-born physician, is the only AIDS specialist for a nine-county area of the Delta.
Dr. HAMZA BRIMAH (AIDS Specialist): We have some of the worst poverty in the United States. I've been on record as describing the Delta as being very similar to Africa in terms of the illiteracy, the lack of education. There's really nothing to do here. So when young people get bored and have nothing to do and go out and have a few drinks, then what do you find next? Sadly, unprotected sex is the next thing that happens.
VALENTE: Dr. Brimah says that young women, with few means of support, will often enter into sexual relationships with older men in the hope of receiving even a small amount of financial help. He recalls what one female patient told him.
Dr. BRIMAH: She said, "No honey, no money." The exchange of sex is the only essential that unfortunately some younger women are left with in order to be able to obtain some money for, you know, the daily essentials of living.
VALENTE: Easha too became involved with an older man, despite her mother's warnings.
Ms. RONEY: My mama broke down in tears. She couldn't understand why. She couldn't understand the reason. She was always saying, "Didn't I tell you? Didn't I tell you? Why wouldn't you listen to me? Why you wouldn't listen to me?" And I said, "Mom's like you told me, you always learn the hard way." And that's what I did. I learned the hard way.
VALENTE: Because of misinformation about how HIV spreads and fear of getting it, Easha and others who contract the virus are often shunned, even by their own churches.
(to Ms. Roney): Has anyone from the church come out to you, extended their hand to you?
Ms. RONEY: Well, not extended their hand but their prayer. From my church -- only one.
Reverend LEWIS: Many people feel that that is a subject that maybe ought to be left out of the church, left in the social community to get it out, when in fact, it is one of our responsibilities as well.
(to parishioners): Because of the fact that this is AIDS Awareness Weekend, I want to call your attention to something that is relevant.
Sanders's church has taken the bold step of handing out free condoms, both at the church and in the impoverished neighborhoods his church serves.
NORMA COLEMAN (Parishioner, Metropolitan Interdenominational Church): My name is Norma Coleman. I'm 50 plus. I'm disabled. I have HIV.
Dr. BRIMAH: I want to remain optimistic that in light of the bleak circumstances that we find ourselves living with here in the Delta, maybe somebody will hear our cry.
