I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all.

-- T.S. Eliot

In 2007 when I became so ill that I could no longer work, and my family dragged me kicking and screaming back to Mississippi, I felt that my worst nightmares were being realized. I had a serious incurable and debilitating illness, and I was forced to return to a place I had vowed to leave forever when I departed 30 years earlier. However, I do not believe in coincidences. Everything that happens occurs for a reason. Developing AIDS and returning to Mississippi caused me to become acutely aware of the enormous HIV/AIDS problem in Mississippi. A new phase of my activism began.

After I was no longer bed-ridden, I began searching for others in my area who were coping with the same illness. In particular, I sought a support group. When I could not find one to meet my needs, I helped create and facilitate one. This project became the genesis of A Brave New Day, a community-based organization focused on meeting the needs of Mississippians living with HIV/AIDS. I served on the board of directors and was the organization's secretary until I left to work on my master's degree in St. Louis.

I became a member of the Mississippi Community Planning Group for HIV Prevention. I also became a member of the Mississippi HIV/AIDS CARE and Services Council, a group responsible for oversight of the Mississippi Department of Health's programs for delivery of services to people living with HIV/AIDS in Mississippi.

I took advantage of every training opportunity available. I started with certification as an STD/HIV Instructor, then added certifications in HIV Prevention Counseling, HIV Prevention Counseling: Meeting the Needs of Those Who Test Positive, and HIV Prevention Counseling: Meeting the Needs of Youth. I also obtained certification to administer the rapid HIV antibody test.

For my undergraduate social work internship, I worked at Grace House, a transitional living facility for Mississippians living with HIV/AIDS. I received certification in a HIV prevention program for those already living with HIV known as CLEAR: Choosing Life: Empowerment! Action! Results!

For my graduate social work internship, I worked with Project ARK, and I conducted a comprehensive program evaluation of its peer-based treatment adherence program. Part of that process required me becaming trained as a peer counselor through a program known as People to People.

I also became certified as a facilitator for Shanti L.I.F.E., a program to help guide people living with HIV/AIDS in self-management and health-enhancement. My entire graduate study at the Brown School of Social Work at the University of Washington in St. Louis focused on learning as much as I could about HIV systems of care, with particular attention to HIV and mental health. My master's thesis was on the psychiatry of HIV/AIDS.

Among the most important concepts to have emerged from feminist thought is the idea that "the personal is the political." Our greatest power comes from transforming personal experience into political action. I have pursued this notion with some zeal. One of my first activities as a newly-minted HIV activist was participating in a grueling eleven-day, 170-mile walk from Jackson to Oxford, MS in September 2008. I had not yet fully recovered from almost dying less than a year earlier, and my health prevented me from walking every mile from Jackson to Oxford. However, I did as much as I could.

Ready to go (or so I thought)!

The walk to Oxford begins L-R: Charles King, Valencia Robinson, James Meredith

En route to Oxford under a sweltering Mississippi sky. L-R: James Bender, Eric Bailey, Nick Nicholas.

I was the weakest link, invariably bringing up the rear!

The walk from Jackson to Oxford was intended to mirror James Meredith's 1966 March Against Fear from Memphis, TN to Jackson. Meredith joined us in Jackson at the beginning of our 2008 Stand Against AIDS, leading us on our walk to Oxford. This walk was made in connection with the first of the presidential debates between candidates Barack Obama and John McCain to take place in Oxford. Although one stated objective of the walk was to demand that the candidates make a public statement about AIDS, it also was about increasing visibility and awareness. Although we did not succeed in getting the candidates to address AIDS in that first debate, we were very successful in our efforts to increase visibility and awareness. Clippings are on my Media page of this site.

On the date of the first presidential debate, we marched around the Oxford Town Square holding a mock funeral, carring a pine box and singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." I was one of the pallbearers. I had missed the memo about wearing our yellow t-shirts that day, so I am the one dressed in black. It was not a day to be wearing all black, and, even though the pine box was empty, it was very heavy!

During President Obama's first term, he established the Office of National AIDS Policy. The President gave this new agency the task of developing the nation's first National HIV/AIDS Strategy and ONAP visited 14 cities across the country gathering input from the public. One stop on this tour took place in Jackson on 11/16/09. Speakers had 90 seconds each. Even though I'm infamous for my long-windedness, I managed to complete my statement just a few seconds before the buzzer announced I had reached my time limit. I spoke about the absurdly high costs of HIV medications, and I chided the administration for not insisting that pharmaceutical companies do more to control prices.

In September 2010, the Mississippi Department of Health held a Town Hall seeking public input as it selected a new director of the agency's STD/HIV division. Although the previous director had resigned under a cloud of criticism, I urged the MSDH to choose someone who would continue to engage the public and be accessible as had the previous director. Many at the Town Hall spoke about what the previous director had done poorly; I wanted to address something I felt he had done right.

AIDSWatch is an annual event in which HIV-positive citizens from across the country gather in Washington, DC to educate and lobby their Congressional representatives about legislation related to HIV. More than 300 advocates gathered for the 2014 event. After a day of preparation, we met our representatives the next day. We met with Senator Roger Wicker and a member of his staff (we chatted with Senator Wicker about Dallas Buyers Club), and a member of Senator Thad Cochran's staff. We saw Representative Gregg Harper for a brief moment before a chat with a member of his staff. We also met Representative Bennie Thompson, Mississippi's best ally in Washington on HIV issues, and a member of his staff. No one from Representatives Stephen Palazzo's or Alan Nunnelee's offices was interested in speaking with us.

Dane Peterson of the Southern AIDS Coalition on the left and me on the right on the first day of AIDSWatch 2014.

L-R: Linda Dixon Rigsby, Nick Nicholas, Congressman Bennie Thompson, Robin Webb.

As part of AIDSWatch 2014, AIDS United prepared a brochure explaining the importance of the Ryan White CARE Act to persons living with HIV/AIDS, and emphasizing the need to reauthorize the law. I submitted my response to the question, "Why is the Ryan White CARE Act important to you?" I was very pleasantly surprised to learn when I arrived in Washington that I not only was one of the "cover girls" for the brochure, I was the centerfold, too!

In the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, many states, including Mississippi, passed laws criminalizing certain actions by those carrying HIV. These laws were founded on ignorance and fear, and criminalized actions which were later shown could not possibly be routes for the transmission of HIV such as spitting or biting.

These laws create an underclass with different laws and enhanced sentencing for those who are HIV-positive, and they frequently are misused to persecute people carrying the virus, as shown in this short film by Sean Straub:

Iowa was the first to revisit its discriminatory and stigmatizing law and bring it into alignment with current medical knowledge about how HIV is transmitted. The first HIV Is Not A Crime conference, also known as the Grinnell Gathering, was held subsequently in Grinnell, Iowa June 2-5, 2014. Our primary objective was to learn from those who had been involved in getting the Iowa law changed, which had been a five year effort, so that we could then return to our homes with knowledge and strategies needed in order to bring about similar changes in our home states.

I joined activists from all over the country to participate in this dynamic conference. For the three and a half days of the conference, we worked together, ate together, played together, and finally celebrated together as we witnessed a quite moving event in which Nick Rhoades, one of the subjects of the film above, had the ankle bracelet removed which he had been forced to wear due to his conviction under the former Iowa HIV criminalization statute. One week after the Grinnell Gatherng ended, the highest court in Iowa threw out Rhoades's original conviction altogether, stating he had received ineffective advice of counsel by being advised to plead guilty "when no factual basis for [the] charge existed."

Mark S. King, creator of the entertaining yet thought-provoking video blog, My Fabulous Disease, attended the Grinnell Gathering, and he compiled a short video:

One of the first speakers at the Grinnell Gathering expressed some dismay that the media had paid little attention to the changes that had been made in Iowa's HIV criminalization law. I share that dismay, because this was a significant development. However, some very good coverage was published by The Body, and area newspapers published stories as well. Several LGBTQ and HIV advocacy groups also published accounts, some written by participants at the Grinnell Gathering, such as The Center for HIV Law & Policy, GLAAD, Positive Women's Network, HousingWorks, HIV+ Magazine, and HIV=.

Group photo of conference attendees.

My very first "selfie", a fad that never has really appealed to me.

L-R: Monica Joy Cross, me, and [?]

I was invited to participate in a gathering of HIV activists from across the South to participate in a meeting at the White House sponsored by the President's Office of National AIDS Policy on June 18, 2014:

Some may be be impressed with everything I've accomplished so far, but I'm just getting started!.

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Last revised: October 30, 2014.