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At its 14th annual National Religious
Leaders Summit held December 10–12 in Atlanta, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People focused on moving the faith community back to a
leadership role in matters of social justice. Faith leaders committed to
working with the NAACP on HIV/AIDS and other issues. At the three-day meeting,
faith and lay leaders created a post-election agenda for communities of faith,
and Roslyn M. Brock, NAACP board of directors chairperson, led a dialogue
session with mainline protestant denominations to discuss the NAACP’s five
strategic “Game Changer” areas.
In response to the dialogue, faith
leaders made a national commitment to address HIV/AIDS in the black community
after hearing NAACP’s report, “The Black Church and HIV: The Social Justice
Imperative.” Church leaders agreed to work with the NAACP to expand HIV testing
opportunities and to offer faith-based training and prevention education in
churches, seminaries, historically black colleges and universities, and
organizational national conventions.
The Summit presented a national
training session on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention that was attended by 100
pastors, faith leaders, and members of local NAACP units and state conferences,
including representatives from cities with some of the highest rates of HIV
prevalence. Brock commented that the commitment by the highest offices of these
denominations to engage in this work, has solidified the Black Church’s concern
and commitment to reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The churches represented at the
NAACP meeting included AME Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal, Black Methodist
for Church Renewal, National Baptist Convention-USA, National Baptist
Convention of America, Progressive National Baptist, and Primitive National
Baptist.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
