On last Tuesday, January 5th, Venton Jones, president of the DFW Pride Movement-an organization promoting health and education among Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people, was invited to speak at the Dallas NAACP membership meeting at the request of its president, Dr. Juanita Wallace, to discuss current HIV/AIDS statistics in Dallas and proactive solutions to educating more of the African-American community at large.
For ten minutes, Mr. Jones shared statistics on the rate of new cases of HIV infection in Dallas County and the age groups being most affected.”Houston was once the number city for new cases of HIV infection and Dallas has now surpassed that city,” Also, according to the 2007 statistics used by Mr. Jones published by the Dallas County Department of Health and Human Services, African-Americans make up 46% of the new diagnoses and the age groups with the most new cases of HIV infection are in youth ages 13-24 years old.
After the meeting, Mr. Jones shared how this opportunity to share came about. “Jesse (Garcia, President of LULAC 4871) invited Dr. Wallace to a LULAC meeting that I attended. After my presentation on DFW Pride Movement, Dr. Wallace and I talked further and she invited me to share at the first NAACP meeting of 2010.” Dr. Wallace also replied, “Part of my responsibility is to empower our community by providing resources through presenters and other information. Without health, one has nothing. So preventive measures are what we lack in our community.”
As visible and effective bridges to combat this epidemic are also lacking in Dallas between the Black LGBT organizations and civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, this meeting was a solid first step to discuss what is impacting all of the African-American community in Dallas. Dr. Wallace did mention that Mr. Jones will be invited back for a future meeting and given more time for Q & A.
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