DETROIT –
"Sometimes there ain't nothin' wrong with puttin' up your dukes." That's what longtime AIDS Activist Ron Turner said about the ongoing struggle to serve people with HIV and AIDS and to prevent the disease from spreading. "Because the struggle continues, we have to address the issues with some force."
Turner spent years in Detroit with organizations like CHAG, Community Health Awareness Group. He and fellow AIDS activist Barbara Murray, the soon-to-be retiring executive director of AIDS Partnership Michigan, were given awards at Hotter Than July's Annual Gathering on LGBT Issues.
Murray was given the first-ever Milestone Award, and Turner was given a Lifetime Achievement Award. Turner, who left Detroit twenty years ago to do AIDS work in New York, currently serves as the Commnity Liaison for FACES New York, which grew out of New York City's oldest African American AIDS Service Organization.
Turner took time to share his view on the AIDS movement as it stands today, over two decades from a time when friends and loved ones were dropping left and right from the mysterious disease.
"There is something I really want to address. LGBT inequlity. Me being a black gay male, and a senior, some might say a sexy senior, certainly I'm an advocate. I'm a staunch advocate for talking about change. That's what leadership is all about, making change." Turner noted that he didn't have many years of activism left, and encouraged the people in the room to keep moving forward and fighting for the change they want to see.
Murray too announced that she would soon be stepping back from activism. "Yes, I am moving towards retirement, and the bucket list has Annie at the top of it," Murray said, referring to longtime partner Annie Eaton. "I could never have gone this far as long as I did without the love of my life."
She urged members of the African American community to stand up to religious intolerance. And she shared her advice to the upcoming leaders in the room.
She praised the work of Rev. Darlene Franklin and told the audience "If you get beat up from the pulpit on Sunday morning because you are LGBT, stop! Get up and walk out. Walk up to the pulpit and say 'No more!' That is not religion. That is domestic violence."
The loudest part of Murray's acceptance message spoke to the futures of the Detroit-based LGBT organizations. "I want to challenge you," she said. "In this room are three agencies that I think are the guts and glue of the LGBT African American community in Detroit. They are KICK, Ruth Ellis Center and they are AIDS Partnership Michigan, and I'd like to challenge you. You must support these organizations. And you must give them your time, your talent, and let me be blunt, your money.
"If your income is $10,000 a year I want you to give $5 a year to KICK. Do it. Don't wait until Curtis Lipscomb comes to you after money has run out and he's going 'What do we do now?' Don't wait 'til Laura Hughes comes after you because you will not know how to say no to that woman.
"Laura and Ruth Ellis Center raises from people just like us over 50 percent of their budget. That's a lot of money people. It needs to be more money. There are ten beds at Ruth Ellis Center. That is not enough. That is unacceptable.
"AIDS Partnership Michigan, if you have not seen the report about HIV and African American same-gender loving, gay, MSMs whatever title you use, if you have not seen the report it will scare the life out of you. Those numbers are not acceptable, and we are not done yet!"
The awards were part of a day-long tradition of education and empowerment within the Hotter Than July festival. The day began with welcomes from Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh, U.S. Congressman Hansen Clarke and other community leaders. Workshops throughout the day focused on issues such as the state of the LGBT movement, economic justice, health and wellness, knowing healthy relationships, LGBTQ studies at a Catholic college and a conversation between youth and elders. Dozens of participants packed the conference room at the Hilton Garden Inn in Downtown Detroit for the event.
