By Dawn Wolfe Gutterman
GRAND RAPIDS – The northern tier of the Caravan of the Campaign to End AIDS will hit Michigan on Oct. 30 with a stop in Grand Rapids. Further stops are planned for Flint, Ann Arbor and Detroit before the Caravan heads south for five days of rallies, nonviolent demonstrations, an interfaith service and lobbying in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 5.
The Caravan is a nationwide effort to heighten awareness of the ongoing AIDS epidemic, with Caravan events planned in several states including New Hampshire, Utah and Pennsylvania. Other events have been rescheduled or cancelled due to Hurricane Katrina; Caravan organizers are still working out details. According to the Campaign's Web site, "During their month-long journey, the caravans will stop in over 100 cities and towns, staging rallies and events and picking up thousands of riders along the way." Half of all dollars raised at C2EA events nationwide will go to Gulf Coast residents with HIV/AIDS.
The northern tier of the caravan will begin in Seattle, Washington on Oct. 22, with planned stops in states including Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota before visiting Michigan.
Why caravans? The group explains, "Partly because, as HIV/AIDS increasingly becomes a disease of color and of poverty, we drew inspiration from Martin Luther King's 1968 Poor People's March on Washington when countless folks of all races journeyed to D.C. from around the country to demand economic human rights for all. Today, the fight against HIV/AIDS is a part of that greater struggle Ñ it is a struggle for the basic rights of humanity."
The Lansing Area AIDS Network, Ypsilanti's HIV/AIDS Resource Center, and Community Health Awareness Group in Detroit are sponsoring Caravan events during the Michigan stops, which will take place through Nov. 1.
The Campaign to End AIDS is a nationwide coalition of AIDS service providers, which formed in response to the reelection of George W. Bush. C2EA brings together longtime HIV-positive people and veterans of the AIDS activist group ACT UP with more recently diagnosed Americans – many of them women, African Americans, southerners and churchgoers. Together, they're demanding that governments fund AIDS treatment worldwide, promote science-based HIV prevention and protect the rights of people with HIV/AIDS. Over 400 international, national and Michigan organizations endorse C2EA, including the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Amsterdam, the National Association of People with AIDS, and HARC and LAAN in Michigan.
"It's 2005. We have the drugs to treat HIV, and good science shows that condoms and clean needles for injection-drug users can prevent it," said C2EA co-chair Charles King, an HIV-positive ordained Baptist minister and CEO of Housing Works. "But these tools are being withheld due to spending cuts, treaties blocking generic drugs and federally funded programs teaching abstinence-only. Our leaders are taking us backward as HIV rates increase. They must change course."
Michigan organizers are still finalizing details for Caravan stops.
See next week's edition of Between The Lines for a complete listing of events. For more information about the Caravan and the Campaign to End AIDS, visit http://www.campaigntoendaids.org. To volunteer, contact Gary Karch at [email protected] or 269-684-3859.
