For Black History Month, GMHC salutes four Black leaders who are partners in the struggle for health equity: Phill Wilson, Drs. Oni and Uché Blackstock, and Harold Phillips. All four exemplify what GMHC Community Relations Director Krishna Stone calls “the wow factor.”
“We are moved by their heroic, courageous, and brilliant work,” she said.
Phill Wilson
Phill Wilson has been confronting the HIV and AIDS epidemic since he was diagnosed with HIV in the early 1980s. “He is very much a change-maker, who has raised awareness for people of color living with and affected by HIV and AIDS,” Stone said.
Wilson launched the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles in 1999 to mobilize Black communities to combat the AIDS epidemic. “The first narrative of HIV was that it was exclusively a white, gay disease,” Wilson told Plus Life Media last year. Obviously, that narrative was “completely wrong,” he added. “Certainly, my activism served as a survival mechanism.”
Because of barriers to accessing HIV treatment and prevention, Black Americans make up 13% of the population, but account for 42% of new HIV infections. “We have a 41-year-old and counting HIV/AIDS pandemic today, because people ignored the information right in front of their faces, driven by benign and malicious racism,” Wilson wrote in 2022. “We have made every advancement on behalf of Black people because of our advocacy and demands.”
GMHC honored Wilson at our 2018 Fall Gala. “Phil wowed us,” Stone said. “He is a magnificent writer and speaker who shares what it means to be a person living with HIV. Folks like me have been inspired by him to continue to do the work.”
Drs. Oni and Uché Blackstock
Like their mother, Drs. Oni and Uché Blackstock earned medical degrees from Harvard, making them among just 2.8% of U.S. physicians who are Black women. The Root 100 recognized both doctors on its 2023 list of influential Black Americans for their leadership in the struggle for health equity for Black and Latinx communities.
Dr. Oni Blackstock has been an “exceptionally articulate, dedicated, and compassionate” ally to GMHC for HIV and COVID-19 prevention, Stone said, especially in communities of color. A primary care and HIV physician, Blackstock founded Health Justice to center anti-racism in health-related workplaces and reduce health inequities for their patients.
As an assistant commissioner for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, she led the city’s HIV prevention activities. Her efforts included outreach to women’s health providers and the “Living Sure” campaign to educate Black and Latinx women about PrEP. “Even though we have effective [HIV] treatment and prevention available, people still lack access,” she told Spectrum News NY1 last year. “And, again, it’s because those other social determinants of health, like housing, employment, and other social supports are not there for everyone.”
Dr. Uché Blackstock founded Advancing Health Equity to help healthcare providers deliver racially equitable care, after a career as an emergency room doctor and NYU medical professor. Her new book, Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons With Racism in Medicine, is a generational memoir that addresses the systemic barriers Black patients and physicians still face. It’s already a New York Times bestseller.
Harold Phillips
As the outgoing White House Office of National AIDS Policy Director, Harold Phillips drew on his experience as a Black gay man living with HIV to advance the Biden administration’s National HIV and AIDS strategy. “He understood what was needed to move forward in this work, particularly around aging with HIV and PrEP access,” Stone said.
Phillps unveiled the updated federal strategy in a keynote address at GMHC’s 2021 National Webinar on HIV and Aging. Notably, it adopts a more holistic care model for people aging with HIV, recognizing that adequate food, housing, and mental health support must accompany biomedical treatment.
Stone highlighted Phillips’ accessibility and dedication to HIV and AIDS service organizations like GMHC. Last year, he recorded a video announcing that GMHC’s Latex Ball would offer MPOX vaccinations. “We know that he will continue to do inspiring work,” Stone said.
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