June 29, 2007
PASSING THE TEST
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Murphy (left) and Keller surrounded by Baton Rouge stompers |
Cedric Murphy is back on the road. Two years ago Murphy, the Northwest Region representative of Louisiana's Campaign to End AIDS chapter drove cross-country with a caravan of activists to Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA)'s historic march and summit in Washington D.C. This week, his road trip was for a different reason: a four-day statewide C2EA Louisiana AIDS awareness and testing effort coinciding with Wednesday's National HIV Testing Day
Murphy organized 20-minute Oraquick HIV testing in Shreveport, Alexandria and Baton Rouge, as well as a few cities in between. He said that his blacktop journey was aimed at fighting the state's complacency surrounding HIV/AIDS, as well as reaching out to the thousands of folks displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
"A lot of state agencies that do testing can't get everywhere, so we're going to the people," Murphy said. "Folks from New Orleans who live in other parts of the state don't necessarily know where to get tested or get treatment if they're positive."
C2EA partnered with local government agencies, AIDS groups, and churches to organize events around the testing stops. Murphy was welcomed to Baton Rouge by Bishop Joyce Turner Keller, a member of C2EA's executive committee and its Louisiana state rep. For the outspoken Keller, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2001, the event was an invaluable opportunity to educate young people of color. "I don't want AIDS to have the same devastating impact on them as it did on us," she said. "We're also celebrating Juneteenth, which marked the end of slavery. AIDS is a new form of slavery."
African Americans accounted for 77 percent of new infections in Louisiana in 2005. The state's AIDS rate, or per capita infections, is 50 percent higher than the national average. Keller is heading to Washington, D.C. later this summer to meet with the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS to address concerns that council members aren't sensitive to the needs of the black community.
For the Baton Rouge testing stop, Keller arranged for 37 members of the youth stomp-dancing group Black Angels in Action to perform original songs about AIDS awareness. "We're stomping out AIDS," she said. "We have kids from the crib to college because they need to learn the truth about AIDS from a very young age."
Murphy and Keller were happy they scored a segment on a Baton Rouge news show —their event was about awareness, after all. And Murphy planned to keep up the hard work all the way home. "When I get back on Highway 49 and people see the C2EA signs on the van, I'm sure I'll hear some honking and see some waving," he said.