March 21, 2008
WALKING THE WALK
 |
Meet Eric Bailey |
Securing $200,000 worth of supportive housing for people with HIV/AIDS. A summit in one week. The biggest HIV/AIDS rally Mississippi has ever seen.
These are just some of the challenges facing Eric Bailey, who joined AIDS Action in Mississippi this month as a grassroots organizer. An HIV-positive man with Mississippi roots, Bailey should prove invaluable in expanding the influence of AAIM as the state’s AIDS advocates continue to put pressure on elected officials to create supportive housing for poor people living with AIDS—and firm up plans for cross-country caravans to descend on the presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi, on September 26. Caravan organizers are hoping to stage the largest AIDS rally Mississippi has ever seen.
Diagnosed with HIV in 2001, Bailey previously served as state chair for Mississippi's Campaign to End AIDS chapter. Bailey sees his role as a black, gay, HIV-positive activist as critical in a state where many people don't understand HIV. "Here in Mississippi, the majority of people are scared of HIV and hell-bent on keeping up stigma," he said. "I'm serving as a role model that you can still be sexy and live a healthy life being HIV-positive."
Bailey, who will now work part time with Valencia Robinson in AAIM’s Jackson office, in addition to maintaining his job as a quality assurance lab technician at Coca-Cola, was born and raised in Bolton, Mississippi, and attended Tougaloo College in-state. His deep roots in the state help him navigate its legislative process. When he met with his U.S. representative Benny Thompson, who is from his hometown, to talk about HIV/AIDS funding, he reminded the Congressman of the cinnamon rolls Thompson gave his grandmother, and her elementary school classmates. Bailey scored an appointment to meet with Haley Barber to talk about putting safer-sex education back in schools because he knew a designer who worked on Barber's son's wedding.
Such ease in the halls of power will be important as AAIM pushes for $200,000 a year that Craig Thompson, Mississippi's bureau director for STD/HIV, pledged for a four-year pilot program to create long-term low-threshold supportive housing for people with HIV. "We’re going to keep the pressure on," Bailey said.
Should AAIM need to mount a rough-and-tumble grassroots advocacy campaign to push lawmakers, Bailey will be right at home. He has co-led efforts such as bringing Mississippians to Washington, D.C., for AIDSWatch, organizing a Mississippi caravan to the Alabama swim-in with Caleb Glover and getting Mississippians to South Carolina for the Rally to End AIDS. But planning these road trips are miniscule to what's coming up in Mississippi this fall.
'Like old women cackling in church'
In anticipation of the presidential debate in Oxford in September, Bailey will help organize a walk from Jackson to Oxford. The pilgrimage is intentionally reminiscent of the walk civil rights leader James Meredith took in 1966. AAIM is working with churches and universities to expand the reach of this event. "AIDS is a big issue with a lot of college students here," Bailey said. "A lot of their classmates are falling dead or looking different."
As with the 2005 launch of Campaign to End AIDS, caravans will arrive from across the country, picking up people everywhere from Alaska to Utah to Idaho to Maine to West Virginia.
"It's time to make an impact and let the candidates know we're not playing," Bailey said. "Mississippi's going to know what's coming. Like the sound of old women cackling in church."
While Oxford, Mississippi has never seen hundreds of AIDS advocates descend upon the city, the city will have preview next week at the AAIM for Life Summit on Saturday, March 29. The Summit will feature discussion on issues affecting HIV/AIDS advocacy in Mississippi. For information on AAIM or the summit, contact Valencia Robinson at robinson@housingworks.org, and check the Update for a report-back from the conference.