~1DSProj~~~ Asking Black Churches To Help

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~1DSProj~~~ Asking

Black Churches To Help

By KAREN GARLOCH Slaff Wrlt..-

The myth is that AIDS is a disease of gay white males.

The truth is that blacks, ho make up 12% of the nation's population, account for 27% of the nation's 132,510 AIDS cases.

Blacks also make up 72% of all the heterosexual AIDS cases, 52% of all children with AIDS and 52% of all women with AIDS.

"We are affected disproportionately by AIDS," said Maurice Franklin, coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's National AIDS Project, based in Atlanta.

Tuesday, Franklin came to Charlotte to meet with the local

ot coordinator, the Rev. Norman

~ Charlotte is one -five clttes in the five-year SCLC project.

"Let's save the race," Franklin implored at a lunch for several black ministers and community leaders. "We're losing a generation of people because of drug use and black-on-black crime.... If we can reach the young people and proide them with choice, that will iberate them."

The best way to reach black peopl with the facts about acquired immune deficiency syndrome, he said, is through the church.

"The church, historically, has been the focal point in the black communit)."

Franklin and Kerry agree that the project. financed by a $1. 5 million federal grant, floundered in its first two years, trying to do too much. It reached out to drug users and held "safe sex" parties for women, with demonstrations on using a condom.

Kerry said the parties didn't go over well among church groups.

..Some of those older sisters nearly had a heart attack when you'd try to put the condoms on the cucumbers," he said. "It gives the impression we are promoting any kind of sexual relations."

Franklin said the project wasn't successful in the black church "because we haven't allowed them to assist us.... We thought we had all the answers."

In this third year, he said, "we're going back to our grass roots" and get cooperation from the ministers first.

Maurice Franklin Project leaders hope to train

both ministers and lay church members to teach their congregations about AIDS.

Kerry, pastor of Chappell Memorial Baptist Church, hopes 20 black churches will participate in a training session this summer.

He also plans a separate workshop for black ministers in cooperation with Metrolina AIDS Project. The Charlotte nonprofit

The Rev. Norman Kerry agency has its own minority AIDS education project, headed by Nachette Classens.

"We need to get into the churches," Classens said after Franklin's address.

"We need to give the community permission to talk about AIDS. And the way to do that ir for ministers to talk about it them selves. You know, black minister have a lot of influence."

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