May 2, 2005

The Campaign to End AIDS Shoes Off Its Power

FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2005

The Campaign to End AIDS, the much-heralded and long-awaited activist movement dubbed C2EA, came stomping into Washington yesterday and right up onto President George W. Bush's doorstep. After a mile-long "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" march, a deafening 3,500-strong crowd of HIVers and their advocates lined up 8,500 pairs of shoes along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to symbolize the 8,500 or so people worldwide who die of HIV daily. Some demonstrators propelled themselves onto scattered heaps of espadrilles, flip-flops and gold-lamé platform boots in a series of spontaneous “die-ins.”

"If there was any doubt that activism is alive and well, those doubts are put to rest today," said HIVer Paul Feldman of the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA) about the noisy action, observed warily by S.W.A.T. teams and stunned tourists.

Part of an annual week of lobbying in the nation's capital known as AIDSwatch, Thursday’s march was at least three times larger than a similar protest last year. The fired-up multiracial crowd blew whistles, chanted slogans and carried signs bearing the C2EA sunburst logo. "We don't need the government to tell us what to do," said Juanita Chestnut, an African-American HIVer and peer advocate for New York City's Housing Works, over the din of whistles and chants. "The government just needs to get out of the way."

Legislators will get more earfuls like that in September, when C2EA's star turn begins with nine caravans wending their way across the country culminating in a series of public events and rallies the second week of October.

C2EA is designed to force the U.S. government to intensify its efforts on all fronts of the battle against the epidemic. Organizers demand access to treatment and services for every person with HIV, domestically and globally. They also want an increased financial commitment to finding a cure, better meds and rational prevention policies. "We have the science to work miracles with treatment and prevention tools. Let's show some political will and employ those tools to end AIDS," says Rev. Charles King, cofounder of Housing Works and the campaigns cochair.

Six hundred HIVers and allies from all 50 states spent the week leading up to the march lobbying lawmakers on key AIDS issues such as the cash-strapped, wait-listing AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (which provide free meds to low-income HIVers) and the dangers of threatened cuts to Medicaid. According to Feldman, nearly every member of Congress got an AIDSwatcher visit. "I talked about global funding with the staff of 12 of my reps from Michigan—I was infected by someone from Zimbabwe," said Ypsilanti prevention advocate Donna Mitchell, 50, from the sidelines of the march. "It's my mission to do what I can to stem the tide of this disease."

The next big C2EA event will be a Summer Youth Institute in Denver, an activist bootcamp for the 16-to-24 set, June 25 to June 30. For all the details on C2EA, visit http://www.endAIDSnow.org/.

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