Reggie Williams

Reggie Williams (April 29, 1951 – February 7, 1999) was an American AIDS activist, who spread awareness to communities of color. Williams was a leading force in the development of the National Association of Black and White Men Together and the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention.

Biography

Reggie Williams was born on April 29, 1951 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Williams became an X-ray technician and moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s. Williams continued to work at Cedars Sinai Hospital, where he noticed high number of men falling ill to AIDS, formerly known as Gay-Related Immune Disease (GRID). He later moved to San Francisco in the 1980s when the AIDS epidemic was in full effect.

In 1985, Williams began organizing in San Francisco to address the AIDS epidemic spreading throughout his community. Williams noticed the efforts aimed at preventing HIV infections were not culturally compatible with black gay men, and other men of color. He began by initiating the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention, (NTFAP), with the help of Steve Feeback, and Phill Wilson. In 1986, Williams was diagnosed HIV positive at the age of 35.

Later in life, Williams moved to the Netherlands to avoid the stigma and discrimination towards men with HIV/AIDS. He moved there with his partner, Wolfgang Schreiber. Schreiber was prohibited from entering the United States at the time because of his HIV positive status. The two lived in Amsterdam for five years before AIDS took Williams' life on February 7, 1999, at age 47. February 7 is now celebrated as the National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Activist work

I have known many people who are diagnosed with this disease, and other terminally ill people through my profession, who hang onto this little piece of paper they call "hope" in their hand. A lot of them die with it still clutched in their hand. My hope lies in the future. I don't believe there will be a cure for me. I can take AZT or whatever drugs are developed to prolong my life for a time, but my hope is for finding a vaccine to prevent children of the future from getting HIV.

— Reggie Williams (1987)

Williams became involved in the National Association of Black and White Men Together (NABWMT) when he first moved to San Francisco in 1981. After being involved with BWMT three years, he began the San Francisco BWMT's AIDS task force in 1984. He invited representatives of many AIDS organizations to his home a week after a presentation held by BWMT. This was the first meeting of the task force where they talked about AIDS-related concerns of gay men of color.

Williams, along with other members of NABWMT, began to notice the rapid spread of HIV in communities of color. Alongside the rising infection rates, Williams noticed there were very little HIV preventative services that targeted gay men of color. In 1988, Williams became one of the co-founders of the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention (NTFAP), aiming to create preventative services that are geared toward gay men of color. Williams secured a grant from the CDC to fund the NTFAP.

In around 1989-1990, Williams began to create the San Francisco Gay Men of Color Consortium, with the help of Douglas Yaranon, a gay Filipino American, Phill Tingley, a gay Native American, Rodrigo Reyes a gay Latino, and Steve Lew, a gay Chinese American. The Gay Men of Color Consortium developed many projects to help spread awareness and prevention in communities of color.