Narratives

Carl Bean Reflects on His Life from Baltimore to Archbishop

By Susan Taylor

“However you identify yourself along God’s rain¬bow of sexuality, know that you are not in error. homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, transgender… you are not a mistake. God made you the way you are and God loves you just the way you are.”
This message of God’s unconditional love is a cornerstone of the Unity Fellowship Church, founded in 1992 by Carl Bean.

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A Memoir by Cynthia Davis

As told to Greg Wilson

I grew up in the 50s and 60s, so HIV was not even on the scene at that time. In the late 70s, I was well into my 30s when it became evident that HIV was a retrovirus and that it was sexually transmitted. It was identified primarily in the gay community and the injection drug-using community before its spread across the general population. There were only STDs that we were knowledgeable about, like gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, but not HIV.

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Building the Black AIDS Monument

By Jeffrey C. King

When we consider the diversity that comprises the Los Angeles Black community, it is important that we are intentionally inclusive.
In The Meantime has launched its latest social media campaign, All Black Lives Matter. Currently, billboards are waving high above both Crenshaw and La Brea and in direct view of drivers. Understanding the meaning of a thing is critical to achieving its full potential. It is our responsibility to share the intention of our efforts in community.

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An Interview with Jeffrey King

By Victor Yates

The timeline for AIDS has moved from chronological order to an infinite loop with past and present floating together. Jeffrey King’s gold-flecked name enters the timeline in 1992 during a period of self-discovery around his sexual identity and expression, reappears in 1998 with the birth of In The Meantime Men’s Group, and continues to shimmer with brilliance today. In The Meantime is one of the few nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles that primarily serves Black gay men. For its first clients, ITMT’s resources were a Godsend.

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A Memoir by Jewel Thais-Williams

As told to Greg Wilson

I became aware of this unknown phenomenon, HIV/AIDS, that was taking place while I was in Houston. I had gone down there to open up the second Catch One Nightclub. One of the drag queens that was doing a show for me didn’t show up. I found out a week or two later that she was in the hospital, and everybody thought it was because of pneumonia. I started hearing some of the same stories coming from LA, and as more people started dying it became an urgency, and I knew I needed to get back to LA and see what this was all about.

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An Interview with Dr. Wilbert C. Jordan

By Charles McWells

Wilbert C. Jordan, M.D., M.P.H., medical director of the OASIS Clinic of King/Drew Medical Center, has been committed to HIV/AIDS research and prevention since the early 1980s. In 1983 he reported the first heterosexual case of HIV in Los Angeles County. He has served on both the Los Angeles County HIV Planning Council and the Prevention and Planning Committee since their inceptions. Dr. Jordan has also been the medical director for the Minority AIDS Project since its creation, chaired the Black Los Angeles AIDS Consortium for the past 12 years, and most recently has been a member of the board of directors of the AIDS Research Alliance. Recently Dr. Jordan discussed his life and work with Message magazine.

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Stone Pillar and Bronze Symbol Both Have Historical African Significance

By Nijel Binns

Thousands of African American women and men have succumbed to the ravages of HIV/AIDS since it was first identified in December of 1981.
In June of 2021, a monument was unveiled in Los Angeles to remember those who have transitioned. The design and concept for what is known as the Los Angeles Black AIDS Monument was created by Jeffrey King, Executive Director of the In The Meantime Men’s Group. The monument was actualized by the renowned Los Angeles sculptor Nijel Lloyd Binns.
King’s design concept infuses three very significant symbols—the Sankofa bird, the tekhen, and a written statement—into one very empowering monument.

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The Essence of a Thing

By Love Ta’Shia Asanti

wisdom seeks minds to teach
love searches for open hearts to nurture
water flows to a seed that needs to grow
healing medicine reaches for the wounded

we are that wisdom, love, water, and healing
God’s hand over our Mother earth
unconditional prayers spoken to the universe
sweet rain on the garden of humanity

and we must pour…

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An Interview with Rev. Russell Thornhill

By Jeffrey King

Every journey begins with the first step, and every story with the first word. It’s incredible how a single intention to help can turn into one’s calling.
Rev. Russell Thornhill’s journey began Sunday, January 14, 1990, at the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church on Jefferson Blvd. in Los Angeles, Calif. While the charismatic Archbishop Carl Bean was spreading the mantra “Love Is For Everyone,” people were dying and struggling to live with the AIDS virus. It was during his attendance at a Sunday worship service that Rev. Russ, as he is so fondly referred to, was introduced to another level of service.

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Contributors: Claudia Spears, Pastor Kelvin Sauls, Joni Arlain, Diane Mitchell Henry

It is hard to believe that 2021 marks 40 years since the HIV/AIDS epidemic was brought to the attention of the world. Like so many other things, everyone was not paying attention because it was regarded as something that only applied to certain people. More directly, those suffering from the disease were scorned and rejected. As people of faith, one could not help seeing the parallels to how those impacted by illnesses were treated in biblical times.

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Interview by Award-winning Journalist-Love TaShia Asanti

LA: Where did you enter the movement?

CW: I entered the movement at one year old—right after my maternal grandmother died saving another woman who was a victim of domestic violence. My grandmother was shot by the man who had been beating the woman. When my grandmother went to the ER, they re-routed her to another hospital because she was Black. She did not survive. This was my first experience with health disparities based on race and racism in the healthcare industry.

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By award-winning journalist Love TaShia Asanti

Cleo Manago is a behavioral health and cultural analyst, writer, educator, media commentator, and Black/African social justice and defense-focused human rights activist. In 1988, he pioneered two groundbreaking organizations—the AmASSI Centers for Black Wellness & Culture and Black Men’s Xchange (BMX) National, to help resolve the myriad challenges faced by Black people, diverse in economic circumstance, educational attainment, sexuality, class, age, and culture.

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This interview is conducted by award-winning journalist, Love TaShia Asanti, on behalf of the In the Meantime Men’s Group organization.

Greg Wilson is currently the Senior Manager at In the Meantime Men’s Group in Los Angeles, California. In his current position, he assists with managing day-to-day operations of In The Meantime under the leadership of Jeffrey King.

LTA: Where did you enter the movement to end HIV/AIDS in the Black community?

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There are so many beautiful, intelligent, dynamic, powerful, creative, and inventive people who we’ve lost to the virus, and that needs to be highlighted. Individuals who have passed away should be acknowledged. I think it’s necessary to keep that history of HIV/AIDS for future generations so that they understand the devastating effects it had on the Black community in the beginning. We want future generations to be better than previous generations.

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Honoring Lives Lost and Unsung Heroes

By Victor Yates

Mel Boozer, like a lighthouse, navigated the gay community closer toward the light of political change. Boozer became the first openly gay vice presidential candidate nominated by any political party. In his televised speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1980, Boozer stated, “I know what it means to be called a [n-word]. I know what it means to be called a faggot. And I can sum up the difference in one word: none.”

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Where did your story begin, specifically as it relates to HIV in the Black community?

In 1994, I was offered the opportunity to start a support group for women of color
in South Los Angles. The offer came from Ann Copeland, co-founder of Women At Risk (WAR), which was created to provide HIV-positive women with support groups and peer support as they navigate through this new way of life with this diagnosis.

In 1983, the University of California, San Francisco physicians opened the country’s first outpatient AIDS ward in January and an inpatient AIDS ward in July at San Francisco General Hospital. The staff developed the San Francisco model of AIDS care in both locations. The model focused not only on the health of each patient but also on their well-being.

When AIDS became known to the world in 1981, Cynthia Davis was graduating with her master’s degree in public health from UCLA. It took her several more years working in public health before she became directly involved in HIV/AIDS-related primary prevention, research, and care. But once she started, she never looked back. In 1984, Cynthia began to work for Charles R.

Everyone who enters the glass doors of Renewed Church of Los Angeles is family, so much that Pastor Curt D. Thomas allowed unhoused members to sleep on his couch. After several members required emergency housing, Curt chatted with a close friend who owned multiple transitional housing facilities. Their spirited conversation led to the opening of his transitional housing facility, Momma’s House, which offers 22 beds.

At 29 and unhappily married, The RT. Beatitude Zachary Jones sat, hunched over, glued to the LA Times headline in 1982. The words, disquieting, shifted something inside of him on the front porch of his South Central home. My community needs me, he told himself, reading about AIDS. He struggled with his sexuality, but soon after found the courage to divorce his wife of seven years.

Tucked away on Jefferson Boulevard, behind an unassuming brick-painted facade, is an oasis for the Black community. The doors to Minority AIDS Project (MAP) opened in 1985 in response to the AIDS epidemic’s decimation of communities of color. In 1988, Elder Green joined Unity Fellowship, the church manufactured out of MAP’s office space. Involvement in the church and HIV activism shaped Elder Green’s young adulthood.

By 1989, when famed dancer Alvin Ailey died of AIDS-related complications, the word dominated headlines around the world. Dancers at The Ailey School frequented the underground balls in New York City and walked the performance categories, modifying learned techniques to spin and dip. A month later, Black couturier Patrick Kelly died. Heavily influenced by the culture, Kelly mixed trends seen in ballroom with his French ready-to-wear designs.