Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) introduced a resolution earlier this month to recognize National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

As the Los Angeles Blade reported, the congresswoman announced H.Res. 1039 on February 6, the day before this year’s National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

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“National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is a day set aside to increase HIV awareness and enhance prevention, testing, and treatment among African Americans,” Waters said in a statement. “It is a day to commemorate the impact of HIV/AIDS on Black Americans and encourage continued efforts to reduce the incidence of HIV, eliminate health disparities, improve access to care and treatment, and show support for all those who are living with HIV/AIDS.”

As Waters noted in both her press release and the resolution, Black Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS and have been since the beginning of the epidemic in the U.S. in the 1980s, facing greater barriers in accessing care and treatment and higher morbidity and mortality outcomes than white Americans.

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Citing data from non-profit KFF — formerly The Kaiser Family Foundation — Waters’ office notes that while Black Americans represent only 12 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 39 percent of new HIV diagnoses, 40 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS, and 43 percent of deaths among people with HIV/AIDS. Black women, meanwhile, account for roughly half of all new HIV diagnoses among women, and Black gay and bisexual men account for 49 percent of all Black people living with HIV and 30 percent of all gay and bisexual men living with HIV.

Waters’ resolution, co-sponsored by 29 of her Congressional colleagues, aims to acknowledge that the U.S. House of Representatives “supports the goals and ideals of ‘National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.’” It encourages state and local governments to recognize and publicize the day’s importance and requests that the Secretary of Health and Human Services “prioritize the distribution of Minority AIDS Initiative grants to HIV-based agencies that are minority led with preference given to organizations led by people who identify as African-American/Black, Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian-American, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.”

As Waters’ office notes, the congresswoman has supported HIV/AIDS awareness initiatives since the 1980s, working with the Clinton administration to establish the Minority AIDS Initiative in 1998, and introducing the HIV Prevention Now Act and the PrEP and PEP are Prevention Act in 2025.

“On National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, we must recommit our nation to eliminate health disparities, promote HIV prevention, testing and treatment throughout the United States, and end the HIV/AIDS epidemic once and for all,” Waters said in her February 6 statement.  

H.Res. 1039 has been endorsed by AIDS Foundation Chicago, AIDS United, AMAAD Institute (Arming Minorities Against Addiction and Disease), LA Pride, NAESM Inc., NMAC (formerly the National Minority AIDS Council), and PFLAG National. According to the Blade, the resolution was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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