By Sha’Terra Johnson, HIV Health Planner
Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on August 20 is a chance for the South to join the national movement to raise awareness, address stigma and discrimination, and advocate for the resources needed to end the HIV epidemic.
Continue reading “Why I Love the South”United Nations International Youth Day is August 12, 2019. This year’s theme highlights efforts to make education more inclusive and accessible for all youth, including efforts by youth themselves.
Continue reading “Why Kids Need to Learn About Gender and Sexuality”
June 27th is National HIV Testing Day. In Texas, roughly 17,000 people living with HIV are unaware of their positive status. Each year in Texas, an estimated 4,500 people acquire HIV.
Continue reading “National HIV Testing Day”In 1865, enslaved Africans in Galveston Texas did not know about the Emancipation Proclamation or that they had been freed two years earlier. On June 19th, 1865 Union soldiers finally worked their way south to Texas where the last remaining slaves in America were declared free. June 19th, or Juneteenth, has become America’s “other Independence Day,” an official state holiday in Texas, celebrated around the country, and officially observed in 43 additional states.
Continue reading “Juneteenth”June is Pride Month and pride celebrations this year are particularly festive because this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots. Beginning in the 1950s, with the founding of the Mattachine Society, and into the 1960s, LGBT rights and liberation organizations were working to increase awareness and decriminalize the lives of LGBT people in the United States. Most people though, trace the critical event that launched the LGBT rights movement in this country, to the riots that began at the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village. At the time, police raids on bars catering to LGBT patrons were common, but the surprise raid by the police that night pushed patrons and the gathering crowd to fight back.
Continue reading “Pride Month”