AHF Unveils New National #StandAgainstHate Campaign

AIDS Healthcare Foundation and its Black Leadership AIDS Crisis Coalition (BLACC), an affinity group of AHF, today announced the relaunching of the empowering #StandAgainstHate campaign, a national advocacy, awareness and action campaign intended to take on and challenge the racism, hatred, police abuse targeting African Americans and a burgeoning white supremacy movement that continue to sweep our nation.

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As part of the relaunch of its #StandAgainstHate campaign, AHF and its Black Leadership AIDS Crisis Coalition (BLACC) are running full-page advocacy ads in major newspapers across the country. (Graphic: Business Wire)

This new incarnation of #StandAgainstHate comes in direct response to the brutal murder last week of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer and an ongoing, tragic pattern of other high profile deaths of African Americans at the hands of law enforcement officers or involving or connected to police departments—including the deaths earlier this year of jogger Ahmaud Aubrey in Georgia and EMT Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY. AHF launched its initial #StandAgainstHate campaign in August 2017 in response to the civil rights and social justice tragedy so brutally unmasked in Charlottesville, VA and its aftermath.

Challenging all Americans to recognize that the critical work to address the systemic racism and injustices happening in this country is a movement and not a moment, the relaunched campaign poses the question to the American community, Will you care before I’m a hashtag? which speaks to the number of black lives that have been senselessly lost to hate crimes.

“AHF has always been committed to stand up against injustice and we join together with the majority of Americans, especially the thousands of young people across this nation, in condemning the acts of hatred, violence and murder, targeting African Americans, that continues to plague our nation. This senseless violence has pulled back the curtain on a festering underbelly of racism, white supremacy and hatred still present, and sadly growing in our country,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “These events have led us to a moral turning point for our nation and we must all stand up against such hate.”

“As a mother of a black son, surrogate mother to numerous black youth, and a black senior manager for a global nonprofit organization where black people are a core community to whom we provide service, it was important for AHF to focus our domestic advocacy and speak out on the injustices that are happening to black people across this country,” stated Anita Castille, AHF’s Vice-President of Human Resources. “StandAgainstHate is a call to action for all people to get access to action-oriented resources and tools to address these injustices that are being inflicted on black people across this nation.”

The new #StandAgainstHate campaign formally kicks off this week with striking full-page newspaper ads quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the ‘Los Angeles Times’ (Wed., June 3^rd), the ‘Atlanta Journal-Constitution’ (Thurs., June 4^th) and Ft. Lauderdale’s ‘Sun Sentinel’ (Wed. June 3^rd).The campaign will also include ads in African American and LGBTQ+ newspapers across the country and extensive social media videos, an updated #StandAgainstHate website (www.standagainsth8.org) with calls to action for concerned Americans to participate in and links to information on how to protest safely in the age of pandemic.

The #StandAgainstHate campaign also features a national billboard campaign that will roll out in multiple cities over the next few weeks—a social media launch on media platforms of AHF and many of its affiliate organizations as well as the hosting of community forums, including listening and talkback sessions in select cities around the country where AHF has a presence.

The Black Leadership AIDS Crisis Coalition (BLACC) is an affinity group of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The group, which engages AHF Black American employees and community partners across the nation, was developed to create a coalition of Black-American cultural influencers and health advocates, that through the use of innovative, culturally relevant messaging and initiatives, are revolutionizing outreach to the Black American community and elevating the education and awareness of sexual health and wellness and bringing greater awareness to the social justice issues disproportionately impacting the health and wellness of Black Americans.

BLACC members and supporters speak directly to our community and work to address those advocacy issues that impact the rise of the epidemic, at the forefront of the national Black-American agenda.

Black-American families—and young people in particular—are the highest risk demographic for new HIV cases and AIDS-related deaths in the United States. BLACC is committed to increasing awareness and advocacy on behalf of Black-American communities across our nation.

Racial and ethnic minorities—the primary targets of the recent police killings—are also among key populations that AHF cares for and serves in 16 states across the country, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as well as 44 other countries around the globe.

About AIDS Healthcare Foundation

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to more than 1.4 million individuals in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare.

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