Staying alive: among the rising numbers of black women in Chicago with HIV/AIDS, three stay strong by speaking out

Chicago Reporter, The, April, 2005 by Lindsay Edmonds

Waver "Frankie" L. Franklin's heart jumped when she read the letter. It was from LifeSource, a blood donor center where she had received a blood transfusion about two months earlier.

She was instructed to call the center.

Frankie knew something was wrong. She waited a couple of weeks before she responded. "I was immobilized by fear and finally I decided I better call them and get treatment for whatever is wrong with me," said Frankie, 50.

When she finally called the center, she was directed to three different people. They kept insisting that she stay on the telephone. Finally, she was connected with the man who was going to deliver the news.

He asked her to come to the center. Frankie told him she couldn't because she worked during the hours the center was open. "He said, 'Ms. Franklin, I'll wait for you.' And then my heart jumped again," Frankie said. "Why would this man wait past his working hours to talk to me? Something is wrong."

Frankie didn't want to go alone, so she asked a co-worker to accompany her. After they arrived, Frankie felt numb as she sat across the desk from the man she had spoken with on the phone.

Frankie was HIV-positive.

The room was silent. There were no tears, screams or sobs. Frankie didn't accept it. While she sat staring at the man behind the desk, he drew on a piece of paper. "There were images of a virus and T-cells, and, when the T-cells are all gone, you die," Frankie said.

The man had emotion in his face while Frankie sat frozen with no response. Frankie said the man thought she was brave. She knew better. She was in denial. "I listened and I asked questions, but I didn't act like I was getting the news that I was HIV-positive," Frankie said. "I rejected the idea totally."

But eventually Frankie, like a rising number of black women in Chicago, had to face the frightening truth.

In 1992 and 1993, black women made up 17 percent of AIDS cases in Chicago. A decade later, they accounted for 31 percent, according to a 2004 report from the Chicago Department of Public Health.

By the end of 2002, AIDS was the leading cause of death nationwide among African American women between the ages of 25 and 44, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National statistics also showed that black women were 23 times more likely than white women to have AIDS.

In Illinois, approximately 66 percent of all women living with HIV--the virus that causes AIDS--are African American, while black women make up just 15 percent of the state's female population.

HIV destroys blood cells crucial to the normal function of the human immune system. Studies have revealed that most people infected with HIV carry the virus for years before enough damage is done to the immune system for AIDS to develop, according to the CDC.

The Chicago Reporter spoke with Frankie and two other African American women, Ida W. Byther-Smith and Tamara L. Wilson, about their challenges with coping physically and emotionally with HIV/AIDS and their quests to inform others.

Though their stories differ and span more than a decade--Frankie learned she was infected in 1988, while Ida got the news in 1991 and Tamara in 1999--these three women share overlapping frustrations and difficult experiences with prejudice and ignorance.

Initially, their struggles propelled them into advocacy work to help those suffering from the disease and educate others. Now they each derive a therapeutic healing from it--easing the past years of hurt, anger and rejection.

At first, Frankie didn't want to believe she was HIV-positive. Her denial lasted two years. "I proceeded on with my life like nothing had happened except I was telling people I had HIV," Frankie said. "Never once in those two years did it hit me that I've got something that's going to kill me."

Soon after learning that she was HIV-positive, Frankie was hospitalized and placed in an isolation room away from other patients, she said. Doctors would enter the room dressed like "astronauts" because, at that time, they didn't know enough about the virus.

Frankie said a doctor once wiped his hands on his pants after shaking her hands. Some people backed away because they were afraid of breathing the same air.

When Frankie told her husband, she expected him to ask her how she felt or what she was going through. "The first thing that came out of his mouth was: 'I'm not using any rubbers.' And those were his exact words," said Frankie. She divorced him.

She also quit her job as a life insurance correspondent. "The job was fine until I got the diagnosis, and then nothing about anything was fine."

Eventually, the shock wore off. But Frankie was diagnosed with AIDS in 1996, and the realization that she lives with AIDS has hit her several times over the years: when she was sick, when she was upset, when she saw 13 close friends die as a result of the disease during February 2004.

One of her closest friends, Vera Rodriguez, was the last to die that month. Feeling distraught and helpless, Frankie decided to get a tattoo in Vera's honor. As she stood in the tattoo parlor, Frankie experienced a "spiritual moment," she said. As if prompted by Vera herself, Frankie realized that her tattoo would not just be for Vera, but also in memory of all those infected with HIV. The tattoo on her right arm features an AIDS ribbon and reads, "'Til we meet again."