Health & Fitness
Our Sisters With AIDS . . .
Straight . . .
 Denise
Stokes -- Biographical Sketch
DENISE STOKES is a Motivational Speaker. By building upon her
life experience (which includes living with HIV for 19 years)
she shares her tenacity and hope with audiences around the
world. Denise has the remarkable ability to captivate the
unlikeliest of audiences and use her life as an example of how
to overcome insurmountable obstacles. As a speaker, her story is
both powerful and memorable. As a woman, she is nothing less
than a miracle.
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Visit Her Website:
www.denisestokes.com/index.html |
Denise has spoken to many well-known entities
such as the NFL and other sports groups. She was featured in the
America Responds to AIDS Campaign, CNN Headline News, Tavis
Smiley BET Tonight, Heart and Soul, The Rolonda Show and The
Ricky Lake Show. Some of her other media credits are; Esteem
Straight Talk, Direct Wire, Emerge and Glamour Magazines. Ms.
Stokes served under Clinton for 5 years and is currently serving
a brief tenure under Bush as a member of The Presidential
HIV/AIDS Advisory Council.
Finally, Denise Stokes is an emerging writer and artist. Her
spoken word CD entitled 'The Glass Staircase' will be available
summer 2001. It will be quickly followed by both a collection of
poetry entitled 'Blank Pages' and the most compelling
autobiography of our times.
Rae Lewis-Thornton has worked for Jesse
Jackson and Carol Moseley-Braun, makes a living by speaking to
groups and schools, and is studying to be a minister. She’s
well-to-do, educated, doesn’t use drugs or drink, and has never
been promiscuous. She’s also had full-blown AIDS for eight
years.
And Lewis-Thornton uses those facts about her life to try to
reach others about the dangers of AIDS and the importance of
preventative behavior. “Nowadays you have to be careful,” she
told Jet. “You don’t know who has what. The face of AIDS is not
always a visible face.”
Lewis-Thornton was first diagnosed with HIV, which she
contracted through heterosexual contact, after making a routine
blood donation to the American Red Cross while working as a
political organizer in Washington, D.C. She was 23. “If I did
not know God,” she told the Daily Northwestern in 1998, “I would
have walked straight out of the Red Cross and into the Potomac
River.” Seven years later, the HIV developed into full-blown
AIDS.
Up to that point, Lewis-Thornton had been doing her best to hide
her illness. But then, as she told Jet, she remembered an
African proverb, “He who conceals his disease cannot be cured.”
She decided to tell her friends and family and, as she told Jet,
“Once I revealed my HIV status, healing took place.”
It was also the beginning of a new career. Not long after she
went public about her illness, she says, speaking by phone from
her Chicago home, a teacher from a local high school called her
up “on a fluke” and asked her to do several AIDS-related
workshops at the school. “After the second or third workshop,”
she remembers, “kids were skipping class to hear me speak. I
walked away from that experience enriched. It was clear I had a
gift to talk about AIDS in a different way.” A few weeks later
the same teacher called, asking her to make a presentation at a
teachers’ retreat, and ever since, she’s done between five and
15 speaking engagements a month, most of which she books
herself. Many of these talks are aimed at African Americans,
particularly women, and young people. “I do prevention with
communities that don’t see themselves at risk,” she explains.
To date, Lewis-Thornton’s efforts have gotten her profiled in
publications like Ebony and Essence. A whole episode of ABC-TV’s
Nightline was devoted to her, and a series on her life, Living
with AIDS, which aired on WBBM-TV, Chicago, won an Emmy. She has
also appeared on The Oprah Show several times, as well as a
number of documentaries and news programs.
Lewis-Thornton credits the fact that she’s alive to three
things. One is her doctor, Marge Cohen, who works at the CORE
Center in Chicago. “She was a godsend. She’d been treating women
with AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic, so she knew what
I needed....If she moves to Alaska, guess who’s moving to
Alaska!” One is her therapist. And one is her strong religious
faith. As she told Jet, “God gives me the joy that no one can
take away from me. I am rooted in that; it gives me the strength
to wake up every morning.”
This doesn’t mean that Lewis-Thornton hasn’t had her share of
health problems. Last year, she was taking a cocktail of
Crixivan, Zerit and Epivir, but recently switched from Crixivan
to Sustiva and has been taken off protease inhibitors because
she’s developed severe hypodystrophy. Last October she had a
severe attack of shingles on her right leg for which she had to
be put on morphine; even now she finds walking painful. And last
year she obtained a divorce from her husband, Kenny Thornton,
who she separated from in 1998. But she’s determined to keep
going.
Last year, after considerable thought, Lewis-Thornton felt she
was being called to be a minister, although she says women
pastors are not common among her denomination (Baptist). She was
licensed by her minister last summer and last fall entered
McCormick Theological Seminary with the aim of earning a Master
of Divinity degree and eventually becoming ordained. “I believe
God is calling me to do a greater work than I’m doing now,” she
says firmly. “In making that decision I am so at peace. I really
feel this is where God wants me to be.”
—D. C. Culbertson (Kujisource)
Website & Speaker Information:
www.raelewisthornton.org
Engagements
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
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July 21, 2002
After the Regional Luncheons
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Centennial Olympic
Park-Across the Street from the Atlanta Convention
Center
Atlanta, Georgia
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Lincoln University
Freshman Orientation
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August 22, 2002
8:00 P. M.
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Student Union
Jefferson City, Missouri
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Hope Presbyterian Church
104th Anniversary
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August 25, 2002 |
1354 West 61st Street
773-737-8394
Chicago, Illinois |
Albany State University
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September 26, 2002
10:00 A.M. |
Albany, Georgia |
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Or Lesbian . . .
Website:
www.prettytomboys.com/index.html
Read Her Thought Provoking Poem
In 1999 Conscious landed a
position as the Executive Assistant to the Executive Producer of
the Queen Latifah Show. Hard work and commitment in building the
Queen Latifah Staff influenced her appointment as Production
Assistant for Queen Latifah.In a short time she showed her
ability to manage the music for the Queen Latifah Show and was
promoted to music manager.
Last year, because of her magnetic personality, Conscious was
recommended by word of mouth to audition for the Oxygen Media
Network to host the TalkShow She-Commerce as well as field
produce segments in which she also hosted.
Conscious started her television career as an intern for
Broadcast News Network (BNN) in New York City. Before she knew
it she was transferred to the technical department where she
wired Avid Computers, Beta Decks, dubbed Digital Beta tapes,
installed light switches and ceiling fans.
During the day she used her technical support to wire machines
for BNN and at night she used her technical knockout punch, and
skill in the martial arts to become bodyguard for Mark Wahlberg
during taping of the movie "Boogie Nights". Her reputation led
to bodyguard jobs at famous New York nightclubs such as, The
Palladium, The Tunnel, The Limelight, and personal bodyguard
jobs with Rap stars, Missy "misdemeanor" Elliot, Busta Rhymes,
DMX, Jay-Z, R&B artist Aaliyah, and more.
Conscious studied electronics and electricity while in the
United States Navy and studied electrical engineering in
college. Conscious turned down the opportunity to play
professional basketball in order to become a part of the elite
electrical engineering department at Con Edison (A New York City
Utility) where she designed electrical engineering blue prints.
Conscious is presently promoting her book "Getting Unstuck" (
Girl to Girl, You can Be, infected indeed...) a true story about
the repressed memory that revealed her turbulent childhood and
adolescent life. A life filled with incest and molestation,
which helped lead to recovery from drugs and alcohol abuse.
Conscious is a talented, articulate star that is bolstering with
positive energy. She has a personality that is rich with
compassion and genuineness. Conscious is a people magnet. She is
someone you must meet.
When you feel down like life isn’t giving you a chance, you cry,
, kick and scream and every way you turn there is a brick wall,
think about me and read my story, it will help you climb that
wall. You can overcome all drama and still succeed……I did. Keep
a smile on your face and keep it moving.
Yours truly,
Conscious
Interview with Conscious: author of “ GETTING UNSTUCK” --
By Michelle Cox -- When I was handed
this assignment, I was floored. HIV transmission woman to
woman? Yes, I’ve read of cases, but I had never encountered
any sister that had been infected by another woman. I didn’t
think they would even tell anyone if that were the case. That
kind of honesty is rare.
Michelle Lopez
Home: New York
City
Occupation:
Director of treatment education, Community Health Care Network;
founder, the Family Legacy Project
Tested Positive:
1991
The Dying Game
Thanksgiving '95 I thought, "This is it." I developed pneumonia,
and my fever went up to 105. The doctors were losing my vitals.
I said, "Please bring my kids over." When my mother got to the
hospital with the kids, seeing me in this situation, both of
them just broke down. That tore me apart. When they took me to
get X-rays, two technicians had to hold me down. But my kids
kept flashing in my mind. I said, "You know what? I gotta live."
Turning Point
Some time before that, I had asked a good friend to take care of
my kids if anything happened to me. She came to the hospital and
said to my mother, "Michelle told me she wanted me to have the
kids, but you're their grandmother. You should take them." My
mother said, "Sure, I'll take them -- if the government gives me
some money." When I heard my mother say that, I told the nurse,
"I'm pulling all these tubes out of me, and I'm going home to
take care of my kids." I went into a shaking fit and broke out
in a crazy sweat. When the doctor took my temperature, it was
down to 100. The next afternoon, they discharged me.
Money Matters
When the welfare reform law went into effect in '97, all my
services were cut. Boom! Here I am, getting $106 every two
weeks. And because I'm not a citizen, I was no longer eligible
for additional assistance. For a while, I became angry and
bitter, and drove my partner away. But I enrolled in training
for women to do advocacy and treatment work because I needed a
job to feed my kids. When I started working, I began taking
better care of myself.
Mother's Helper
I started taking my first protease inhibitor, Crixivan, in
January '97. But it wasn't until I saw my daughter, Raven, doing
well on her HIV meds that I felt hopeful about the two of us and
our survival. I started getting complications from the ddI with
my liver, and I developed neuropathy in my right leg. And I was
out there, going to the conferences, heading up meetings, up
late at night -- I missed my middle doses a lot. I never had an
undetectable viral load. Now I'm not on any treatment, and my
choice of drugs is very limited. But I feel full of life. And
more hopeful.
My daughter is going to be nine in June. She's
going through some difficult issues. She's just realizing what
she's living with, why she has to take all these medications.
She doesn't want to take them right now. In the past few months,
three of her little friends have died. I've got to deal with
pre-puberty too. She's already asking me, "Mommy, when I get
older, can I have a baby with my husband?" I tell her, "You have
to keep the focus on you. You have to be healthy, because right
now, honey, we don't have a cure."
The Way She Lives Now
When I thought I was going to die, I looked at what it was that
helped me. It wasn't the medication -- it was the family
therapist. I got a child psychologist to work with my kids, too.
My son is growing up with me as his mom -- an
out lesbian who does advocacy work and public speaking. He's 12
years old, and his male side is kicking in, and we're having
clashes.
I have a lawyer helping me get my citizenship.
I've got a scholarship to go back to school. And I won a cash
award in December from the Fund for the City of New York. I'm
using it as seed money to fund the Family Legacy Project, which
I founded to be run by and for women who are positive. If I'm
not helping somebody, mentally I start breaking down and then I
get physically sick.
You Are At Risk
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