The black church - traditionally a loud voice for social change - has been curiously silent on the crisis of AIDS in the African-American community, and some say, even negligent.
When Demarsh Tarver contracted AIDS in Alabama, he says his minister told him to pray for forgiveness.
"When I reached out to the church, I felt like I had been condemned because of my lifestyle," Tarver said. "I basically told him, in so many words, to go to hell."
Despite the fact that pastors across the south have offered small consolation to people infected with the virus, AIDS activists say they need black churches the help stem the growing tide of new HIV and AIDS cases.
While African-Americans represent 19 percent of the south's population, they're 56 percent of new AIDS cases in the region.
It is an issue that the people of God must address, said Reverend Claude R. Alexander, Jr., of the University Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.
Alexander was one of the first to address the crisis from the pulpit.
"The church must step forward and clarify it as a disease like any other disease," Alexander said.
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