8,500 Die Each Day
Irving Brown, a poet from Brooklyn, NY, holds a quilt of messages at the kickoff march and rally for the Campaign to End AIDS. Clients of Housing Works of Brooklyn and East New York created the quilt as part of an art therapy project while traveling to the event. “We need people to know… people are dying needlessly,” Mr. Brown said.
A class of Indiana students pose at the White House while pairs of shoes, boots, and sandals line Pennsylvania Avenue to symbolize the number of people who die from AIDS worldwide each day. According to Kymsha Henry from Housing Works, 8,568 pairs of shoes were on display.
The shoe action follows similar protests in 2003, when 600 pairs of shoes were laid at the South African Embassy to represent the number of AIDS deaths per day in that country. Also, atheist protesters held their own shoe protest against Payless spokesperson Star Jones in 2002 because of her remarks against atheists.
Housing Works supports clients by providing housing, health care, job training, and a heaping help of self esteem. The Campaign to End AIDS is a coalition of people that demands the political will to use the tools available to halt the spread of AIDS, and search for a cure.
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