According to the Centers for Disease Control (the CDC):

• Even though blacks (including African Americans) account for about 13% of the US population, they account for about half (49%) of the people who get HIV and AIDS.

• Blacks with AIDS often don't live as long as people of other races and ethnic groups with AIDS. This is due to the barriers mentioned above.

• For African Americans and other blacks, HIV/AIDS is a leading cause of death.

• HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for black women aged 25-34 years.

Here's the bottom line for all of those people who want to do "urban ministry" and have multi-racial blah, blah, blah churches/ministries in "the city." If your ministries are NOT focused on HIV/AIDS you're stuck in the 1960s.

The big issue in lower-income black communities is not racism or social injustice or living in poverty with cell-phones and cable television but AIDS.

If you're yapping about "urban ministry this-and-that" and you're not adamant about addressing HIV/AIDS you're asleep at the switch. If you're into this "reconciliation" blah, blah then actually do something relevant to 2008 (as opposed to 1968) and deal with HIV/AIDS.

In Louisiana, 66% of people living with AIDS are African American, 31% are white, and 3% are Hispanic.
The cities with the largest number of blacks being in infected are Atlanta and Raleigh-Durham (yeah, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill) section of North Carolina.