In Clint Eastwood’s latest film, “Invictus,” the Latin word for unconquered, Nelson Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) gives a copy of William Ernest Henley’s poem by the same name to Francois Pienaar (played by Matt Damon), the captain of the South African national rugby team. The poem provided inspiration to Mandela during his 27 years in prison. Now, the South African president hoped the poem would similarly inspire the Afrikaaner head of the nearly all-white team during its improbable run to win the 1995 World Cup.
The rousing last lines of the poem are “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
I was reminded of these lines as I read the latest in a series of Washington Post articles detailing the year-long failure of the District of Columbia to address the city’s HIV/AIDS epidemic. The latest article describes in heartbreaking detail how, over much of the past 20 plus years, only a pittance of AIDS funds have been directed to Wards 7 and 8, the predominately Black, low-income areas with the highest burden of HIV/AIDS in the city.
The bottom line is that the health department in our nation’s capital neglected the disease in low-income Black neighborhoods. And largely for that reason, the community failed to develop the capacity to adequately respond to the epidemic. No wonder the AIDS rates in many areas of Black Washington are higher than those in some African countries.
“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
Alas, what has happened in Washington is neither new nor unique. For far too long, African-Americans in cities large and small, all around the country, chose to remain hands-off about HIV and AIDS. For most of the epidemic, we chose not to be the masters of our fate. We chose, instead, to allow others to determine our destiny by shortchanging us. Let there be no mistake: We can’t curb this epidemic on the cheap, certainly not in communities that struggle not only with AIDS, but also with a perfect storm of other social and economic problems.
We need to stand up and denounce the way the Black AIDS infrastructure in the United States has been starved to death by the “powers that be”- from the federal government to charitable foundations to AIDS-service organizations. If we allow business as usual, then in many Black communities, the AIDS infrastructure will remain decrepit or nonexistent – a reality that leads many funders, in an invidious form of circular reasoning, to justify their decisions not to invest in those communities.
But we can point out that the very same logic was used to criticize the U.S. government when it began to direct the first PEPFAR dollars into underdeveloped and resource-poor nations in Africa. There was no way that the United States should allow leaders in those countries to become masters of their nations’ fates, some argued. Yet today, PEPFAR is lauded as largely successful, building an AIDS-service infrastructure in those nations, putting antiretroviral medications in the hands of those who needed them, and saving millions of lives.
The time has come for Black America to become the masters of our fate and the captains of our collective soul. Even though health departments have failed in almost every city and town, we do not have to allow previous failures to determine our destiny. We can become masters of our fate by ensuring that the Obama administration makes good on its plan to develop our nation’s first national AIDS strategy, and by demanding that state, local and private funders put the most resources into communities where the problem is most acute.
As Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for more than a quarter century, yet emerged with a vision and the determination to end apartheid in his nation, so too can Black America take charge of our destiny. Collectively, we too, can be invincible. Collectively, we too, can be masters of our fates and captains of our souls.
Phill Wilson is president and founder of the Black AIDS Institute.
