Last week, Secretary Hillary Clinton's campaign followed-up with the national coalition of HIV/AIDS activists and organizations to nominate a short list of people living with HIV/AIDS to speak at the DNC 2016. Clinton's campaign selected the coalition's top pick of Daniel D. Driffin, a 30-year-old gay black man living with HIV, and a civic leader in Georgia. Daniel gives voice to the thousands of black gay and bisexual men living with HIV in America - a community that is a priority in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy due to increased HIV diagnoses and ongoing poor HIV health outcomes.
Daniel Driffin will enter Morehouse School of Medicine's MPHA program in the fall. He serves as co-chair of the Task Force to End AIDS in Fulton County, Georgia and is Youth HIV Policy Advisor for the LGBT organization Georgia Equality. Daniel was recently featured in a PBS segment on the HIV epidemic in Atlanta. He is a founder of "Undetectables Atlanta," a group of over 400 gay/bisexual men with HIV, and is also a founder of THRIVEN SS inc., a non-profit service organization serving the same population.
Daniel will address the delegates at the Convention on Wednesday, July 27, 2016 during the 4:30pm and 6:00pm block of speakers.
Since 2004, HIV/AIDS activists have been disappointed in the failure for the Democratic National Convention to include an HIV positive speaker to have the opportunity to combat HIV-stigma and address delegates from the main stage.
Previous speakers at the Democratic National Conventions were:
Bob Hattoy was a prime time speaker at the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York.
Phill Wilson was a prime time speaker at the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Jesse Milan spoke at the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles.
Denise Stokes spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.
There was no person living with HIV who spoke on HIV/AIDS at the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver or at the 2012 Convention in Charlotte, NC.
The coalition of HIV/AIDS activists and organizations met with Secretary Hillary Clinton on May 12, 2016 in her Brooklyn campaign headquarters to discuss a detailed agenda of concerns.� While the coalition is grateful to Secretary Clinton for following through on scheduling a speaker and incorporating some of the coalition's concerns in the Democratic Platform, we are still waiting for a response from the Clinton campaign regarding specific policy requests to help end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, both domestically and globally.
For more information on the coalition's work this election, see here: www.housingworks.org/advocate/detail/meetings-scheduled-with-presidential-candidates-clinton-and-sanders/ .
www.housingworks.org/advocate/detail/aids-advocates-meet-with-secretary-clinton-at-brooklyn-campaign-headquarter/ .
www.housingworks.org/advocate/detail/notes-from-meeting-with-secretary-hillary-clinton/ .