Almost 30 years have passed since Dionne Warwick and her friends—Elton John, Gladys Knight and Stevie Wonder—recorded their smash hit, “That’s What Friends Are For.” The song generated more than $3 million for the American Foundation for AIDS Research and heralded a new era of celebrity-driven fundraising and activism. Warwick became one of the first celebrities to align herself with the fight against the epidemic. Warwick recently spoke with HIV Plus magazine about her years of activism.
“I’m a performer,” she told HIV Plus. “The industry I am in has lost a multitude of talented people.” Warwick lost her assistant to AIDS in the 1980s before the disease even had a name. “That’s when I had a very strong message sent to me to stop talking and start doing, and as a result of it, my advocacy started getting known throughout the country.”
Today, Warwick’s advocacy continues in communities like Harlem, where she works to educate young African-Americans who are hit particularly hard by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. When asked her thoughts on the cause of the disproportionate impact, she responds, “Economics, nothing more than that.” Still, she said that services have multiplied and improved over the years, continuing, “… there was no place for African-Americans to go, which give me even more strength to combat this thing.”
See hivplusmag.com.