(originally conducted by Black Entertainment Television)

PHILL WILSON: Sometimes people who work on causes, the cause becomes so important that they stop being human beings. And even their work environment becomes not particularly human. But, I've had two kids that I have to get home to. So, that shapes the culture of my workplace. And that allows me to put HIV and AIDS in its proper perspective so that it doesn't overwhelm me or get out of perspective.

This is not an occupation I can quit and go on and do something else. So, I live 24-seven with this disease, and so I can't escape in that way. And by being a part of this work allows me to know that I'm doing my part. And at the end of the day, for me, that's what life is about. It's not about how long you live. It's about making sure that you do your part.

Basically, our mission as an organization is to fight AIDS by engaging black people and black organizations in efforts to combat the epidemic. So I'm, we're always trying to figure out different ways to get black people involved in AIDS, to get the black media involved, to get black elected officials, to get, black civil rights organizations.

When it comes to HIV/AIDS, as long as the messengers are overwhelmingly white, black people are going to be vulnerable to urban myths. One of the things that we have to do to confront urban myth is to increase the level of knowledge and awareness and the number and the quantity of African-Americans who in fact understand the disease, and who are talking about it.

But I think the important thing that happens around urban myths and what makes them so deadly is that they are a form of denial. If I focus on the fact that AIDS is a conspiracy, then I don't have to focus on the fact that I can prevent myself from getting infected by practicing safer sex or clean needles or all those types of things. Those are things that are in my power, and that's the reality around urban myths. And that is why it is so important for African-Americans to get the information, and for us to talk about it in our communities.

One of our projects is the Africa-American HIV University, or HIV U, and the goal of that project is, if you will, to create a critical mass of people who are urban myth blockers. And the way it works, if you think about an urban myth, someone comes up with an idea, and they create it out of whole cloth sometimes, and they go to someone and they say this thing as if it's fact. And then that person goes to someone else and says that, "Well, I heard this," as if it's fact. And with the advent of the Internet, it gets online, and then you have these urban myths.

One of the myths, for example, is that there's a cure for AIDS and doctors don't want to let it out because they'll lose money. Well, that's absolutely absurd, because whoever the person who has the cure, that person is going to be very, very, very rich. And so, that person's going to make sure it gets out even if he or she has to move heaven or earth to make it happen. Thirdly, there will be lots of money involved in there being a cure. And finally, the development of the cure is going to be a very complex issue that is going to involve a huge number of people.

What motivates me? I have lots of reasons to keep going. One is that, minimally, there are two young men in my life that I have said, "I'm going to be there for you." And being there for them is not just about my personally living, but about my contribution to changing the world, to making the world a safer place for them.

Now that it is undeniable that AIDS is disproportionately impacting people of color. You know that over half of the new infections are in the black community. That black and brown people are disproportionately impacted in this epidemic. Do we care?

Do we care that in some parts of Africa, over 25 percent of the population is already HIV positive? Do we care that there are thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of AIDS orphans in the world? On September 11, America had a wakeup call. And we've responded to that wakeup call, and we're estimating that around five thousand people died in the World Trade Tower disaster. Well, think about it. Imagine the World Trade Center collapsing twice a day, every day, and then you have the magnitude of AIDS, because ten-thousand people die from AIDS a day globally. We responded to the September 11 disaster because it was a devastating event.

But the truth of the matter is, that AIDS is a daily devastating event. And so when I think about my life and I think about what keeps me going, I couldn't live with myself unless I was convinced that I did everything in my power. And I hope that I have the ability to convince other people that they can't live with themselves unless they do everything that's in their power.