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A. J.
....with his good friend, Kara.
Roosevelt Williams (A.J.) died in August 1990,at the age of 44, after a ten year battle with AIDS. AJ grew up in Oakland in a large family under the shadow of the Cypress Freeway. He knew at a very early age that he was different from other boys and struggled for years to accept himself as a gay man. He studied at Julliard Conservatory of Music in New York. While attending U.C. Berkeley he served on the ASUC Student Senate and tutored disabled and minority students in mathematics and computer science.
In the last years of his life, AJ was widely known as a speaker on AIDS-related issues, on spirituality, and on the impact of AIDS on the black community. He was a frequent speaker at churches, community organizations and high school and university classes. He served on the advisory board of The Center - a spiritual resource center for people with AIDS/ARC.
AJ had a smile that felt like the sun coming out on a rainy day. He was a handsome, loving, gentle soul, who touched everyone he met.
In 1988, writing in the San Francisco Catholic, A.J. declared, "One of our biggest cultural mistakes is that we make pain an enemy. I want to feel hurt about injustices we do to each other, about how we're messing up the earth. We seriously curtail our ability to experience love and joy because we're so adamant in pursuing an absence of pain."
ColdFusion site created & hosted as a free public service by SupportNet