Frontline

Endgame: Aids In Black America

Every 10 minutes, someone in the U.S. contracts HIV. Half are black. Thirty years after the discovery of the AIDS virus among gay white men, nearly half of the one million people in the United States infected with HIV are black men, women and children. "If Black America was a country unto itself, it would have the 16th worst epidemic in the world," says Phill Wilson, head of the Black AIDS Institute. "Endgame: AIDS in Black America" is an exploration of one of the country's most urgent, preventable health crises. The film traces the history of the epidemic through the experiences of extraordinary individuals who tell their stories. People like Nel, a 63-year-old grandmother, who married a deacon in her church and later found an HIV diagnosis tucked into his Bible; Tom and Keith, who call themselves "Bornies," survivors who were children born with the virus in the early 1990s; and Jovante, a high school football player who didn't realize what HIV meant until it was too late. From Magic Johnson to civil rights pioneer Julian Bond, from pastors to health workers, people on the front lines tell moving stories of the battle to contain the spread of the virus, and the opportunity to finally turn the tide of the epidemic. Written, produced an directed by Renata Simone, the producer of the 2006 Frontline series, "The Age of AIDS."