Activist Replaces Ailing City AIDS Coordinator

AIDS activist Phill Wilson was appointed Los Angeles’ new AIDS coordinator Monday, replacing Dave Johnson, who is resigning because of his personal struggle with the disease.

Like his predecessor, Wilson, 34, is infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, but apparently he is in better health.

“Actually, I feel fine,” Wilson said during a City Hall press conference.

At the top of his agenda, Wilson said, will be implementing the city’s new AIDS policy, the first comprehensive plan designed to prevent the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome and assist people afflicted with the fatal disease. The policy is scheduled to come before the City Council for action in the coming weeks.

Wilson said he plans to work with community-based organizations and within the city bureaucracy “to make sure the people understand what that policy’s about.”

Johnson, the city’s first AIDS coordinator, was appointed to the position 16 months ago. Appearing with Wilson at the press conference, Johnson said he will continue to work for AIDS education and assistance programs.

“I think the major thing I want to get involved with--after a little time off--is the battle to get people to start caring,” Johnson said.

Wilson, an Illinois native, has worked with AIDS and gay rights organizations for the last several years. Most recently, he was national training coordinator for the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention.

He earned undergraduate degrees in Spanish and theater from Illinois Wesleyan University before moving to Los Angeles in 1982, where he was founder and co-chair of the Black, Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum.

The fact that he is black, Wilson said, will help him send a message to black men, whom he believes have been largely ignored by AIDS education and treatment programs.

Wilson said he brings a special empathy to the job: He nursed his lover of 10 years, AIDS activist Chris Brownlie, until Brownlie’s death last fall.

For a time, Wilson and Brownlie operated a small gift-ware company called Black Is More Than Beautiful, but the enterprise became a casualty of the AIDS epidemic when Brownlie fell ill, Wilson said.

“I know what it means to take care of someone who’s dying of AIDS,” Wilson said. “I think one of the things we have learned in this community is, if we are going to survive, we have to keep going.”

Mayor Tom Bradley, who appointed both Wilson and Johnson, said he has no misgivings about appointing another AIDS coordinator whose health is in jeopardy.

“If Dave served for a year, or 18 months, then had to leave, the legacy of all that he did while he was here is so powerful, so important, I wouldn’t dare question how long,” Bradley said. “The same is true and will be true of Phill Wilson.”