Locally, the circuit extends as far south as Salisbury, MD and north to Philadelphia, which is known for producing choirs with a traditional gospel sound.
Wilmington's Jay Caldwell and the Gospel Ambassadors will easily turn hundreds of fan-waving, lower- and middle-income women into swooning admires with a sound reminiscent of Sam Cook, the pre-eminent gospel falsettist.
The Wilmington-Chester Mass Choir, with about 90 members from Middletown to Philadelphia, has received two national Stellar Gospel Music awards. The choir routinely needs seating for 300 audience members.
Smaller New Castle County groups, like Linda Henry and the Daughters of Faith and choirs springing our of congregations, such as The Rusell Delegation of Simpson United Methodist Church, have regional followings from Baltimore to Pocomoke City, Md.
An audience of oneEarnest LaMarr King was hopeful this simmer. He was sure that after mailing 200 letters to New Castle County churches and organizations connected to the black community, he would get at least one minister to attend an organizational meeting for today's AIDS Walk.
He did. King's uncle a minister from Chicago who happened to be in town, accompanied him to Eighth Street Baptist Church for the meeting in July. Not counting that congregation's pastor and his uncle, King made a presentation to an audience of one, a woman who had read about the meeting in the newspaper.
King, who is minister of music at Wilmington's Peoples Baptist Full Gospel Church, thought stark reality would increase interest in the benefit walk. Eight of the 10 to 12 AIDS patients he visits at area hospitals are black men.
Delaware Lesbian and Gay Health Advocates had enlisted his help in increasing the number of black participants in the 5k walk around the city. "Out of 1,500 walkers last year, we had only 50 or 60 [blacks]," said King, a singer with the New John Howard Caravan Singers of Atlantic City. "That's not good."
The AIDS Surveillance Office in the Division of Public Health has recorded 1,132 AIDS cases in Delaware since 1981. Of those, 920 are men; 257 of them are black males who have died. Another 224 black adult and adolescent males are living with AIDS in Delaware.
"I know quite a few men in the church who have died because of the disease," King said in July. "You look at all the musicians and piano players. What they've done is keep quiet, especially in your more spirited churches. It just makes them turn to fear."
'Legally, I became his'The case of the Rev. James Cleveland may best epitomize the magnitude of the silence. Christopher Harris certainly feels that way.
When he was 13, Harris was the only boy alto in the choir at Cleveland's Los Angeles church. He was strapping 6 feet tall and looked 20.
Cleveland was a giant in the industry. He wrote more than 400 songs, recorded more than 100 albums, 16 of them gold, and won four Grammys. He founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America and mentored a young Aretha Franklin.
When he died in 1991 at age 59, 6,000 attended his funeral. Harris is now 25 and has HIV. "It has its moments, but mostly it doesn't affect me unless there is stress," said Harris, who is Cleveland's former foster son.
Harris once went by the name Christopher Cleveland. That was before he filed suit against Cleveland's estate alleging five years of sexual contact that ended with Harris testing positive for HIV.
"Legally, I became his," he said in a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles.
The case was settled out of court. The terms prohibit him from discussing the settlement. But he is free to discuss his live with Cleveland.
"I went to his church. He looked into my face and saw my dreams and he used it," he said. "I wanted to sing, I didn't want to be like him. He promised that he would help me. He just played it to his advantage, he used my naiveness to his gain," Harris said.
Harris said his sexual encounters with the older singer were not molestation. Nor, he said, were they his first such encounters with a man. He says that they were typical of the secretive lifestyle of many of the people to whom he was exposed.
"People in [Cleveland's] inner circle knew, people at church knew," he said. "But they pretended it didn't exist. I guess what you don't see you can't say. But I can."
"No. He didn't die of heart failure--heart failure is just a delusion," Harris said, nearly laughing. The he hesitated. "Let's just leave it at that."
No aid for the afflictedWhat makes the black gospel community one of America's last bastions to confront the 13-year-old AIDS epidemic is its vibrant yet underground homosexual subculture.
"First of all, they deny the homosexuality," Harris said. "Then if something else like AIDS comes along with it, the haven't dealt with the first part. So of course they can't deal with this."
"You would think there would be more compassion. They are very, very cruel."
Behind their backs and from some pulpits, gays are called punks, sissies and even girlfriend.
"We sing their songs and shout and get happy off their music, but condemn them privately," said the Rev. Yvette Flunder, former lead singer of the Walter Hawkins Love Center Choir of Oakland, Calif.
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