In the early days of AIDS, people weren't survivors, they were "victims." And most of the victims didn't look anything like Clarisse Jordan -- young, black and female.

	Steve Mellon/Post Gazette
	Clarisse Jordan, 34, of Wilkinsburg, who is infected with HIV, speaks to a group of volunteers at the Pittsburgh Aids Task Force in Wilkinsburg on Wednesday. "I tell young people I was their age when I contracted the virus," she said. "You don?t have to be promiscuous or use drugs. You just have to protect yourself." Tonight Clarisse Jordan will be one of nine individuals and businesses honored at the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force at its first Founder's Day Celebration. It begins at 8 p.m. at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, 6300 Fifth Ave. For more information, call 412-242-2500 Ext. 123

Now, increasingly, they do, and that reality is reshaping the battle against a disease that despite 20 years of medical advances still kills millions.

Black women locally and nationally are infected with HIV and full-blown AIDS in numbers that are disproportionate to their demographics. Internationally, the disease has reached epidemic proportions among women in African and other developing countries.

Jordan is emblematic of the 1 in every 160 black women ages 25-44 who, according to Centers for Disease Control estimates, is HIV-infected.

She has been living with the virus that causes AIDS for 16 years, contracting it before she was 18 and still a student at Westinghouse High School. Today, she is a survivor, rather than a victim, and has become more vocal about women and AIDS, speaking to community and church groups every chance she gets.

Tonight, her activism will put her among nine individuals and businesses honored at the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force's first Founder's Day Celebration.

Women get HIV just like men do: from unprotected sex and intravenous drug use. In recent years, reports have shown more black women are getting infected from male partners who secretly have sex with men without telling their female partners.

But there's another reason contributing to the increase, said Doyin Desalu, director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania AIDS Planning Coalition. In most societies, women are often the most powerless. They are vulnerable to rape, violence, lack of education and access to information to protect themselves.

"All the issues of economics and empowerment play into the rates," said Desalu.

Jordan, now 34, has a simpler take on what happens.

"Black women love so hard," she said, explaining that they are socialized to care for everyone except themselves. Their health often is put on the back shelf to satisfy the whims of others.

At 16, Jordan was on the Westinghouse High track team when she fell in love with the captain of a rival city high school football team.

He was two years older. She was naive about HIV, with the little she did know trickling in through health classes. However, at that time in the late-80s, much of the media attention painted the virus as an affliction of gay white men. No need for her to worry. Except that she should have been worried, and that is Jordan's message today.

"I tell young people I was their age when I contracted the virus. Here I am, an African-American woman and I've only been with one partner. You don't have to be promiscuous or use drugs. You just have to protect yourself."

Nothing will keep a woman safe except herself, said Jordan.

At home among her family, Jordan found varying levels of support.

But there also was stigma and silence. Her mother, now 100 percent behind her daughter, at first could not bring herself to whisper the word AIDS.

Jordan moved into the home of a church friend and caved in to despair.

In 1995, tired of feeling blue and desperate for guidance, she began to thumb through the phone book. Her fingers ran across the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force. She dialed.

The task force sent an outreach counselor to her house and soon Jordan joined a support group of black American women struggling with HIV.

Within a year, the group become like family.

By the time she got to the task force, it was changing also.

Ten years ago, clients at the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force were more than 90 percent male, white and gay. The majority came to the organization with full-blown AIDS and died within two years of seeking service.

In 2003, most of the group's clients remain white, gay men. But 40 percent are black American and 30 percent are women.

The organization was there in 1997 when Jordan was stricken with an AIDS-related pneumonia that scarred her lungs. As chronic bronchitis turned to asthma, she was put on steroids, gained a lot of weight and continues to need oxygen to assist her breathing.

Through it all, the task force has been a source of hope.

Jordan gives back by volunteering with the task force. She speaks to teens and church groups and tries to confront the shame of HIV. But she also cooks and fills in as a part-time receptionist with the organization.

"The people who are here are all committed to the cause," she said. "I saw people who lived longer than seven years. Some for 10 to 15 years."

She's come through more than 50 hospitalizations, but today she is doing well and following a medical regimen that includes 26 pills a day.

In her speeches, Jordan is blunt and candid. She tells people her medicine is no miracle and that the side effects -- severe mood swings, diarrhea -- are tough to handle.

Yet Jordan is moving beyond the hurt.

She sings in a Hill District church choir and there is joy and happiness in her life that she attributes to God.

"I had to forgive myself and look at the fact that I had to face the consequences of my actions.''

Her speeches have become her ministry.

"I share at churches, I share my story at the bus stop. To me this is a blessing."

She wants to be the role model who tells teens how to live.

"Don't make the mistake I made," she said.