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When I first began to pay attention to the outside world, the civil rights movement gave me courage and a dream to pursue. In college, it was ending the Vietnam War, poverty and housing discrimination — and then the condescending treatment women received from the movement leaders showed me my view was way too simple. I learned first-hand about sexual violence through my work with rape victims in Atlanta. I’ve devoted my life’s work to fighting injustice and righting wrongs in our country, but nothing prepared me for the AIDS epidemic.

AIDS shattered everything we knew and thought we could depend on — and it left us exposed, infected, in indescribable pain, horrified by government inaction and stereotyping, and scared and angry beyond words. Those closest to us were dying, and we had to develop our own rules, medicines, laws, budgets, clinics, alliances, underground travel and drug networks, to help those we love fight and die with dignity, surrounded by love.

The AIDS epidemic formed our community. It made us love in new ways. It broke our hearts and it taught us how to piece them back together heartbeat by heartbeat.

Hillary Clinton didn’t need that searing personal grief to act. She has a record of working on AIDS — a record of speaking out despite the risks and a record of commitment throughout decades. As first lady, she supported and endorsed AIDS organizations with a loud and clear voice. I will always remember standing on the National Mall as she traveled through the AIDS quilt, stopping to capture in her mind the love and pain each panel conveyed.

Few, if any, of her LGBT New York constituents questioned her commitment to fighting AIDS. As their senator, she voted to expand global AIDS research, improve AIDS programs for women and girls around the world and supported prevention and treatment services. As Secretary of State, she gave a speech in which she shared a vision of an AIDS-free generation — when few dared to do that. I remember the unbelievable joy I felt when I watched that speech. She has fought to expand funding for AIDS clinics and research, and make drugs available, stood against discrimination and hysteria, championed the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and promoted education programs.

It is hard to put into words the aching, gaping hole AIDS brought to us. I lost 300 friends and colleagues to the AIDS epidemic. Hillary doesn’t carry that pain in such a personal way, but she understands that others have felt the pain we have. She cares about us and the friends we’ve lost during this horrific epidemic. She is a fierce, powerful, effective and inclusive leader. And she is bold enough to say that she misspoke about the Reagans’ work on HIV and AIDS.

All who know me have heard me say that Hillary Clinton is “the leader of my lifetime” and she has championed all the issues I’ve spent my life trying to tackle. She is the leader who can stand up for those who have been left behind. She will help lead us closer and closer to an AIDS-free generation, and I am proud to stand behind her.

Allida Black, Ph.D. has been active in the AIDS community for decades. She co-founded the National Association of People with AIDS, helped lead the National Lesbian and Gay Health Foundation, co-coordinated the Second International Conference on AIDS, and ran the Atlanta Gay Center. She is a research professor of history and international affairs at the George Washington University in D.C. and a passionate Hillary Clinton supporter.