Morris Singletary: How An SGL Church Boy Turned Pain Into Purpose While Receiving Applause From Beyoncé
Photo by Habeeb Mukasa (for Positively Aware Magazine)
Picture it. Atlanta. June 23, 2006. A Black church boy sits in a room awaiting the results of a rapid HIV test. The seconds feel like hours and the hours feel like days. The clock strikes 3 p.m., he is now fifteen minutes away from embodying the stereotype of Black gay men living with HIV as an inevitability. His greatest fear is confirmed. He is HIV-positive. He is also given 90 days to live. But for Morris Singletary, 43, Founder and CEO of Pozitive2Positive, there are no tears, only the beginning of an awakening that would lead him to fight for his life and the lives of other Black same gender loving church boys living with HIV.
“The very first thing I ever heard about HIV is my mom saying, “this is the punishment that gays get from God for being gay.” I heard that when I was six years old,” said Singletary.
“When the church comes across a young man that’s LGBTQ, you can be a sinner, you can be a drug dealer, that’s ok — but to be a same-gender-loving man or woman, then your sin is the worst. I’m like, “my God is too good for me to believe that story.” I had to be the example of God-loving a Black queer man with HIV,” he said.
Unbeknownst to Singletary, his diagnosis would move him towards his purpose. Tap your neighbor and say, what the devil meant for bad, God turned it around and used it for good.
But for every testimony, there has to be a test. And Singletary says his HIV diagnosis was just the beginning of his health challenges, which took a backseat to the more fatal diagnosis that threatened to end his life within 90 days.
“I also had cryptosporidium,” he said. “It’s a bacteria that eats you up from the inside. And so what happens is, when I would eat—it would eat the food that I put in my body. It would eat the food and then eat me. Food was coming out of every hole on my body, to the point where, I said, ‘I’m just gonna stop eating.’ Well, then it started to eat me more because it had nothing to eat off of.”
Singletary tells The Reckoning that the disorder caused a dramatic weight loss that provided fodder for the rumor mill.
“At that point, I was not eating and one of my friends called me and said, ‘Morris, I don’t know what’s going on but the kids say you’re disappearing right in front of their face.”
Singletary recalls this period as one of the toughest in his life, but a period that also served as a turning point.
“I told my doctor that if I couldn’t be normal then I didn’t want to live,” he said. “That was it. And I wasn’t going to commit suicide because I’m a church queen [laughter]. You’ve got to stay alive because you can’t ask for forgiveness if you’re dead, right?”
Singletary had to stay alive because his work here wasn’t done. In fact, he was just getting started. He says what began as an opportunity for him to share his journey living with HIV via Facebook Live videos would morph into Pozitive2Positive, a year-old community-based HIV organization that Singletary says he was reluctant to build.
‘Why does Atlanta need another non-profit?’
“I really didn’t want to start another non-profit,” said Singletary. “Why does Atlanta need another non-profit to talk about HIV to some of the same people?”
But Singletary isn’t conducting the business of HIV as usual. He is quick to point out that his organization is community-based and is focused on meeting individuals exactly where they are on their HIV journey by making sure they’re engaged in care. He says the mission of Pozitive2Positive is two-fold: “I want to make sure that HIV negative people remain negative by being educated on PrEP and PEP. That’s mission number one. Mission number 2: I want to make sure that those of us who are living with HIV are engaged in care or re-engaged into care.”
PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis), the once-a-day pill used to prevent HIV-negative people from becoming infected with HIV, and PEP (Post-exposure prophylaxis), antiretrovirals that are given to an individual within 72 hours of potentially being exposed to HIV, are both at the core of Singletary’s work, but his reach doesn’t begin or end there.
“When I educate people on PEP and PrEP, I also want to tie in their intersectionalities, right? You want me to tell you about a pill but we really haven’t talked about sex,” he said. “We haven’t talked about commitment. How do you want me to be committed to a pill when I haven’t done anything in my life every day the same? So it’s some life skills that have to change.”
Singletary said his organization’s “goal is to get Atlanta out of the top 5 for HIV.”
“I want us to be the top 5 in sports,” Singletary said jokingly.
He is channeling his efforts into what he hopes will become his organization’s signature event with the inaugural, “The Amazing PrEP Race,” a scavenger hunt following three 2-member teams as they answer questions and perform tasks related to PrEP, PEP, and ARVs (HIV medications), with supporters learning and cheering them on virtually. The event, which is modeled after the reality show, “The Amazing Race,” kicks off on October 17, 2020, at Piedmont Park and will culminate with free HIV testing at Virgil’s Gullah Kitchen and Bar in College Park.
Singletary tells The Reckoning that he hopes the event will continue to raise awareness and debunk stigma surrounding HIV.
“HIV is bigger than Atlanta. It’s bigger than same gender loving men. It’s bigger than injection drug users. If Atlanta never gets out of the top 5 of HIV, but all of the total numbers come down, then we start to win. So that’s what I’m looking for,” he said.
Beyoncé knows his name
When Gilead Sciences was on the search in 2019 to document someone in the South living with HIV, Singletary received the call that would catapult his image and advocacy onto the world stage, and shoulder-to-shoulder with Black music icons, Jay-Z and Beyoncé.
Singletary was among the black LGBTQ trailblazers who presented the Carter’s with GLAAD’s Vanguard Award during the annual ceremony at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California in March 2019.
He was chosen to be a presenter through his work with the COMPASS (COMmitment to Partnership in Addressing HIV/AIDS in Southern States) Initiative, a 10-year, $100 million partnership with community-based organizations working to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the South. Gilead Sciences, the maker of PrEP treatment Truvada, funds the initiative.
“The COMPASS Initiative has allowed me the opportunity to show that you can be a Black boy with HIV and love God and know God loves you,” said Singletary. “That pushed me to be a stronger activist. I always said before then that I never wanted to be the Black face of HIV. But the fact is I have HIV, I’m doing well with HIV, and I have a platform that people listen to,” he said.
Singletary says that it’s impossible to meet Jay-Z and Beyoncé and remain the same.
I was backstage [at the GLAAD awards] and this White gay boy comes up, “Hi Morris, I’m Beyoncé’s assistant...we love your videos.” “Wait a minute. Who are we?,” he asked. “Me, Beyonce, and Jay-Z,” said the assistant. “I could’ve fainted right there,” said Singletary.
“I’d only been doing this work at this time for about three years, but I knew then that I had more work to do,” he said. “You don’t meet Beyoncé and stop. No baby, you meet Beyoncé and you strive! That opportunity and other opportunities I’ve had since then only make me want to work harder. My feet have to stay to the ground to make sure we end this epidemic.”
(Cover Photo By Kevyn M Photography)
