Testimony: Sheryl Lee Ralph

I have always walked by faith because they told me I'd never amount to nothing. They said I spent too much time talking about them people, and that thing.

But I've always believed that AIDS was going to test us. 20 years ago, good people, good God fearing people, Christian people pointed fingers and said, "They, them, those people. That disease is what they get." Now 20 years later that finger is pointing right back at them. At us! And I don't care if you're in the pulpit or in the pews, AIDS affects us all.

I've been doing activism for over 16 years. It all began back when I was in 'Dreamgirls.' I lived in Chelsea while performing on Broadway here in New York City back in the 80's when the disease had no name. It was a heinous time. I saw some strange things happen. I remember how people would just dump their family members off at the hospital ward because no one wanted to be around them, no one wanted to touch them. I remember that. I remember one day I was arguing with this man I was dating. We were sitting out in my car in front of my house. This guy came walking around the corner and behind him came a pack of men and they beat that man into the ground. I saw him lying in the snow. In my mind that was all wrong. It didn't matter who it was. When I was growing up my parents said, "If one of us suffers, we all suffer." So if I lived in the neighborhood and that could happen to someone, therefore by the grace of God go I.

We didn't come through the degradation of the 1960's to go out like this. This is something we can win on. When it comes to our health and our well being we as a black community can win. And if I have to be an army of one, then that is what I have to be then. I'll be the movement.

That's what 'Sometimes I Cry' is. It's a movement brought on by real stories about real God fearing women who are living with AIDS. I have two children, and when my children come into their sexual well-being, I do not want it to kill them. Redemption for us begins with a conversation; conversations with ourselves, our children and conversations with God. We cannot shy away from the conversations and the actions that can save our lives.