A Shared Story, Two Decades Apart
Posted by
Taylor Moore
Washington, D.C.
September 15, 2010
Today the
Oprah Winfrey Show will revisit an episode it aired in 1987 featuring Mike Sisco, a HIV-positive young man who stirred up controversy in a small West Virginia town by jumping in to a public swimming pool. The town made national news and became the epicenter of an HIV and AIDS discrimination debate following Mike’s swim, and the closure of the public pool.
Caleb and his mom, Sylvia.
(Photo: EGPAF)
Astonishingly 20 years after the 1987 episode aired, Foundation Ambassador Caleb Glover experienced a near-identical situation while vacationing with his family in Alabama. Two years old at the time, Caleb was barred from a recreational park’s swimming pool by the facility’s owners because he was HIV-positive.
Progress has been made since the
Oprah Winfrey Show first captured the after-effects of Mike’s swim in West Virginia, but Caleb’s recent experience is indication that discrimination remains for those living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.
Since their experience at that Alabama swimming pool, Caleb and his family have become active in educating communities about HIV, and speaking on behalf of organizations like the Foundation to advocate and raise awareness about pediatric AIDS in particular.
Read more about Caleb and his incredible family
here, and
tune in to Oprah today to see if the perceptions of the residents of Williamson, and the entire country, have changed.
Taylor Moore is the Foundation's Communications Associate in Washington, D.C.