THE FIRE IS NOW is a CNP digital project, recorded in 2020, featuring videos of Black queer men of Atlanta telling their stories, giving testimony and bearing witness to the moment.
Anthony
Antoine
Recording Date: 11/9/2020
Bio
Anthony McWilliams, known professionally as Anthony Antoine, is a popular performance poet, community activist, singer/songwriter, HIV educator, author, and recognized trailblazer in the LGBTQ music scene who recorded his first out and proud song in 1997, and his first independently released out music project, “Dante’s Got a Man Too,” in 1999.
“To accept one's past - one's history - is not the same things as drowning in it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.”
- James Baldwin
Craig
Washington
Recording Date: 11/29/2020
Bio
Craig Washington is a writer, a licensed social worker, and the owner of Innervisions, LLC. Craig writes about culture, history, and social justice matters. His work has been published in the Huffington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Georgia Voice, and several anthologies. He has been HIV positive for more than 30 years. He can be reached at twitter.com/craigwerks.
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”
- James Baldwin
Malcolm
Reid
Recording Date: 11/16/2020
Bio
Malcolm Reid has been working with THRIVE SS to support black men living with HIV for the last 4 years. He is the co-founder and co-director of PASAN, the Political and Social Action Network. He represents THRIVE SS on the USPLHIV Caucus Steering Committee, where he is co-chair of the Federal Policy sub committee. He is also working to create and implement the Silver Lining Project; a program to support and enable Black Men over the age of 50, living with HIV.
A strong believer in Meaningful Involvement of People living with HIV/AIDs, Malcolm works hard to keep BLMLH aware of public policy and politics and how to advocate effectively.
Malcolm is also a corporate leader. An Associate Director of Technology with At&t, where he leads a team Software Engineers.
Malcolm met and began a relationship with his husband, Stewart Nelson-Reid in 1997 and they were married in 2015. Malcolm and Stewart love traveling, riding roller coasters and other adrenaline pumping activities like skydiving.
