Phill Wilson

Phill Wilson is an internationally-renowned Black AIDS/HIV activist and founder of the nation’s only HIV/AIDS think tank focused exclusively on the needs of the Black community. Wilson found out he was HIV-positive at a time when such a diagnosis was effectively a death sentence, and watched many of his friends die of the disease in the early years of the epidemic. Troubled by the fact that AIDS outreach was largely targeted toward white men, although the Black community was affected much more by the disease, he founded the Black AIDS Institute (BAI) to engage and mobilize Black institutions and individuals to confront HIV. He previously served as the AIDS Coordinator for the City of Los Angeles and as the Director of Policy and Planning at AIDS Project Los Angeles. He served as BAI’s CEO for nearly 20 years before stepping down in 2018.