The PennZone

ATLANTA - PennZone -- Over Labor Day weekend, Dr. Elijah Nicholas, in partnership with the Rustin Institute for Leadership Development, presented Her Story, Our Future: An Intergenerational Conversation with Black Women at the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs in Atlanta, Georgia.

The event brought together Black women with lived, clinical, advocacy, and public health experience, along with their allies, for a compassionate conversation about HIV prevention, diagnosis, care, stigma, healing, pleasure, faith, resilience, and joy.

The evening opened with words of affirmation from Rev. Dr. Sande Bailey-Gwinn, who grounded the gathering in faith, healing, human dignity, and the collective responsibility to create spaces where Black women are fully seen, heard, supported, and celebrated.

"Black women were able to speak plainly about diagnosis, stigma, prevention, survival, and joy, and be received with dignity, compassion, and love," said Dr. Elijah Nicholas, founder, president and CEO of GTEP and host and executive producer of the Two-Time Telly Award-winning Focal Point with Dr. Elijah Nicholas.

Black Women Centered in the Conversation

Moderated by business strategist and two-time TEDx speaker Berthine Crèvecoeur West, the Black Women's Panel featured:

• Masonia B. Traylor, globally recognized HIV activist, founder and executive director of Lady BurgAndy Inc., and a Black woman living with HIV
• Kennedi Lowman, advocate, author, community leader, and co-founder and chief operating officer of LOTUS
• Jaimee K. Colvin, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, board-certified family nurse practitioner, founder of PrEP Talk with Jaimee, and nationally recognized HIV-prevention educator
• Simitri Nassar, MPH, public health innovator, sexual health educator, and founder and executive director of The Sexual Intellectual Movement Foundation

The women shared personal and professional perspectives that moved beyond traditional HIV messaging. Their conversation addressed the humanity behind a diagnosis, the need for culturally responsive prevention, the importance of inclusive sexual health education, young adult perspectives, and the power of Black women telling their own stories.

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Through vulnerability, humor, education, and lived experience, the panel demonstrated that Black women's relationships with HIV are not one-dimensional. Their stories include grief and healing, stigma and liberation, fear and courage, prevention and pleasure—and, importantly, joy.

Storytelling Recognized With a Silver Telly Award

The evening also celebrated the artists, advocates, and production team behind Focal Point with Dr. Elijah Nicholas, whose storytelling earned a Silver Telly Award. Silver Telly recognition was presented to Kennedi Lowman, Masonia B. Traylor, Queen Quay, Rhonda Marie Alston, Onyx Keesha, André MeDallion, and Karlotta Washington for their contributions to work that centers lived experience, challenges stigma, and preserves stories too often overlooked.

The recognition reinforced the evening's central message: when Black women are trusted to tell their own stories, their voices do more than inspire. They educate, heal, and help move the HIV movement forward.

Black Men Responded With Affirmation—and Responsibility

The program also featured a Black Men's Response and Affirmation Panel, moderated by educator, artist, advocate, and Rustin Institute founder Tim'm T. West.

Panelists Randevyn Piérre and Larry Scott-Walker reflected on what Black men must do to stand alongside Black women; not symbolically, but through visible and sustained action.

Following the event, Piérre wrote, "Our responsibility isn't simply to admire their strength. It's to help build systems that don't continuously demand it." He continued by naming what active allyship requires: advocating, creating space, sharing power, and consistently showing up.

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The panel affirmed that Black women's stories are not solely reflections of history. They are instructions for the systems, partnerships, and movements that must be built next.

"This gathering cannot be the end of the conversation," Nicholas said. "The stories shared in that room now require a response. Listening is meaningful, but listening must lead to investment, policy, partnership, and action."

The evening was presented by NMAC. Community sponsors and partners included Trans Can Work, Foundations For Living, and Ribbon.