Keep the South Dirty and Our Needles Clean

By the early 1990s, hiv was the second leading cause of death for Black cisgender women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four. wwAv's founders shared an intimate knowledge of how the twin epidemics of Hív and mass criminalization were decimating their communities. "Gatekeepers," for them, were the people who ran shooting galleries or crack houses and could disseminate vital health information and supplies to those who were actively using but were not being served through street-based outreach.3 Gradually, their presence in and with community enabled the wwAv foremothers to start producing their own knowledge about precisely how the logics of systemic poverty and targeted criminalization were driving Hív vulnerability and a whole host of other health issues. Both laws prohibited the offer or agreement to exchange sex for money, though a Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (cans) explicitly criminalized only the solicitation of oral and anal sex. [...]while both laws carried the possibilities of imprisonment and fines, cans was an automatic felony and mandated sex offender registration - fifteen years for a first offense, a person's entire lifetime upon the second. [...]members of the wwav community said that "there is NO Justice in Louisiana," and their words became the organizing call going forward.5 The NO Justice Project was launched to fight predatory policing and the violence of cans criminalization and registration requirements. wwAv drop-in hours became a vital time for crafting the organizing strategy.