Our August 2020 Shero of the Month is Angela Hawkins of Houston, Texas. Angela is a founding member of the Greater Houston Area and Texas chapters of PWN. National Field Organizer Evany Turk said, “Angela is passionate about helping and loving on her community. She works hard to make sure people are equipped with accurate information, and she will happily provide resources for various needs. She is an amazing person with an amazing spirit.”
Angela had been engaged with PWN activities prior to joining the national membership. In 2016, she drove to Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, for the Positive Living conference as our Speak Up! summit was nearing its close. She ran into Venita Ray and several other women who attended the summit. As fate would have it, she drove Venita and the ladies to Starbucks. Upon returning, they decided to sit outside the host hotel and get to know each other.
She listened as the women discussed ways to advocate for people living with HIV. Angela said, “I was newly diagnosed and didn’t know very much, but those ladies were so resilient, fierce, and centered that I wanted to be a part of what they were doing! I think I went back to my room that day and signed up on the PWN website. However, it would be another year or so before Houston formed a chapter and I became more involved.”
In 2016, Angela remembered there were no groups in her area with women living with HIV in leadership. Though organizations provided services for women living with HIV, the leadership consisted of people not living with HIV. The Greater Houston Area chapter became the first of its kind. She said, “Our goal was to be empowered decision makers changing policies that affected us. As women living with HIV, we felt the need to combat the stigma of HIV and ensure that we provided education to others in the community.”
The GHA chapter teamed up with the Dallas chapter to form the Texas chapter. As a statewide project, they were awarded a grant to do leadership training, which drew 100 people living with HIV. As a state chapter, their goal was “to tackle HIV criminalization by educating people living with HIV on what it was, and on how even though Texas does not have specific laws on criminalization, prosecutors are using general criminal laws to charge defendants living with HIV with attempted murder and aggravated assault.” 
To measure their progress, Angela said they kept data on new membership, and the chapter has educated both people living with and without HIV and service providers on people-first language, advocacy, effective leadership, and more. She said, “I think one of the greatest indicators of our success was being awarded the Community Leadership Award by the African American State of Emergency Task Force (AASOETF) last year during a World AIDS Day Shades of Red Gala.” This award symbolizes PWN-GHA’s significant contribution to preventing HIV and supporting people living with HIV in Houston.
As a member, Angela is most proud of the get-out-the-vote work the chapter has been doing, which consists of registering voters, mobilizing people to the polls, and educating the community on the importance of voting. Working with allies and partner organizations for the primary and the more recent run-off primary elections, they worked to ensure expanded early voting poll locations in marginalized communities. 
The GHA chapter has hosted events for National Women & Girl’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, the National Day to End Violence Against Women Living with HIV, clothing drives, vision board parties, and painting with purpose parties as a means to celebrate women living with HIV. Angela said, “I get to use my creative/hostess talents by either creating the flyers to advertise the events or provide ideas to decorate.”
An achievement she is most proud of is facilitating a local support group for women living with HIV. About the group, she said, “It’s a place where women living with HIV can just be. They don’t have to be mom, daughter, sister, or wife…because of the intersectionality as a PWN member, a Black woman living with HIV, and an advocate, from time to time I throw some PWN advocacy, education, and knowledge into the mix.”
The women in the support group who are open to doing advocacy Angela invites to become members of the PWN Texas chapter, which has been busy monitoring bills that impact the needs of women in the state since the 86th Texas legislative session last year.
Angela took on the role of coordinator with the Texas Strike Force. She maintains the contact list, designs and sends the welcome letter to new members, and updates members on a bi-weekly basis. Working with the Rapid Response Team, she sat on calls as they reviewed bills to decide which required an action alert to advocates. She learned 1) that being the coordinator was a lot of work but increased her organizing skills, 2) that once a bill goes to committee, one must act fast to speak for/against as a citizen, and 3) to be sure to pack breakfast, lunch, and dinner, because “these legislators can schedule a hearing as early as 8:00 or 9:00 am or could meet at 11:00 or 12:00 at NIGHT!”
PWN-Texas members in Austin on Advocacy Day March 20, 2019
The Rapid Response Team monitored a variety of bills on voting rights, LGBTQ discrimination, abortion rights, and HIV, to name a few. During that legislative session, they monitored 32 bills. They opposed a bill that was signed into law that forbids the state from charging an individual or business with discrimination for donating to religious organizations that discriminate against LGBTQ people. It was known as the “Save the Chic-Fil-A bill.” They advocated for a bill to provide explicit protection for transgender Texans championed by Rep. Garnet Coleman for more than a decade, especially after the recorded beating of Muhlaysia Booker, who was murdered a month later.
Angela has already committed to doing the work for the 87th Texas legislative session next year. She added, “I’ve also got some ideas about our chapter introducing ourselves to the newly elected officials, establishing relationships with them, holding them accountable to the things they promised us during their campaigns, and establishing allies.”
Prior to COVID-19, PWN Texas was out on the streets setting up voter registration tables, hosting events and in-person meetings, distributing voter guides, and providing snacks and water for voters in line at polling places. But because of the pandemic, the chapter wasn’t able to do these activities for their recent run-off election.
However, they have switched to digital organizing. They created an electronic version of the voter guide and hosted Facebook lives on topics such as curbside voting, early voting, and absentee voting.
So what’s next for Angela? She said, “September 19 will mark eight years since I was diagnosed. Everyone in the HIV community who knows me knows I’ve not been very public with my status, but many of those same people have teased me saying ‘Angela, you DO know if we google you, you’re there, right? You are NOT private anymore!’ So, I guess it’s fitting that I have received this honor of being nominated for Shero of the Month one month before my “sero-versary.”
Congratulations, Angela! Look out for more activities from Angela and PWN-USA Texas.