Wilhemina’s War

AIDS is one of the leading causes of death for black women in the rural South, where living with HIV is a grim reality. Wilhemina Dixon, her daughter Toni, granddaughter Dayshal, and her 92-year-old mother, all the descendants of sharecroppers, live in South Carolina. Wilhemina cares for Dayshal, 19, who was born with HIV. We first meet Dayshal at 14, as a high school freshman, when she’s reticent to discuss her disease and the side effects of her medications make her sick. She spends most of her days in bed. Her mother, a drug addict, dies of AIDS, but Dayshal is uncertain whether she will avoid her mother’s fate.

Fighting the grim reality that awaits those living with HIV in a state hostile to public health care are advocates like Vivian Clark-Armstead of the South Carolina HIV/AIDS Council, the only organization in the state that runs prevention and education efforts. Wilhemina’s War explores Southern black women’s experience, where sexual networks are smaller, rumors spread fast, and church-imposed stigma drives the sick underground.