BLACKS HIT HARDEST BY AIDS.

Byline: Sheryl Gay Stolberg The New York Times

Seventeen years after AIDS was first recognized among gay white men in New York and San Francisco, the disease in this country is becoming largely an epidemic among African-Americans, quietly devastating families and whole neighborhoods where it is almost ignored by churches and civil rights groups.

African-Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population. But they now account for about 57 percent of all new infections with human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among people 13 to 24, the percentage is even higher. Based on data collected from 25 states between January 1994 and June 1997, the estimate is 63 percent.

And while the death rate from AIDS is dropping in general in the United States, the disease remains the leading cause of death among African-Americans 25 to 44. ``I don't think there is any question that the epidemic in this country is becoming increasingly an epidemic of color,'' Dr. David Satcher, the new surgeon general, said.

As thousands of AIDS experts gather in Geneva for the 12th World AIDS Conference, much of the attention is being focused on Africa, where HIV is so prevalent in some regions that one in four adults is infected. The situation in the United States is not nearly as dire. The recent demographic shifts in the domestic epidemic result more from a sharp drop in cases among whites, rather than an increase among African-Americans.

Nonetheless, as the racial disparities grow, many worry that AIDS soon will be considered mainly another inner-city problem, like crime or drugs or graffiti, with less widespread interest in fighting it.

AIDS services have not kept pace with the demographic changes. The lack of education about the disease among poor African-Americans is profound. Few prevention programs have been tailored to them. One prevailing myth among low-income African-Americans is that Magic Johnson, the retired basketball star, has been cured. Another myth is that only gay men are at risk.

``There is still a disbelief that African-Americans are at risk,'' said Lisa Gray, who runs an AIDS education program for African-American women who live in public housing. ``A lot of people don't know how the virus is transmitted.''

While ignorance is fueling the spread of the virus, public health experts like Satcher complain that the epidemic has been greeted with deafening silence by African-American preachers, important in their communities, and by civil rights groups.

``I grew up in the black church,'' Satcher said. ``I think the church has problems with the lifestyle of homosexuality. A real problem has been getting ministers who are even willing to talk about it in their pulpits.''

One of the few who talks about AIDS is the Rev. Kwabena Rainey Cheeks, the 46-year-old pastor of the Inner Light Unity Fellowship Church in the nation's capital. AIDS, said Cheeks, who has been HIV-positive for 14 years, ``is like the pink elephant that nobody wants to talk about.''

That appears to be true among civil rights leaders as well. The Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will hold their annual conventions this summer. Neither of the civil rights groups has listed discussion of AIDS on the agenda.

``It's outside of our traditional purview,'' said Lee Daniels, a spokesman for the Urban League. The NAACP, which recently declared AIDS a public health crisis, already has a health issue on its conference roster: cancer.

``It's exasperating,'' complained Rep. Louis Stokes, the Ohio Democrat who is chairman of the health committee for the Congressional Black Caucus. The caucus recently asked the Clinton administration to declare AIDS a national public health emergency among African-Americans, a move Stokes hoped would rally civil rights leaders. ``But,'' he said, ``this is one that black leadership has shied away from.''