We Only Had 45 Minutes: What Florida’s Black Communities Taught Us About Saving Ourselves
Across six Florida cities, a 45-minute town hall became a powerful call for medication access, treatment choice, trusted information, and community-led action.
When HIV medication access in Florida became uncertain, fear moved quickly through our communities. People with HIV, advocates, providers, families, and community leaders were asking urgent questions:
Would people lose access to the medications keeping them healthy? Would they be forced to change a treatment that was working? What would happen to insurance coverage, medical appointments, laboratory services, mental health care, and support for other health conditions?
We could not wait for every policy question to be settled before bringing people together. That urgency led to the creation of the Florida 45 Minute Town Hall to Save Ourselves, a six-city tour held in Winter Haven, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Eatonville, and Fort Lauderdale.
This was more than a series of meetings. It was a Black-led public health response rooted in a simple belief:
The people closest to the problem are the people closest to the solution.
Why 45?
The number 45 was intentional.
Black people represented approximately 45% of new HIV diagnoses in Florida. We transformed that troubling statistic into a direct challenge: If we had only 45 minutes to save ourselves, what would we do?
Would we continue describing the problem, or would we begin organizing solutions?
The 45-minute format created focus and urgency. It reminded participants that every minute mattered when medication access, treatment continuity, and human lives were at stake.
The number carried another layer of meaning in 2026, the 45th year since the first reported U.S. AIDS cases in 1981. After 45 years of HIV, Black communities should not still be fighting to be heard, struggling to access treatment, or watching people fall out of care because systems failed to communicate or coordinate.
The theme was never intended to suggest that decades of inequity could be solved in 45 minutes. It demonstrated what can happen when people are given clear information, trusted space, and permission to move immediately from conversation to action.
The Goals of the Town Halls
The town halls were created to:
- Explain the Florida AIDS Drug Assistance Program crisis in clear, understandable language.
- Protect access to HIV medication and treatment choice.
- Identify barriers affecting ADAP enrollment, insurance coverage, premium assistance, referrals, and continued engagement in care.
- Map local organizations, providers, navigators, pharmacies, faith communities, media partners, and other trusted resources.
- Address HIV stigma, misinformation, and the need for stronger community-centered messaging.
- Strengthen warm handoffs between testing, care, medication access, insurance enrollment, case management, and other services.
- Engage people with HIV as leaders and decision-makers—not simply as recipients of services.
- Move Florida from relying on ADAP as the pathway to recognizing ADAP as a pathway within a larger system of care.
Each gathering included a concise overview of the crisis, a focused 45-minute community discussion, and time for food, fellowship, networking, and relationship-building. That final hour was not an extra activity. Fellowship was part of the intervention. People exchanged information, identified resources, made referrals, and reminded one another that no one should have to navigate HIV alone.
Three Black Women Answered the Call
The town hall tour was created and facilitated by three Black women leaders who brought different experiences, relationships, and areas of expertise to the work:
- Leisha McKinley-Beach, Founder and CEO of the Black Public Health Academy
- Tammy Cuyler, Founder and CEO of Empower HIV Health
- Shawn Tinsley, Founder and Executive Director of HIV Possible
Together, we created a space where public health knowledge, lived experience, community relationships, advocacy, and love for Black communities could meet.
We were not interested in hosting meetings simply to say meetings had occurred. We wanted people to leave with more information, stronger relationships, identified resources, and a clear understanding of their role in protecting the health of our communities.
What the Experience Taught Us
The tour reinforced several truths.
First, medication access is about more than receiving a prescription. It is about protecting the whole person. People need access to primary care, laboratory services, mental health care, oral health, chronic disease management, transportation, housing support, and other services that make long-term wellness possible.
Second, ADAP is essential, but it cannot be the only door. Florida needs a no-wrong-door system that connects people to ADAP, insurance enrollment, Ryan White services, patient assistance, community-based organizations, pharmacies, navigators, and trusted clinical providers.
Third, a referral is not complete simply because someone was given a telephone number. We need warm handoffs and closed-loop systems that confirm whether a person actually received medication, entered care, secured coverage, or obtained the support they needed.
Fourth, media, faith, arts, and culture are not secondary to public health. They are part of the intervention. Information must move through the people and places our communities already trust.
From 45 Minutes to a Movement
Finally, Black communities cannot be invited only after plans have been developed. People with HIV and the communities most affected must help design, lead, implement, and evaluate the response.
The town halls demonstrated what is possible when urgency is matched with love, strategy, and community leadership. Participants did more than identify problems. They named resources, challenged stigma, proposed solutions, made commitments, and began building relationships across sectors.
The next step is to turn those commitments into a sustainable, community-led movement, one capable of responding to future crises, protecting treatment choice, improving insurance navigation, strengthening referrals, and advancing whole-person health through 2030.
“Saving ourselves” does not mean communities should be abandoned to solve structural failures on their own. It means we recognize and activate the knowledge, leadership, faith, culture, and power that already exist within our communities while holding institutions accountable for doing their part.
The message from Florida is clear:
We show up. We stay committed. We keep our people in care. We save ourselves.
Because our community health is our wealth and when Black communities organize for health, we organize for life.