At Philly AIDS walk, ‘the condom lady’ fights on

Maurine Taylor Ford, now 51, first devoted herself to AIDS activism as a teenager in New York City. At the time, many people were terrified of the so-called gay cancer, and her religious parents forbade her from volunteering at a local AIDS center. She didn’t care. She forged their signatures on a permission slip and went to work anyway at the AIDS center of Queens County.

“I’m one of those rebel-type of personalities, where whatever people are running away from, I’m running toward,” Ford said in an interview with The Inquirer. Over four decades, she has focused on the science and on combating the pervasive stigma around the disease. In college, her peers referred to her as “Molly the condom lady,” she said, because of her relentless emphasis on safer sex. (They also knocked on her door at all hours of the night to get condoms.) In the military, where she worked for 17 years, Ford continued to advocate and work for people with HIV/AIDS.

Ford’s first husband contracted HIV in the 1990s through an extramarital affair, she said. Despite the fear and stigma that still surrounded the virus, Ford became even more committed to her advocacy work while caring for her husband. He ultimately died of unrelated causes.

On Sunday, Ford, a Ph.D. student in public health/epidemiology who lives in Mount Holly, joined the 37th Annual AIDS Walk Philly. The event raised $200,000 for the Philly-based AIDS Fund, which will use it to grant emergency funds to individuals living with HIV, with a focus on safe housing, the organization said. In Greater Philadelphia, there are over 27,000 people living with HIV, according to the Office of HIV Planning Philadelphia, and the region has a new infection rate three times higher than the national average.

Clearly, despite years of work, there’s still more to do.

“I’ve just always kept the fight alive,” Ford said.