Mothers Against AIDS in Kokomo, Indiana

Abstract

During the 1985–1986 school year, Kokomo, Indiana, area residents debated whether or not Ryan White—a thirteen-year-old with hemophilia and AIDS—should be allowed to attend school. Some feared their children would be exposed to the AIDS virus while others held confidence in expert assurances that the virus was not transmitted through casual contact. Community members used various avenues to learn more about AIDS, with mothers taking leadership roles as spokeswomen and lay medical experts. This paper considers how mothers on both sides of the conflict educated themselves. It provides a community study of the state of AIDS knowledge during the mid-1980s outside of the coastal epicenters and seeks to contextualize the Kokomo conflict based on available national and local information.