Lemon attended Baker High School, located in East Baton Rouge Parish after which he enrolled at Louisiana State University in 1984. He is of French and Western/Central African ancestry. Along with his two sisters Leisa, who died on the 31st of January, 2018 and Yma, Lemon was raised in West Baton Rouge and Port Allen by his mother and grandmother until his mother remarried in 1976. Biographyĭon Lemon was born Donald Davis Lemon to a single mother named Katherine Clark on March 1, 1966, in Baton Rouge, the capital of the U.S state of Louisiana. Prior to that, in 2009, Ebony Magazine placed him among one of the 150 most influential African-Americans. Lemon is also an author, having published the autobiography Transparent in 2011. He most notably called the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. The fiery journalist, who anchors CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is liked and somewhat disliked for his strong and candid opinions on a variety of matters that do not just include politics but also race, significantly, matters that concern the African American community. Whatever the reason, the freedom to be able to shed light on the disease gives me hope.Don Lemon has risen to become one of the most recognizable faces on CNN over the past few years. Or maybe people know I don’t play that game anymore.
But it certainly doesn’t happen to me anymore. I’m not sure if it still happens in certain newsrooms. Lemon: I remember the days of being discouraged to even talk about or report on HIV/AIDS. I’m also given hope by the people living with HIV who have not withdrawn from living, and who are engaged in life. Plante: I am given hope by the new medications and by the medical professionals and volunteers who keep working on AIDS, many since the beginning. Three decades into the epidemic, what gives you hope? I think of how much better society would be if they were still here. I think of the years they’ve missed, and how they deserved to have lived to be my age. Plante: I often think of the friends I’ve lost. We have to change the “that’s how it’s done” attitude with a “this is how it should be done” mentality. And it shouldn’t be good enough for anyone. Why? We’re usually told, “that’s the way it’s always been.” Well, that’s not good enough for me. We are programmed to think and be and accept certain things. Lemon: There are only a few things that keep me up at night. Saving lives should always be a priority. Lemon: It should be prioritized because it’s killing people all over the world every day and it doesn’t have to be that way. We should also care because of simple human compassion. Plante: AIDS should be a prioritized health issue because it is preventable, unlike many other illnesses. With ever-increasing public health issues to contend with, why should anyone still prioritize HIV/AIDS? It was a personal tragedy that was affecting the people I loved.
As a reporter, AIDS was always more than just a story for me. As an openly gay man living in Los Angeles in 1981, I knew some of the first people who became ill. Plante: The deciding moment came for me when my friends starting getting sick. I knew I had to speak and show the truth about it. African Americans were dying faster and more than any other group in the United States. It really hit home for me in the early 2000s when I became a reporter and I realized the power of my job and profession. Lemon: I saw HIV/AIDS up close in New York City in the early 1990s, during some of the worst years. What was your deciding moment, when HIV/AIDS became an important issue in your life? Lemon: We have yet to learn that having HIV/AIDS is no different from having cancer or any other disease. Perhaps 30 years is a long time for people to practice safe sex, which is why the message can’t be curtailed. For example, it’s baffling that after 30 years of great prevention campaigns in San Francisco, there are still two to three new infections every day in the city. Plante: What we have yet to learn is why AIDS prevention campaigns fail to work, or go stale, for so many people. By living their lives openly as gay men, they are reducing the impact of stigma in our culture, which is crucial to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Don Lemon continues to report on the disease as an anchor and reporter at CNN, and he will be a keynote speaker at the United States Conference on AIDS in Chicago in November. Hank Plante covered the HIV/AIDS epidemic for more than 25 years at KPIX-TV in San Francisco.
#Is don lemon gay professional#
This month we feature two journalists with professional and personal stakes in the fight to end AIDS. Advocates, doctors, researchers, politicians, philanthropists, educators, public health professionals, journalists and celebrities are answering the same set of questions each month.
#Is don lemon gay series#
“The View from Here” is a special year-long series to mark the anniversary.