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who were HIV/AIDS positive could get the proper healthcare; and manage a daily national
HIV/AIDS support helpline and local support groups for people with AIDS and who are affected
emotionally by knowing someone with AIDS. To offer these services Fambro constantly wrote
grants and proposals and undertook fundraising.

Fambro understood the plight of an already stigmatized group of people. The media and
society at the time elicited fear, stigma, and shame around the virus and began to use “gay” and
“AIDS” almost interchangeably. Between the beginning of the epidemic in the early 1980s until
the opening of the Rainbow Center in the late 1990s there was exponential progress made in
combating HIV. Fambro and other advocates reached out to society to help them understand the
virus and how it was transmitted. They had to shift the local community’s perception of HIV: no
longer was it restricted to these dark corners of society to gay and transgender communities and
drug users but began affecting people that society deemed worthy of their empathy.

Those who were willing to listen realized that the risk had increased its territory;
individuals who identify as heterosexual are not immune to the virus and numbers of young
heterosexual individuals of color affected by the virus started to rise in the late 90s. When it
came time to cross lines of creed, color, and sexual orientation Fambro was willing to listen and
work with others different from himself to accomplish his goals to support the gay and
transgender communities, especially those living with HIV/AIDS. Fambro inspired goodness in
others and many lives were changed because of his actions. Fambro fought against prejudice and
bigotry and showed the nation that there were people in Macon, Georgia who believed in human
rights for all, including rights for the gay and transgender community.

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