Henry Russell's appearance belies his past. He hides the suffering and the threat of death under which he lives.

The men Mr. Russell has invited to his mother's East Baltimore row home fill the small living room with tears of consolation and prayers of hope. As a result of intravenous drug use and sharing needles, the men have been infected by a virus - the virus which causes AIDS.

At 47, after 27 years of heroin addiction and contracting HIV, Henry Russell refused to give up and decided to "give back." This man is a hero, a man whose courage may save your life or the life of someone you love.

To explain Henry Russell's importance to your family, however, I must take you back in time.

For 14 years before I entered the Congress in 1996, I had been deeply involved in our struggle against AIDS. After my election, I immediately spoke with then Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Donald M. Payne (D-10-NJ) and Rep. Louis Stokes (D-11-OH), the CBC's leader on health issues. To their everlasting credit, these gentlemen raised to national prominence our concerns about the threat of AIDS to the African American community.

In May of this year, our present CBC Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-35-CA), the entire Congressional Black Caucus and national AIDS advocates called for a "public health emergency" to address the growing HIV/AIDS crisis in the African American community.

At a time when overall mortality from AIDS is declining due to early detection and improved drug therapies, at a time when more AIDS victims live longer, the plague is growing in our community.

AIDS is now the leading cause of death among young African Americans, ages 25 to 44. African American women and children constitute the fastest growing group of AIDS casualties. Although African Americans constitute only twelve percent of America, we represent 35 percent of all reported HIV infections and 43 percent of new cases. Our men are six times more likely to become infected - our women sixteen times more likely - than caucasians.

In growing numbers, our community shares the threat of death which hangs over Henry Russell's head. Unprotected sexual intimacy and shared intravenous drug needles are killing our men, our women and our children.

Prevention and personal responsibility are the most important elements in our community's defense against this growing crisis. It was to our public responsibility - to our underfunded and unprepared public health system - however, that Rep. Waters directed the CBC's voice of concern and challenge last May.

By late June, the federal government had responded with concern to our statistical evidence, but the response was modest - too modest. There was no sense of urgency, no new health initiatives.

We confronted both politics and prejudice. We knew that we had to do something more to achieve an adequate response to our AIDS crisis.

The Nobel laureate, Albert Camus, once observed that "When death becomes a matter of statistics and administration, it means that life is abstract too." To gain the prevention and health care resources our community desperately needed, we knew that we had to get beyond the statistics. We had to give the interlocked tragedies of drug use and AIDS a human face.

At my invitation, Rep. Waters and eleven other members of the Congressional Black Caucus conducted a fact-finding trip to Baltimore on a hot, sunny day at the end of July. National and local media reported our sessions at the Johns Hopkins Moore Clinic, at a methadone maintenance program called "Man Alive" and at a public hearing during which we heard from Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Health Commissioner Peter Beilenson and other experts.

Foremost among the other experts who educated us and our national audience were former drug addicts like Henry Russell. His words, courage, wisdom and humanity gave us the human face we needed to make our AIDS crisis real to the Washington health establishment.

Last Wednesday, September 28th, I gratefully joined President Clinton and heroic AIDS advocates nationwide as the President announced $156 million in new funding expressly directed toward HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in the African American community. Current health care funds also are being re-directed, and the Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to work with the CBC as we seek an adequate public health response to AIDS.

Henry Russell from East Baltimore spoke from his heart. With the help of our Congressional Black Caucus and national AIDS advocates, America finally listened. Mr. Russell's suffering, gratitude and commitment to helping others made the difference.

Henry Russell's words became part of a policy-changing declaration of our shared human condition. It was his human face, however, that Maxine Waters and the CBC needed to awaken the government to our peril.

Gandhi, liberator of India and teacher of non-violence, once observed that, "If you want something really important to be done, you must not merely satisfy...reason, you must move the heart...[by] suffering. It opens the inner understanding...."