From 2001 to 2004, African Americans accounted for 61 percent of the HIV/AIDS patients under the age of 25 in the 33 states with confidential HIV reporting, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2005, half of the estimated 44,200 people diagnosed with AIDS in the 50 states and the District of Columbia were African Americans.

In the same year black adults and adolescents were diagnosed with AIDS at 10 times the rate for whites and nearly three times the rate for Hispanics.

And black women were diagnosed with AIDS at 24 times the rate for that of white women, and black men were diagnosed at eight times the rate for white men, according to the CDC.

The Rev. John O. Crittenden Jr., pastor of Forest Baptist Church, thinks enough is enough.

"The church in the African-American community has just been too quiet on this subject," he said this week. "It is time for us to stop being quiet and start saying something about what's going on in our community before we lose an entire generation."

Forest Baptist Church is one of about a half-dozen black churches in Louisville that will take part in the 18th annual Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of HIV/AIDS in early March. It is Forest Baptist's first time.

A grass-roots movement that started in Harlem, the Black Church Week of Prayer has grown into a national event. Forest Park is one of about 10,000 churches across the country taking part in the event, said Jennifer Jackson, chairwoman of Forest Park's health ministry and one of the church's event organizers.

The event is aimed at teaching the black community about AIDS, Jackson said. To that end, the church is holding workshops on ministering to people with HIV/AIDS -- and to alcoholics and drug addicts -- at 6:30 p.m. March 4-9.

Prayer services led by visiting pastors from across the country will follow the workshops, Crittenden said.

"There's a need in the community, especially in the African-American community. … It's not just going to go away," he said. "The more we talk about it, the better chance we have of eliminating it in our community."

The church also hopes to be a testing site for HIV and AIDS in the future, and a place where people can come for more information on the disease or for AIDS patients just to talk, Crittenden said.

Jackson said it is important for the church to act because the problem is being ignored -- and it is the church's duty to minister to the spirit, mind and body.

"We have a lot to learn and a long way to go," she said. "But we have to take a stand for the African-American community. …We have to recognize what's going on."