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The impact AIDS has had on Tucson's black community will be addressed with a variety of events Thursday, including a youth rally, free HIV testing and a speech by a UA basketball player.

Local organizations will be coordinating Tucson's second response to National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, which has been observed nationwide for eight years.

Though blacks account for roughly 3 percent of Tucson's population, they represent about 9 percent of Pima County's 2,090 HIV/AIDS diagnoses, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Nationally, the trend worsens. In 2005, blacks accounted for nearly half of the country's diagnoses.

"(Blacks) are disproportionately represented in the numbers," said Mary Lucas, COPE Community Services' African American HIV education specialist. "The main problem has been the stigma attached to the disease, and lack of education."

Lucas says many people have a false sense of security in Tucson and think AIDS won't affect them.

"The information isn't being passed and unfortunately because of that, people are continuing to contract AIDS," said Richard Burrell, a pastor from Buckeye who will be guest-speaking that day.

Burrell's topic will be preventing the spread of AIDS. He'll speak at a community breakfast at Rising Star Baptist Church, 2800 E. 36th St., at 8 am. Thursday.

At 6:30 p.m., the church will hold a youth rally called "Drumming Out the Silence," where local teens will perform a drum line and Wildcat basketball player Fendi Onobun will speak.

The church will also offer free, walk-in HIV counseling and testing Thursday from 7:30 to 10 a.m. and 2:30 to 8 p.m. The tests do not include any blood samples, just a simple cotton swab in the mouth, and the results are ready in 20 minutes.

In addition, COPE Community Services, 1101 E. Broadway, and the Theresa Lee Clinic, 332 S. Freeway, will offer free HIV tests throughout the day.

And even though the day's focus is on Tucson's black communities, the organizations stress that AIDS is an all-encompassing issue.

"We're welcoming the community at large," said Lucas, "because everybody needs to be educated."

Groups working together that day are the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, the Pima County Health Department, COPE Community Services and the African American Disparities Alliance.

For more information on the events, call Mary Lucas at 792-3293.