03/13/2026
Thank you to the City of Birmingham Government for sharing this story and for recognizing Kathie’s decades of leadership and advocacy. We are grateful for the support of this community and the many partners who stand with us in the fight against HIV. ❤️
When Kathie Hiers believes something needs to change, she stays on it until it does.
For more than 30 years, the Alabama native has been a persistent and passionate HIV advocate. Twenty-four of those years have been spent leading AIDS Alabama in Birmingham, which serves more than 16,000 clients across all 67 Alabama counties.
She did not plan any of this.
Growing up, Kathie thought she would be an attorney or politician. She was studying at the University of South Alabama in the mid-1980s when people started getting sick and disappearing. “I literally saw people one day and then you wouldn’t see them again,’’ she said. “You’d ask where they were and they had died. It was just an awful, awful time.’’
Then she lost her best friend from high school.
He was a talented musician who came home for Christmas in late 1995. Kathie went to pick him up at the airport and did not recognize him. He was thin and in a wheelchair. It was clear he was dying. He passed in February 1996, just two months before life-saving HIV medications became available.
“That was heartbreaking,’’ she said, quietly.
She could not put up with it anymore. In 1995, she went full time as an HIV advocate, starting a nonprofit in Mobile to help people with AIDS. When the top HIV job in Alabama opened at AIDS Alabama in Birmingham, she applied and got it. She moved to Birmingham and started Jan. 2, 2002, walking in with fire that has never gone out.
While working, Kathie learned that Alabama was getting cheated out of federal dollars meant to help people living with HIV. The way the Ryan White CARE Act was written at the time, large cities with high numbers of deceased HIV cases received twice as much funding per person than states like Alabama, even as the epidemic moved to the South. More than 1,000 Alabamians sat on a waiting list for life-saving medications. Ninety percent of them were minorities. And almost nobody wanted to talk about it.
Kathie talked about it everywhere she could.
She helped found the Southern AIDS Coalition in 2003, bringing 16 states together to fighter for a fairer formula. Their efforts made national television. They wrote manifestos and editorials. They went to Washington over and over again. In 2006, after years of fighting, the Ryan White law was changed. Alabama’s waiting list was cleared and $4 million in new funding came into the state that first year. A senator from Wyoming sent Kathie a signed copy of the law with a handwritten note. “Thank you for your work,’’ it read. “You’ve helped rural people all across America.’’
That copy still hangs on her wall.
She also turned attention to housing. The Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, known as HOPWA, had the same problem. Funding was calculated using deceased cases rather than people currently living with HIV, which again shortchanged the South. That fight took 15 years. The law was finally changed in 2016.
“Advocacy is slow,’’ she said. “It’s not quick work. You have to be persistent. People jokingly call me the Energizer Bunny because I just don’t go away. But that’s just what you have to do.’’
Kathie has built AIDS Alabama into a comprehensive organization that offers housing, healthcare, HIV testing, mental health services and more. Just last night, she was a guest storyteller for the “Voices United’’ event at the Terrific New Theatre in Birmingham, talking about some of her experiences in advocating for more resources to fight against HIV.
On July 1,2026, Kathie will retire as CEO of AIDS Alabama. She will be 72 in October. She would like to spend more time with her mother, who is 93. She’d also like to travel. But do not mistake retirement for retreat.
“I love this work,’’ she said. “I feel like I’ve made a difference, and I will continue to make a difference. Like I said, I won’t give up completely.’’
