LeRoy Whitfield (born in Chicago, September 19, 1969 – October 9, 2005) was an African-American freelance journalist who chronicled his personal experience with HIV infection and AIDS. He was hailed by many as one of the nation's leading journalists reporting on AIDS in the African-American community. Whitfield pursued post-secondary studies at historically-Black Barber-Scotia College (Concord, NC), Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), University of Chicago, and DePaul University (Chicago, IL). He was diagnosed with HIV during 1990 at the age of 19 and opted not to take antiretroviral medications due to their possible side effects ranging from fatigue and nausea to blurred vision. His doctors, though, advised otherwise. He had worries about clinic doctors who "just didn't get him". After a Harvard Medical School researcher - "to understand specimens like me" - studied him as a longtime survivor of HIV who had never taken AIDS medications, Whitfield nicknamed himself "Marathon Man". Whitfield wrote a column "Native Tongue" published monthly in HIV Plus magazine beginning May 2004. Due to the candor with which Whitfield shared his own fight against HIV in "Native Tongue", that column was one of the publication's most popular features recalled HIV Plus-editor Michael W.E. Edwards, who described Whitfield as a "consummate journalist - thorough, detailed, unafraid, and unapologetic in his approach to the topics he wrote about." Whitfield, offering very candid looks into the most intimate parts of his life, invited readers to share in and learn from his personal experiences. Commentator Keith Boykin reflected that Whitfield "was unusually committed to exposing the truth about AIDS in the Black community and he was unafraid to challenge conventional wisdom". "Few people wrote as eloquently about being young, gifted and black - and same gender loving and HIV positive. LeRoy wrote with his heart and all his senses. He wasn't afraid to douse the page with his convictions or his vulnerability.", explained Poz-Editor Angelo Ragaza. Whitfield was openly bi-sexual and - as Verena Dobnik of the Associated Press wrote - he "used his personal experience - including relationships with both men and women - as a prism on the larger issues surrounding HIV/AIDS,". He attributed the rise of HIV in the Black community to - among other factors - public housing, poverty and violence. However, he debunked the allegation voiced in some circles that AIDS was a White conspiracy to spread the disease among Blacks. In a February 2001 New York