Times interview, he said, "I don't think the larger AIDS groups give voice to the Black gay community. A lot of these men don't have a grip on what they're feeling sexually, and I don't think many of the organizations have a grasp on how to communicate with them." In the September 1997 issue of Positively Aware magazine, Whitfield wrote "for African-Americans, AIDS is the atrocity du jour". Whitfield also contributed to Ebony, Vibe, The Source, Chicago, City Limits, Black Lines, Kujisource magazines; and the New York Daily News, Chicago Defender newspapers. Vibe magazine's Angelo Ragaza (also editor of Poz magazine) gave Whitfield a feature-article writing assignment which had Whitfield traveling to South Dakota State Penitentiary and interviewing Nikko Briteramos, a Black, 18-year-old, Si Tanka University (Huron, SD) freshman who was the first person convicted (2002) and imprisoned under South Dakota's HIV transmission law mandating that HIV-positive persons inform prospective sexual partners of their HIV-positive status. Whitfield's resulting Vibe (Vol. 11, No. 7) article was titled "A Dream Deferred". Vibe's Ragaza observed, "When LeRoy moved from personal essays to longer investigative pieces, I could tell it was a different kind of exercise for him. But it worked because LeRoy was his subject." Whitfield, too, while in Chicago was an associate editor at magazine Positively Aware, as well a community educator at AIDS-awareness-organization Positive Voice; and after moving to New York during 2000 was a columnist and senior editor at Poz - a magazine intended for people with HIV. He also was active with Los Angeles-based Black AIDS Institute and served as one of the founding members of the institute's journalism team. Whitfield, having chosen to refuse antiretroviral therapy, struggled both physically and emotionally as his T-cell-count dropped, his HIV viral load climbed, and his health deteriorated. In HIV Plus August 2005, Whitfield wrote: "I keep weighing potential side effects against the ill alternative - opportunistic infections - and I just can't decide which is worse. My T-cell count has plummeted to 40 - a dangerously all-time low - and my viral load has spiked to 230,000. I've argued against taking meds for so many years that now - with my numbers stacked against me - I find it hard to stop." He could not bring himself to take antiretroviral medication. Over the years, Whitfield's decision to refuse antiretroviral therapy prompted anger in friends and other HIV-positive associates. He found himself