Beloved public health, LGBTQ rights advocate Cornelius Baker dies
Antonio Cornelius Baker, whose extensive career in public health included service as special adviser to the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health and as executive director of D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health and the National Association of People With AIDS, died unexpectedly at his home of natural causes on Nov.
9, according to friends and former colleagues. Among the numerous organizations to which he provided support and guidance was the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, which, upon learning of his passing, released a statement that reflects the view of many who knew Baker. “A.
Cornelius Baker stood with our founder, Elizabeth Taylor, at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS movement and throughout her legacy,” the statement says. “The ETAF officers and staff team join his family, friends and community as we mourn his loss together,” it says, adding, “We find comfort in knowing that his spirit, along with Elizabeth’s, will continue to guide and inspire us and the entire HIV/AIDS movement in our ongoing work.” A native of New York, Baker received a bachelor’s degree from the Rochester, N.Y., Institute of Technology’s Eisenhower College before moving to D.C., in 1982 for an internship at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
He next worked for the Washington City Paper before working in 1983 as a fundraiser for the LGBTQ group Brother Help Thyself.
