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Birmingham News (AL) - November 25, 1994
Deceased Name: BILLY COX, OUTSPOKEN LOCAL AIDS VICTIM, DIES AT 37
Billy Cox, one of the first Birmingham men to talk publicly about his struggle with AIDS, died from the disease Wednesday. He was 37.
Cox tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome, in 1987 and developed AIDS less than four years later. Soon after learning he was infected, Cox began a crusade to educate people in Birmingham about the incurable disease. For the past five months, his battle with AIDS has been documented in a series of stories in The Birmingham News.
""Billy not only was willing to talk to the general community about AIDS, but he was willing to share the fact that he had AIDS and put a human face on the epidemic at a time when people with AIDS were living in hiding,'' said Bob Burns, a founding board member of Birmingham AIDS Outreach.
""Billy shared his humanity with hundreds and thousands of people,'' Burns added. ""He had a gift for doing that.''
Earlier this year, Cox was a finalist for the AIDS Task Force of Alabama Educator of the Year award.
He also was chairman of the board of directors for BAO, and was cofounder of Celebrate Inc., a non profit organization that raised funds for AIDS-related causes.
Cox helped bring the AIDS Memorial Quilt to Birmingham in 1989, and organized the first Birmingham performance of the benefit musical Heart Strings. In 1993, he was grand marshal of the Alabama AIDS Walk fund-raiser.
Cox is survived by his companion, Lee Howell, a research assistant at the UAB AIDS Center; his parents, Willard and Betty Cox of Bessemer; a sister, Bonnie Cox, and a brother, Roby Cox, also both of Bessemer.
Visitation will be from 6 to 9 tonight at Jefferson Memorial Funeral Home in Hoover. A private graveside service for family members is scheduled Saturday at Highland Memorial Gardens in Bessemer.
A memorial service for friends and family will be at 4 p.m. Sunday at a location yet to be determined.
Memorials may be sent to the Billy R. Cox Foundation, 1032 Drexel Drive, Birmingham, Ala., 35209.
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