On a spring 1988 day, Steve Arrington unlocked the door to the Denver home he shared with his significant other, Douglas, and their German shepherd, Heidi Maybell. Immediately, he knew something was wrong.
“Heidi ran the hell out that house so fast,” recalls Arrington, now 73. “I come in the house, and I noticed that the blinds ain’t open. … It’s like he never got up.”
Douglas was still in bed — his skin clammy with sweat. Arrington called 911.
“Doctor told me he had PCP pneumonia, and this pneumonia is related to people who are diagnosed with AIDS,” says Arrington. “He looked at me. I looked at him, I was holding his hand. I said, Dude, we gonna get through this.”
Douglas and Arrington were both diagnosed with HIV shortly after. Douglas died in 1990.
“That was a long time ago, but it’s still like today. It’s still present to me, and it’s a driving force that keeps me going,” Arrington says. “The impact that the virus had on the African American community was overwhelming. And back at that time, nobody was talking about it in our community.”
Arrington, a Denver Urban League community outreach worker in 1989, used his diagnosis as fuel for HIV and AIDS education. That year, he began working with the League’s Black AIDS Project-at-Large to speak about AIDS awareness — while also making inroads himself with the LGBTQ-plus community on safety and prevention.
“I was doing outreach to them, but I started at the same time, to do outreach to my own people. … So I was going to the gay bars, taking condoms and doing all that. Wasn’t nobody else doing it,” Arrington says. “My response was, Go tell it on the mountain.”
After connecting with other HIV-positive men at a Broadway Cares event, Arrington also assisted in the founding of Men of Color, an organization dedicated to raising HIV and AIDS awareness in the Black community.
“Broadway Cares would go all across the country to raise money for these AIDS organizations. They came to Denver one time. … I’m sitting in this great big dark theater, trying to see if there’s anybody there I know. During intermission … all these Black folks come out,” Arrington recounts. “We bonded from that, laughed, and we formed an organization around the kitchen table.”
Over the years in Colorado and Ohio, the Massillon native has been involved in a myriad of social outreach programs and organizations, including the Massillon Urban League. He moved back to his hometown in 1995, and, in 1997, to Akron, where he still lives.
“I remember calling home, telling my mother about my diagnosis, and I remember her telling me … Steve, don’t think that that’s going to kill you. … You don’t know what God got planned for you,” Arrington recalls. “Little did she know she was speaking the truth from ‘91 to 2025, and God did have a plan. It’s self-evident. Look where I am.”
From serving in community engagement for First Grace United Church of Christ from 2011 to 2015 to his current role as co-chair of the Akron NAACP’s LGBTQ-plus subcommittee, Arrington’s work has been in service of raising awareness and creating community.
“I’ve always been a community activist,” Arrington says. “I’ve always had a vision to do what I’m doing here.”
Today, Arrington is the executive director of Akron’s Bayard Rustin LGBTQ+ Resource Center, formed around the Akron AIDS Collaborative, which he co-founded in 2001 with Courtney Calhoun. The center provides outreach case management — including HIV testing, medical, mental health and housing referrals and a clothing bank — community engagement and programming, serving 805 LGBTQ-plus individuals in 2024.
“Our role, of the Bayard Rustin center right now, is to be a major advocate for the African American LGBTQ community,” Arrington says, “to be a powerful voice, to uplift our community, build community, and tear down stigma.”
At the Bayard Rustin center, Arrington plans events and works on funding sustainability — his work is never done.
“Today, since the white gay men’s numbers are going down, people think it’s pretty much handled. You can live longer,” he says. “But they’re not aware that Black gay numbers are going up. Black women and Black gay men across the country, our numbers are increasing. So that’s the motivating factor now.”
In a precarious time for LGBTQ-plus individuals — and for nonprofits at large — Arrington continues to fight for his community.
“My phone does not stop. This job is not a Monday through Friday. I’m on call 24/7, seven days a week,” Arrington says. “This is my passion. This is who I am supposed to be while I’m on this earth.”
Mal McCrea
Mal McCrea
