In Their Presence

In Their Presence is Dale Napolin Bratter's remarkable memoir in which she sensitively and skillfully reveals in-depth stories of the lives of marginalized African American women and children in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during the height of the AIDS epidemic. As a new social worker, Dale found herself swept up in the turbulence created by the virus, a disease unlike any other because everything about it was cloaked in secrecy and fraught with stigma, misinformation, misogyny, and the overwhelming public fear of AIDS.

Embedded in these deeply moving chapters, are never-before-told stories of intimacies, heroic acts, joys and failures-her clients' as well as her own. These women and children received the same terrifying diagnosis as gay men but had no powerful advocates fighting for them, little media recognition, and no celebrity attention. Their lives, their deaths, and their stories of survival deserve to be recognized as missing chapters in the early history of the AIDS epidemic in America.

Dale Bratter has spent four decades working in a variety of capacities with vulnerable and marginalized women and children. Her commentaries on social issues have appeared in Hearst publications. This witness memoir speaks to the depth of her compassion, fearlessness, and advocacy. Dale is retired and lives in Connecticut with her husband. She has a son living in Great Britain, and she enjoys the company of her close-by daughter, her eight grandchildren, forty-one koi, and the nearby birds, wildlife, and hiking trails.