Jason Black

Houston, Texas

As a native Houstonian and community advocate, Jason Black is an expert in progressing historically disenfranchised communities. Jason’s devotion to empowering the most underserved community members lead him to the field of public health, specifically, preventive care management. After being a direct service oriented HIV/AIDS advocate focused on Black gay men for serval years, Jason expanded his community level approach to public health during his current tenor at Legacy Community Health Services. Through Legacy, Jason has implemented many programs from his previous experiences called mSociety that now annually serves more than 3,000 gay/bi men and transgender women of color within the Houston area through HIV prevention, leadership development, and general empowerment. As Director of Public Health Services, Jason has utilized his community engagement approach to HIV prevention as a model for diabetes prevention and family planning as he continues to lead organizations to better serve the most underserved communities that includes mothers from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and communities of color plagued with disproportionately high rates of diabetes. Now as the Director of Community Engagement he serves the public health services team as a subject matter expert for engaging those disenfranchised communities. Jason’s 14 years of advocacy also includes state and national community mobilization through the Texas Black Gay Network (TBGN), the U.S. White House Office of AIDS Policy’s Young Adult Advisory Board, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Youth Advisory Board, HIV, Executive Board member of the Houston Splash (Houston Black Gay Pride), Member of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus,

Overall, Jason passionately believes that underserved communities in America will progress to a more healthy and empowered state when we change our thought processes and social norms, and lend an educated and passionate voice to every community of people. Jason has accepted the challenge and is determined to pursue this calling in his life, one person and one community at a time.