shoulder. Neither knew what their futures held, but they had one thing in common bigger than both of them: They were HIV-positive.
“I want people to know,” Hydeia said, sniffling, “that we’re just normal people.”
“Aww, you don’t have to cry,” Johnson replied, “because we are normal people. OK? We are.”
That scene was captured as part of a Nickelodeon AIDS special 20 years ago to inform America’s youth that the disease could affect anyone.
On a 2022 night in Los Angeles, Johnson again hugged Hydeia, his 6-foot-9 frame dwarfing her diminutive 4-foot-8 stature. Both were on hand for the screening in Los Angeles of “The Announcement,” an ESPN documentary about his coming forward with HIV. Hydeia’s tearful plea as a child is replayed in the documentary.
Throughout her lifetime, Hydeia appeared on the covers of countless magazines, received honors in the next decade from a litany of AIDS and African-American organizations for her awareness activism, became pals with Janet Jackson and was offered modeling contracts and speaking gigs across the country and overseas, too. Conrad Bullard, who ran a foundation named for the child, crowed to Poz Magazine in 1997 that she was “the most popular little AIDS activist in the country.”
She will be missed. Rest in peace Hydeia.