Newswise — University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) graduate student the Rev. Tommy Watkins Jr., L.G.S.W., has earned the inaugural Billy R. Cox Endowed Scholarship. A prevention specialist at AIDS Alabama and equal-rights advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, Watkins is a doctoral candidate in the UAB School of Public Health. He has been awarded the scholarship created by George Lee Howell Jr., M.D., and the Billy R. Cox Foundation in honor of the late Billy R. Cox, a beloved Birmingham AIDS activist and gay-rights leader.
Watkins is a Baptist minister and native of the Hueytown and Bessemer area who studied aeronautical science before his acceptance into the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. He was expelled in 1997 during his senior year in Annapolis after another midshipman disclosed Watkins was gay, Watkins said. He moved to Florida, finished his aeronautics degree and collaborated with faith-based organizations providing HIV and AIDS outreach services in minority and urban communities.
Watkins returned to Alabama to work on health-disparity issues, earn a master’s degree and work as a licensed social worker. He is the author of Living Out Loud, an autobiography detailing discrimination he experienced in the Naval Academy and in predominantly black church congregations because of his sexual orientation. “When I heard about the scholarship, the legacy and the hopes for this endowment to make a difference, I knew the stars were aligned for me to play a role,” Watkins said during an Aug. 14 dedication ceremony for the Cox scholarship.
Cox, past chair of the board of directors for Birmingham AIDS Outreach and an organizer for the Magic City AIDS Walk, shared his personal experiences as a HIV-positive man, fighting for equality and watching AIDS take its human toll in a series of newspaper stories. That series was published in The Birmingham News during the weeks leading up to his death Nov. 23, 1994, at the age of 37.
The Billy R. Cox Foundation was created to make a positive difference in HIV and AIDS prevention and care and to support equal-rights advocacy for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals.
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