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Educated, attractive, assertive and ambitious are just a few of the words used to describe Rae Lewis-Thornton. In 1986, during a routine blood drive visit at a Washington D.C. Red Cross, Rae received news of another word that would soon be used to describe her health and future. At the tender age of 23, Rae Lewis-Thornton was diagnosed HIV Positive.

Despite her present day status of having full-blown AIDS (ACQUIRED Immune-deficiency Syndrome), Rae Lewis-Thornton leads her own unending crusade to educate and challenge young and old audiences to take control of their own bodies, futures and health. Rae uses her life as an example that AIDS is a non-discriminatory disease. She challenges the most common myths and stereotypes surrounding who and how one can become infected with the HIV virus that most often results in AIDS and death. In doing this, she incorporates her own oratory skills, personal experiences and unyielding honesty to create and disseminate her critical and deadly message of her own day by day, personal destruction by AIDS.

Featured on the cover of the December 1994 Essence magazine, as well as numerous feature stories in Ebony, Jet, Emerge, O- The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, WOW, Poz, Lifelines and HIV Plus magazines, Chicago Tribune newspaper, Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, Washington Post, Dayton Daily News, to name a few. Rae has been featured on several national television documentaries, news shows, and television specials, such as Dateline, CNN, Black Entertainment Television, (BET) and the Montel Williams Show. Rae was featured on NIGHTLINE with Ted Koppel in news articles entitled, “Rae’s Story,” AIDS: The Next Wave and AIDS At Twenty Years. The Oprah Winfrey Show had her on to share her story. Rae uses all forms of media to convey her message. She served as a contributing editor for WBBM-TV, a CBS-owned and operated television station for an ongoing series of first person stories on living with AIDS. She received an Emmy Award for her series.

Prior to Rae’s motivational speaking career, she was on her way to a promising political organizing career. Having served as Senator Carol Mosley Braun’s 1992 Senatorial Campaign Advance Coordinator, Illinois State Youth Coordinator for the 1988 Dukakis Presidential Campaign and National Youth Director for Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 Presidential Campaigns, Rae was forced to retire in 1993 as a result of her health.

Rae Lewis-Thornton was licensed as a Baptist minister in July 2000 at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, in Chicago, Illinois by the Rev. Clay Evans. She received a Master of Divinity degree from McCormick Theological Seminary in June 2003 and was the recipient of the Arthur Hays Fellowship in Church History. Rae Lewis-Thornton is currently a PhD candidate at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Northeastern Illinois University. Rae is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. In November, Ebony Magazine named Rae Lewis-Thornton one of America’s 57 Most Intriguing people of 2002. Her anticipated life story, Unprotected, A Memoir will be released in 2009 by Hyperion Publishers