Unprotected: A Memoir is Rae Lewis Thornton’s captivating story of what happened to her as a child and how it helped to shape the trajectory of her life. Living in a continuous cycle of trauma- rejection, violence, and childhood sexual molestation, with no one to protect her, Rae’s abnormal environment becomes her normal existence. By the age of twenty-four, she is diagnosed with HIV.  

                                                                             Rae chronicles her journey from HIV to AIDS and situates her life in the dichotomy between the early days of the AIDS pandemic and as a major force and political organizer for notable giants in politics. Rae’s transparency and self-awareness are both shocking and heartfelt. Today, twenty-seven years after Essence and thirty-seven years living with HIV, Rae tells all —the trauma that shaped her life, and how she survived the odds and continued to soar with a broken wing.

                                      Available December 2021!
at participating retailers
Book Information ISBN 978-1-7378912-0-8
Bulk Book Distribution Ingram SparkBooking: Info@unprotctedamemoir.com

The Making of Unprotected: A Memoir Book Cover


Rae Lewis-Thornton   is an Emmy Award winning AIDS Activist. She has been a Social Justice advocate for almost forty years. Rae received national acclaim for her story of living with HIV/AIDS in the Essence magazine December 1994 issue. The curator of the Smithsonian National Museum of African- American History and Culture has requested to catalogue Rae’s ground breaking magazine cover. 
As the face of HIV/AIDS, she had been featured in Glamour, O, The Oprah Magazine; Woman’s Day, Essence, Jet, Ebony, Emerge, Heart and SoulThe Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune. 
Rae made appeared on television and streaming shows including, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Nightline, Dateline, BET, CNN, Vice News, HLN News, Huffington Post Live, and TV One.

She is a ordained minister; an award winning blogger; an author; and tea connoisseur, with a handmade knit and jewelry accessory line- RLT Collection. Rae received a Emmy Award for her television series, Living with AIDS, a first-person chronicle on WBBM, CBS in Chicago.

Rae earned a Master of Divinity Degree (M. Div) from McCormick Theological Seminary. She received a distinguished alumnae award from her alma mater Northeastern Illinois University and the Scroll of Merit Award, from the National Medical Association.

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