Confronted with the terrifying rise of AIDS in the black community, 90 black leaders from diverse backgrounds convened yesterday at the Faculty Club for a summit intended to catalyze a national response to the epidemic.

Featuring such luminaries as Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director David Satcher, yesterday's was the first-ever conference of its kind to address the issue and galvanize support.

The gathering consisted of a series of private meetings between leaders of the black community. Organizers held a press conference at the end of the summit, where the leaders summarized the day's events.

"We have come to renew our commitment to fight the spread of the HIV virus and to care for those who are living with AIDS," Edelman said. "We have come to advocate for the needs of our people who are affected by AIDS. And we have also come to call for action."

That action is necessary, said Alvin F. Poussaint, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Medical School, because of the alarming statistics facing the black community.

Poussaint said that AIDS is the leading cause of death among African Americans aged 25 to 44, claiming twice as many victims as the next biggest killer.

The CDC reported that more than one third of those afflicted with AIDS are black--even though that minority group accounts for only 11 percent of the U.S. population.

To unite the front combating AIDS, the summit's leaders called for greater communication and sharing of information among the participants to bring the issues home to their respective communities.

Edelman stressed the dire predicament of children with AIDS--particularly black children, who constitute a majority of young people with the disease.

The CDC's Satcher said his institution strongly supports the battle against AIDS. The CDC will continue to "develop and support programs that fight AIDS at the community level," he said, calling on the conference's participants to think of new, better ways to combat the disease together.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., chair of the Afro-American Studies Department, listed some of the reasons blacks are hit harder by AIDS than other communities.

"In part because of a traditional homophobic tendency in our culture, in part because of ignorant stereotypes about HIV and AIDS, our people, our leaders, have long been in denial about AIDS in the black community," Gates said.

He urged his listeners to fight obstacles within the black community by discussing the barriers to effective communication and developing a broad consensus on efforts to improve prevention, education and services.

Edelman made her own call for help in an interview after the conference: "We cannot sit by idly and watch our people pass away. We must and will act now, all of us."

Although yesterday's summit attracted black leaders from academia, law, the media, medicine and religion, organizers said they were disappointed that blacks in business, entertainment and athletics were underrepresented.

"I am wowed by the presence of [black leaders] who participated today, but I am troubled by those who are not here," said Phill Wilson, the HIV-positive founder of the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum.

"We must challenge them to be part of the fight," Wilson said.

The Harvard AIDS Institute co-sponsored the conference with the National Minority AIDS Council and the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research