Across the country, public health officials and advocacy groups are trying to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates among Black residents in their communities. Their efforts are aimed at addressing a long history of distrust for government institutions among some African Americans who recall fraudulent medical practices such as the Tuskegee experiment.
Charlotte Waller, a member of one of Hopkinsville’s oldest Black service organizations, saw for herself in late January that more African Americans needed to be encouraged to get the vaccine. On the day she got her first shot, Waller noticed that only a few Black residents were coming through the James E. Bruce Convention Center. Other members of the Modernette Civic Club observed the same thing when they went for the vaccine.
“We knew we needed to spread the word,” said Waller, who chairs a community involvement committee for Modernette Civic Club, a group established in Hopkinsville 56 years ago by young Black career women. Today, most of the members qualify for phase 1b of Kentucky’s vaccine distribution plan because they are at least 70 years old.
Education is the focus of the club’s public service mission, so it made sense for the members to get out the word that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and necessary, said club president Billie Todd.
“This would have been a good time for us to look into setting up a seminar,” but the pandemic prevents that kind of outreach, said Todd.
Instead, the members got busy calling their personal contacts. They are also working through local churches to encourage more people to be vaccinated.
Waller and Todd, along with club members Bernice Childress and Oveta Gray, explained their efforts during an interview with Hoptown Chronicle. Because each of them has been vaccinated, they can share their personal experiences with anyone who is hesitant to be vaccinated.
There’s no substitute for one-on-one contact with people in their own community, they said.
In addition to calling individuals, they’ve produced an informational flyer that gives details about how to contact the Christian County Health Department for a vaccine appointment. Spokeswoman Amanda Sweeney-Brunt recently met virtually with the Modernettes to discuss the health department’s work during the pandemic.
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The health department has not released local demographic information about people who have been vaccinated at the Bruce Center, which is one of Kentucky’s regional vaccine sites. But on Feb. 8, Gov. Andy Beshear said Black Kentuckians comprised 4.3% of those who had received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. That rate put them well below their share of the state’s population — which is 8.5%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In Christian County, Black residents comprise 22.1% of the population.
On a hyper-local scale, the Modernettes have mirrored a national effort led by the Black Coalition Against COVID-19.
“Black fraternities, sororities and social organizations are important pillars of the Black community,” said Dr. David Marion of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, one of 20 groups allied with the national coalition. “All of my colleagues who have come together in this initiative do so because our missions and humanity necessitate us to come together during this time of peril.”
Based in Washington, D.C., the coalition “seeks to provide trustworthy, science-based information” about COVID-19 and vaccines.
In some cases, the resistance to be vaccinated stems from past medical practices that abused or neglected Black Americans. One of the most egregious was the Tuskegee experiment. Beginning in the early 1930s and continuing for four decades, syphilis treatment was withheld from Black men who were told only that they were part of a blood disease study. Even after penicillin became an accepted treatment for syphilis in the late 1940s, treatment was not provided to the men as their disease progressed.
To counter that history and to encourage Black Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine, many African American leaders have publicized their willingness to be vaccinated. Todd noted that the Rev. Dr. M.O. Fort, pastor of Virginia Street Baptist Church, was among religious leaders who traveled to Frankfort to be vaccinated.
The health department schedules vaccine appointments online or by phone at 270-887-4160, ext. 640. Christian County is in phase 1b of the vaccine roll-out, which includes people age 70 and older.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
