“We have done nothing in 40 years to take Tuskegee off the table.”
The COVID crisis ripped through the Black community, with Black people accounting for almost a quarter of the 600,000 deaths that America has had so far. And as the delta variant brings back crowded hospital wards and mask mandates, many health care leaders are struggling to minimize the pain for Black America. Dr. Reed Tuckson is one of those on the front lines of the fight. He’s a veteran physician, public health advocate, and co-founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID.
, I spoke with Tuckson about increasing access to vaccines in Black communities and debunking misinformation surrounding the virus and vaccines. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.Jason Johnson: What does the Black Coalition Against COVID do, and what inspired you to launch it?Well, thanks for asking. And I was fortunate enough to be the commissioner of public health for Washington, D.C., during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
Early on, we knew that it was going to be difficult to gain acceptance for the vaccine because of the historical seeds of distrust that have been so deeply planted in the Black community. We were fortunate to see that, through the combined efforts of many different people and many different influencers, we were able to vaccinate an extraordinarily large number of people—particularly our seniors were very responsive to being vaccinated.
What’s really kind of very sad is that it is almost exactly like it is today. Here you have a disease that is spread in ways that people did not understand. Therefore, there was a lot of mistrust about what it means to me and others. … I recall so well on every radio show that I did, it was always Tuskegee, Tuskegee, Tuskegee. “This is a plot by the white man to kill Black people.” “It was made in a lab at the CIA.” It’s very frightening.
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