(crowd claps)
- Last year, a Tulane med student named Russell
took his daughter and his friend for a day trip
to the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana.
This property is just one of many in the area,
where African-Americans were once enslaved.
The visit led to a powerful realization
of how far African-Americans have come.
It also led to this even more powerful photo
that has since gone viral.
You're looking at 15 African-American med students,
in white lab coats, standing in front
of the plantation's cabin.
Here to share their life-changing experience is
Russell and his daughter, 9-year-old Malia.
Give it up for them, y'all!
(crowd cheers)
So, Russell, tell me about the trip to the plantation.
- So one of my best friends, Phillip Thomas,
came down to visit me, he's also getting his Ph.D at NYU,
and we both went to HBCUs,
I went to Southern University,
he went to North Carolina AT&T,
and black history is so important to us,
and so he came down here, and had already looked up
some plantations and that specific one was special because
it focused around the lives of enslaved people,
as opposed to glamorizing the life of the owners,
so we were like, we've gotta take this trip.
And of course, being a girl dad, I strong-armed my
daughter, who was supposed to be at tennis camp,
and I was like nah, you gonna take this trip.
- Yeah!
It sounds like a really important thing, too.
(crowd claps)
Russell and Malia, you had a thought provoking,
kind of conversation on the ride home, right?
- Yeah, so we were on our ride back,
and Malia being Malia was like,
Dad, dad, dad!
And I was like what's up Malia?
And she was like, I finally get it!
Being a black doctor in America is a big deal.
And in my mind I'm thinking yeah!
I know, I've been telling you that for forever.
- Oh my God, I'm about to cry.
- And she was like, so you know, of course when that
happened, I looked back and the next thing I said was,
why'd you tell me that?
And then she,
What'd you tell me?
- So I said, because we just left the plantation where
you couldn't go and say, okay I'm gonna go and escape,
I'm gonna be a doctor or a lawyer or a scientist,
or whatever you would like to go be.
So I thought that that was kind of something that
made me kind of say that, and I wanted
to tell it to him right then and there.
- Yeah.
And, they weren't even allowed to read!
- No.
- They weren't even allowed to read and write!
Let alone become doctors.
(crowd claps)
Like, that's the huge thing.
And it's a cool thing that you are showing her
what a blessing it is to grow up in a sense,
where you can, you can write,
you can be anything that wanna be,
and that's how it should've been,
and that's how it is now.
You can do anything, and that's a really important
thing that you did for her.
(crowd cheers)
- Thank you.
- Because if you don't know where you come from,
or your people come from, you don't know
how like, how much you've progressed,
and how much you can progress.
And I think that's really important.
But Russell, that conversation led to the idea,
of the photo, right?
- Right.
- The 15 white coats?
- So the next thing I did was, I looked over at Phil,
and I was like, Phil, this is rockin' me man,
like my classmates gotta see this.
Because medical school is hell.
And we needed that moment, specifically all of us
that commonly spend time with each other,
we needed that moment,
and so of course, I went back,
and had some conversations with some confidantes,
of course, Sydney Labat, Carrie Crook, and some others,
and the first thing I told them was like,
yo, I got this idea, this is what we'll do,
we'll go there in all black, have our white coats,
but we need this moment, to spend this time,
and of course they were 100% on board.
And here we are.
- Yeah, that's a really amazing thing.
(crowd cheers)
- Well we have, you have a colleague, right,
when ended up doing the 15 coats, right,
her name's Sydney?
- Yeah, Sydney, one of my closest friends is here.
- Yeah!
- I'm really happy to have this conversation with her.
The real idea behind this is that
you just have to have the conversation first, right?
- And not be afraid of it.
- Yeah, and not be afraid of it, right,
like it's an ugly past.
- It's uncomfortable, but you've gotta work through it.
- You've gotta move past that,
you do have to move past that.
- Yeah, I agree.
(crowd claps)
So after Russell and Malia visited the Whitney Plantation
in Louisiana, they had an epiphany about just how far
African-Americans have come in this country.
And they wanted to make a statement about it.
So Russell reached out to his friend and fellow student,
Sydney, she led the charge to make this photo happen,
Sydney is with us now, y'all give it up for her.
(crowd cheers)
So what did you think when Russell brought
the idea of the picture up to you?
- I thought it was phenomenal.
Just not giving any thought to it, like,
okay, lets make this happen.
- [Kelly] It's powerful!
- Right, exactly, so the reason why, like,
behind all those thoughts is that,
because black, you know, minority physicians in training,
we're such a minority.
And that is so, on top of medical school being
disheartening, like, that just adds to the
imposter syndrome.
- Feels like another hurdle.
- Right, the academic bar that is so high for us,
on top of the fact that we are surrounded
by physicians that don't look like us.
That can definitely add to the imposter syndrome.
- You're a part of the change of that though.
- Yeah, we're trying to.
- You're not trying, you're doing it.
- Absolutely right!
- You're doing it.
(crowd cheers)
- Just the resilience that our ancestors
demonstrated, in order to just get through the
horrors of slavery, we really, really had to respect
that, and go take this photo.
Resilience is in our DNA, and
I'm absolutely confident in that.
- Yes!
- And it was not when, not if, but when.
So let's figure this out and get this done.
So it was a phenomenal idea.
- It's amazing. So what kind of reaction
have y'all received from the photo?
- We've gotten, like, international reactions.
All over the world.
It's been insane, one that I particularly remember,
I was going through my DMs one day,
because, you know, with the viral stuff,
there were DMs, there were thousands of them,
so I clicked on like, a voice message one,
because I was like, this is different,
let me see what this is, and it was
a man from Brazil, and basically what he said
in the voice message was that, I don't speak a lot
of English, but I wanted to let you know that
we've seen your photo, it's super impactful,
and we're so proud and much love from Brazil,
so that was such an emotional moment for me.
- Wow!
(crowd claps)
- [Sydney] To have that reach!
- See everybody, we can complain about the
Internet, and we can complain about, that we're
online a lot, but there are some really cool
benefits of connection, when it does come to Internet,
and you're talking to someone in a completely
different country that, you know, is supporting
you, and loving on you,
in that scenario.
So did you, Malia, do you see your dad
and Sydney as role models?
- Very much so, I do because I feel like when
I grow up, there's nothing that I feel like is
really comfortable for me, I guess I can look
back and say I had role models that can, you know,
lead me and guide me when I need help,
when I'm down and everything.
- And that you can do anything!
(crowd claps)
And the fact that you have two people sitting here
saying, we're the minority in this situation,
but maybe by the time you're there, and you're doing it,
it will not be the case.
That is the hope.
So, yeah. Well, Sydney, tell us about your website,
15 White Coats.
- So in the middle of social media booming,
it gaining the viral status and all of that,
we were just throwing around ideas of what we need
to do with this platform, because something
needs to be done, this is not just for likes
and retweets.
- It's more than that.
- Right, absolutely.
So we got together with the other 13 people
in the photo, we came up with the name 15 White Coats,
made an LLC, so we organized,
and we got our website up and running,
so that's the 15whitecoats.org, and here everyone
can purchase the photos, they can donate,
they can figure out what our cause is,
and we just thought, like, we're not in this
for the clout, like, we need to do something about this.
- [Kelly] You're in it for the movement.
- Absolutely, this is a movement.
- Yeah!
That's so cool!
(crowd claps)
Like you're not doing enough!
- Right, right.
- You're not doing enough in med school!
You're like, put more on your plate.
You're like, related to me.
So Russell, you guys wanna take this whole thing
further now though right?
- Yeah, so we're hanging our hats on three pillars,
the first one is, is that,
many people have said it, you can't be what you can't see.
And so, this idea around, you have to see,
like you have to imagine it, and so we really wanna
re-imagine cultural imagery, specifically for kids
that, you know, that look like us.
They need to see that they're capable of being
doctors, lawyers, accountants, as Malia was talking
about, and so our goal is 100,000 posters and
100,000 learning spaces so that kids can just literally
have this imagery to constantly look at,
to re-imagine what they can be.
The second part is, and a lot of people don't know this,
just to apply to medical school.
I'm not talking about pay for medical school,
I'm talking about just to apply to medical school,
it costs upwards between $3,500 to $10,000.
- What?!
For like a paper, like an application?
What do you mean?
- Like just to apply, like the whole process between
taking the MCAT, paying for the whole process,
the MCAT's process, the flights, the hotels
- What?!
They only want rich people to be doctors!
Ain't nobody got $3,000!
- And a lot of people don't know that!
- And that's, you haven't even gotten to the books
or school or anything!
- We're talking about just to apply.
So we want to raise some money to alleviate,
at least to some degree, that financial burden.
- Yes!
- A lot of people don't know that.
- I didn't know that!
- All right, well I know their goal is to have
100,000 posters, and 100,000 youth centers.
That's the goal.
Well, the Los Angeles Boys and Girls Club
has agreed to put up the poster of the 15 white coats
in their Los Angeles locations, so they're
already going up there!
(crowd cheers)
And it's only going to go up from here,
because this is the domino effect that I always like
to talk about in this show, y'all are a part of a
positive change, a positive domino effect
that we all need in this country now.