-Personally, as a pastor,
I've lost some of my closest mentors and pastors
across this country.
Every day, I get a call -- every day --
that someone has contracted the virus,
someone is in the hospital, or someone has died.
-Black people are nearly three times more likely than Whites
to die from coronavirus in the United States.
The reasons range from healthcare disparities
to preexisting conditions
and increased exposure at essential jobs.
Still, fewer than half of Black Americans say
they would get a coronavirus vaccine,
according to a survey released
by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
Reverend R.
B. Holmes Jr.
is a pastor in Tallahassee.
He chairs a statewide coronavirus task force
aimed at vaccinating more people of color.
-We're both afraid and our family members,
of sickness or COVID-19.
As of today, only 5% of people of color have been vaccinated.
That's unacceptable and so our job
is to encourage people to take the vaccine,
make sure that the vaccines are accessible
and available to all communities,
and especially minority communities.
Also, part of our goal was to bring together
trusted voices to say, "Hey, look.
We roll our sleeves up.
We believe in the medicine.
We believe in the vaccine."
I did it myself.
To build up the trust for our community,
they need to see trusted voices.
And then, we need trusted venues,
venues where people trust.
Going to their church,
their schools, their colleges, their universities,
their neighborhood community center.
That's why I think I'm very optimistic that we could get to
70% of people of color taking the vaccine,
if those trusted voices, those trusted venues,
and a grassroots campaign to market
where our facilities would be, would be helpful.
-Some African-Americans are still deeply scarred
by the Tuskegee Study, which began in 1932.
Federal health officials conducted
secret experiments on Black men
to study the progression of syphilis.
The men were told they were being treated for "bad blood"
but were never actually given medicine,
as they suffered severe health problems.
-The Tuskegee experiment, as you know,
is still fresh in the minds
and hearts of African-American people.
That was very evil,
what happened to African-American men.
All the way from slavery,
there's a history of Black and brown people
that have been mistreated.
We're taking this on as part of our responsibility.
We can't wait for the government to decide to help
Black and poor people. We have to do it.
That's the call of the Black pulpit.
That's the role of the Black church.
That's the role of our African- American elected officials --
to look out for our people, like never before.
-Nearly 400 miles away, in Belle Glade, Florida,
activist Tammy Jackson-Moore also believes building trust
is necessary to combat vaccine skepticism in her community.
-We've worked really,
really hard with building trust here in our community,
so we tend to think that the people in our community trust us
and they believe in what we say.
So, when they see us in the community,
they know that we've done what we call our due diligence.
So we wanted the people to understand
that this was a safe vaccine
and this was something that they needed to take advantage of,
if they really wanted to be a part of being vaccinated.
-Jackson-Moore is a co-founder of Guardians of the Glades,
an advocacy organization
that works on a bit of everything,
from food drives to registering people to vote.
Right now, she's going door to door
to talk to community members about the coronavirus vaccine.
-The main goal, when we're out in the community,
knocking on doors, is to educate people,
educate them about the need to stay safe
and those things that they can do
to keep themselves and their family safe.
In addition to that,
we're sharing with them information about the vaccines
and the vaccine distributions, so that, if they are interested,
they can make that decision on their own.
But we just need to make certain that everybody in our community
has the information,
so that they can make the best decisions for themselves
and their families.
Here, let me give you one, too, baby.
Share this with your parents, okay?
-Thank you. -A mask and your hand sanitizer.
Alright?
The reality is our community is not trusting of vaccines.
They're very untrusting of the government, per se.
So we have to continue to just have those conversations.
When we have people that tell us
they're not getting the vaccination
because of one reason or the other, we accept that,
but we also try to educate them.
At some point, we're hoping that they'll come online
and want to get the vaccine, as well,
and that's what we've been seeing lately.
If they see others that they're familiar with getting it,
they step up and they want to get the vaccine, as well.
-I think it is critically important that we encourage
all people to trust the science and their doctors
and take these vaccines.
We believe that these vaccines are a gift of life.
We got to move forward.
This is the day.
This is about the future.
We know the history.
We know what has happened in the past,
but in the present and future, moving forward,
we got to make sure that we get 70% of African-Americans
and other minorities vaccinated.