Chattanooga, Tennessee LaDarius Price celebrated his 41st birthday on Saturday in a very special way. The American of color invited hundreds of people to the Vaccine Drive party at his former high school. It is a kind of vaccination party where the guests can celebrate, do sports, learn something and also get immunized against Covid-19.
“Here were the vaccination tables, over there was the finance workshop, over there was the fitness session and there were Covid tests over there,” explains the bearded man in a blue jacket with a pocket square over the fashionably torn jeans, while he was two days later strides down the lawn at the edge of the Brainerd High School football field.
In Chattanooga, Tennessee, LaDarius Price is a local celebrity. The tattooed man with a wooden bead bracelet is the father of five children and youth pastor of his church. He is also responsible for the black population in the vaccination campaign of “Get Vaccinated Chattanooga”. He wants to convince the people in the city of 180,000 to get vaccinated. But that is not an easy task.
Local celebrity in Chattanooga.
Tennessee is currently the absolute hotspot in the US when it comes to Covid incidences and deaths. In the past two weeks, the number of people who died of corona in Tennessee has risen 49 percent.
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In total, more than 14,000 people have already died of Covid in the state of 6.8 million people. Hospitals no longer know what to do with their dead and are ordering refrigerated trucks as morgues – like in New York at the height of the pandemic last spring.
Tennessee is an example of what characterizes the American Covid and vaccination campaign: politicization and disinformation. On the one hand, vaccinations and masks are omnipresent in politics. On the other hand, whole sections of the population are afraid of the vaccines – especially the blacks.
Refusal to vaccinate as a political statement
The black taxi driver from the Chattanooga airport doesn’t wear a mask and grimaces when the customer lowers the back of the car window. “Whatever you want,” he says scornfully.
The nail salon in downtown Chattanooga is packed with women. The shop door is closed because of the air conditioning. There is no trace of masks either here or in the shopping center next door. Dogs and bare chests are forbidden in an Amish shop outside of town. But there are no references to masks or vaccines.
Refusing masks and vaccinations has become a political statement in the United States. On the one hand there are the mostly democratic mask wearers and vaccinated people, on the other hand the freedom-loving Republicans, who judge and condemn masks in schools and public places not as protection of health but as state abuse. This also applies in Republican-dominated Tennessee.
More than 60 percent of the electorate here voted for Donald Trump in the recent presidential election. He supported the development of Covid vaccines during his presidency with ten billion dollars and also had himself vaccinated like most Republican politicians. But he still mobilizes against vaccination and testing regulations like Joe Biden’s as an attack on American freedom.
Only 44 percent of Tennessee residents are vaccinated. In the case of blacks, it is only a third. In the few schools that have made mask compulsory for students and teachers, there have already been violent attacks and threats from parents. “We know who you are,” threatens a father in the small town of Franklin in a video. “We’ll find you!” He warns.
“I was also a skeptic myself”
While the US was at the forefront of vaccinating its population in the spring, it has now fallen far behind with vaccination rates lower than the EU. The delta virus continues to spread, especially in countries with low vaccination rates, and beds are becoming scarce again in the intensive care units. The economic upturn is also at risk because companies have to postpone their return to the office and tourism is stalling.
“Our patience is running out,” said Joe Biden on September 10th when he issued a decree that made vaccination and testing mandatory for almost 100 million Americans. According to this, federal employees and employees of companies and hospitals that receive federal funds must be vaccinated or tested every week. Biden’s political opponents criticize these measures as unconstitutional.
But it is not just many Republicans who are resisting the vaccine. Even among black Americans – regardless of their political views – distrust runs deep. “I was also a skeptic myself,” says Price. “I only got vaccinated when a good friend of mine died of Covid at the age of 51.”
Many blacks didn’t trust the state health system, Price explains. This is often due to bad personal experiences they have had and the horrific medical experiments the state has drilled on black Americans in the past – such as the syphilis study in the 1930s. “In addition, many of us don’t get information from the right sources, preferring to listen to our neighbors or social media.”
Black vaccination staff to build trust
40 people got vaccinated at his party, Price says. He hired colored health workers to instill trust. “Would a white vaccine and test staff have had the same success? No! “, Price is sure. The $ 50 fee per dose of vaccine will also have convinced some of the party guests, especially the young ones. And in view of the increasing number of infected and dead people in the circle of acquaintances, a rethink is taking place. “Until Covid doesn’t knock on your door, you’re not taking it seriously,” says Price.
Aaron Gentry, a student who works as a waiter in a downtown Chattanooga restaurant, believes that even that is not enough to change your mind for some. Gentry is self-vaccinated. But his uncle, for example, is a staunch opponent of vaccinations: “He has had Covid twice himself and his five-year-old daughter was in the intensive care unit. The people here are stubborn. “
With the new Biden rules, many people in Tennessee will soon have to choose between vaccination or unemployment, says Gentry. “There are many who would rather lose their jobs.”
The important role of the churches in the southern United States
Even the vaccination preacher LaDarius Price reaches his limits when it comes to his own family: His 13-year-old daughter has been vaccinated. But his 18-year-old son only did it because he would have lost his college football scholarship. His 15-year-old daughter refuses to this day because her friends don’t either. Her father accepts this and at the same time has his doubts whether Biden’s crackdown will really help.
The first priests are now calling for vaccinations.
(Photo: AP)
For a long time, especially in the vaccine-resistant southern states, pastors have even called for a vaccine boycott. But for a few weeks now, the voices of those preachers who call people to vaccinate have been getting louder – even if their communities don’t always like to hear that.
“I think pastors shouldn’t be afraid to say it’s okay to take the vaccine,” said Micah Fries, director of the multi-faith neighbors network in Tennessee. “Especially when you realize that spiritual leaders can influence broad sections of the population,” he says, praising famous evangelical pastors like Franklin Graham. The son of the famous revival preacher Billy Graham recently called on his audience to be vaccinated. “We need more of it,” says Fries.
LaDarius Price also relies on the influence of the church and will host the next vaccination happening at a church. He also tries to exert influence as a youth pastor. Some of the children he looks after have already had themselves vaccinated, he reports with satisfaction. Now all he has to do is convince his daughter.
More: Infected despite full vaccination: What vaccination breakthroughs mean for the fight against Corona.