Alabama school district, once home to infamous Tuskegee study, nears full COVID vaccination level

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Just as soon as the COVID-19 vaccine was offered, Jacqueline Brooks rolled up her sleeve and got her shot.

The scene is now familiar across the country. But what sets Brooks apart from the more than 1 million Alabamians who also have gotten shots is her family history – two great-grandfathers were part of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment – and her position of authority in her hometown in Alabama’s Black Belt, as the superintendent of Macon County School District.

Brooks has turned that personal and professional history to her advantage, and has worked tirelessly, even despite some of her own misgivings, to help her staff and community get vaccinated.

“This is greater than me. This is for the greater good,” she said. “Yes, I want to live, but it’s about more than me. This is about the 3,000 or 4,000 people I interact with.”

Since January, 70% of district teachers and 100% of custodians, lunchroom workers and bus drivers have received the vaccine, she said. The district serves 1,800 students with 270 employees overall.

Those numbers are far above the statewide estimate for teachers officials recently gave AL.com, 20%, or the national average for adults, 24%, and are remarkable given the history the community has endured. Along the way, they also have helped bely some experts’ fears that African American communities might be more hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We see a number of people now getting shots because they see people they know, people they have a personal experience with, getting it,” said Mayor Tony Hagood in a recent town hall.

Macon County is home to Tuskegee University, where, beginning in 1932, treatment was purposefully withheld from African American men who had syphilis so doctors could study the progression of the disease. The project went on for 40 years, even after penicillin became available. Alabama attorney Fred Gray sued the government after the abuse was exposed and won a settlement for families subjected to that abuse.

Brooks was born and raised in Macon County and has a personal connection to the notorious study.

“As the great-granddaughter of two great-grandfathers who were subjects in the unethical and inhumane Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, I thought long and hard about whether or not to take the COVID-19 vaccine,” Brooks wrote in a Feb. 16 Facebook post, describing her choice to take the vaccine and conversations with family members, health care experts and a local doctor. “So, after all the pondering, my decision was yes to the vaccine and no to the virus! Both shots taken! Hoping for a better day. "

Brooks said concerns and questions about the coronavirus and vaccine are not the same as those stemming from the infamous Tuskegee experiments.

“In the syphilis study, you had treatment withheld. This is completely opposite of what is happening now,” she said.

Vaccine hesitancy

While demographic data compiled by the state has big gaps, at various stages throughout the vaccine rollout, numbers indicated that Alabama was vaccinating significantly more white residents than Black residents relative to its population.

Read more: Alabama’s next battle is equalizing the vaccine

Initially, some experts feared that vaccine hesitancy – along with some people’s difficulty finding transportation or Internet to access appointment options – was affecting Black residents’ willingness to get shots.

That matched a national narrative developing. Americans all over the country had questions as federal officials approved vaccines for emergency use authorization this winter, but surveys in 2020 suggested Black and Hispanic respondents might be less likely than white respondents to get vaccinated, citing fears of possible side effects and lack of trust in the government and the vaccine development process.

Some national reporting specifically noted the Tuskegee study as contributing to Black Americans’ hesitancy, and some local experts and officials agreed – at least in part.

“When you think about it, Black people have been disserved by the health care system for many years,” said Omar Neal, former mayor of Tuskegee, in the town hall.

More recent surveys, however, suggest a racial gap in reluctance to get vaccinated has diminished.

The state health department does not report vaccine distribution in each county by race or ethnicity, but a recent data analysis by AL.com shows promising vaccination rates, so far, among some counties in Alabama with high Black populations. In Macon County, 23% of the adult population has received at least one shot, at a slightly higher rate than the overall state.

Of 18,000 Macon County residents, the Census Bureau says 80% of the population is Black. More than 90% of the students, educators and staff in the county are Black, according to the Alabama Education Report Card.

Brooks noted various reasons she had heard that might cause Black neighbors to be skeptical, beyond the legacy of government experiments – including theories that the vaccine had been developed to decimate the Black community, or that it was the Mark of the Beast that would indicate loyalty to the Antichrist.

Again, she said, seeing elderly church members get vaccinated with no side effects – as well as seeing COVID-19 ravage community members who fell ill – reminded her that, as a friend told her, " ‘I personally know a lot of people who have been extremely ill and some now buried from a COVID-19 death. But I don’t know anyone who’s has been buried from taking the vaccine.’”

Wariness in Macon and Tuskegee is real, experts agree, but individual attention from local government and health officials and trusted leaders, as well as coordinated public health messaging, goes a long way.

“If we are not to take the vaccine, then we are making ourselves even more vulnerable,” said Neal. “That’s why I chose to take the vaccine.”

Other leaders in the community, including members of the local chamber of commerce and government officials, have been vocal and visible about getting vaccinated.

“Hesitancy doesn’t mean people aren’t going to take the vaccine,” said Dr. Karen Landers, assistant chief health officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health. “It’s very helpful for people to hear the answers to their questions from local leaders, local physicians, local pharmacists, basically the local trusted people.”

That’s where Brooks’ leadership in Macon County comes into play.

How they did it

It wasn’t just word of mouth.

Brooks and local officials, including those at the East Alabama Medical Center and other school districts, had already been talking about how to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

Then they turned their attention to getting teachers and schools staff vaccinated.

“In the rest of the state, educators were not in the initial primary group,” Brooks said. “But East Alabama Medical Center basically put us at the top of the list.”

On Jan. 18, Brooks said, her staff became eligible for shots from the hospital – earlier than most in the state. Support staff on the front lines, including custodians and bus drivers, jumped at the chance to get vaccinated, she said.

“We had a dedicated person [at EAMC] who worked with all of our staff to get everybody who wanted one an appointment,” she said, adding that she also allowed staff to take any time needed off to get vaccinated, without using a personal day.

The district’s lead nurse, along with another nurse on staff, helped administer vaccines.

“That made everybody feel comfortable,” she said.

Brooks celebrated the first round of vaccines given to teachers on Jan. 23 through a Facebook post: “So proud to be from East Alabama.”

In her weekly roundup email to employees, Brooks sung the praises of the 96 employees who chose to be vaccinated in the first wave, writing, “Special thanks and praises to our colleagues who made an incredible sacrifice and took an unprecedented risk for personal, professional and community safety by taking the COVID-19 vaccine on Saturday.”

Not everyone signed up for the first round. Many were in “wait-and-see mode,” Brooks said, and she’s quick to say she understands the hesitancy and questions some may have. But after seeing that there were no side effects or complications, more and more teachers and support staff decided to get the vaccine.

It was a combination of faith and trust in science that guided her own decision, she said, and now she’s trying to give those around her the same tools. She hopes the strategy, and relentless messaging, will be helpful to other school officials trying to reopen schools while battling low vaccination rates or high infection rates.

For the last two months, she has been using every means necessary – Facebook Lives, virtual events with state officials, individual conversations with staff and community members – to encourage those around her to get vaccinated. Brooks now posts frequently on social media accounts about where shots are available and shares others’ posts and vaccine selfies.

Parents also were interested to know if their child’s teacher was vaccinated. Brooks can’t share that information due to privacy regulations, but she said it was a sign of parents’ concern about the potential for the virus to circulate in classrooms and how families are making decisions around whether to continue remote schooling.

The district started the year remotely but has returned to some in-person learning for families who chose to do so.

Brooks hopes to return to full in-person instruction, but says that depends on getting everyone who is willing vaccinated.

Until then, she plans to continue working to get the word out and, as more staff and community members get their shots, telling them, “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

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