2022

The Black Community of Baltimore, Maryland, one of the nation’s largest, was deeply affected by the COVID-19 crisis. Efforts at widespread vaccination among the city's Black residents have been largely successful, owing in large part to a unique partnership between the Baltimore City Health Department, extensive medical and academic institutions and members of the Black community. What reluctance remains around vaccination is primarily due to historic mistrust of the medical community, which is itself rooted in a deep history of mistreatment and neglect. This is a hurt that must be addressed if Baltimore is to heal from this terrible pandemic. Bryan Mason and Jeanine Hays of AphroChic teamed with editor Tahir Juba and music composer John Tyler - both Baltimoreans - to produce a short documentary film aimed at collecting, acknowledging and addressing community concerns around vaccination, highlighting the city's accomplishments, recognizing the hard history of medical mistreatment of Black people and presenting the facts of vaccination, not as a government mandate, but as a vital act of being a part of Baltimore’s Black community and protecting it.