As Oregon experiences one of the worst surges of the delta variant of COVID-19 in the nation, vaccination rates are still low in some of Oregon’s communities of color. Around 50% of adult Black Oregonians have received at least one dose of the vaccine, compared to around 70% of all adults statewide.
An event in Portland on Saturday aims to help with that. The organizers of the Soul 2 Soul drive-thru vaccine clinic describe it as “a clarion call” to reach unvaccinated people in the Black community.
The Coalition of African & African American Pastors, in partnership with Bridge-Pamoja, is offering free COVID-19...
Posted by Soul 2 Soul on Monday, August 23, 2021
Pastor Edward Williams, who goes by Pastor Ed, is the executive pastor at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Portland, and a member of the Coalition of African and African American Pastors, one of the groups behind the event. He joined Jenn Chávez on OPB’s “All Things Considered” on Friday to talk more about overcoming barriers to vaccination in the Black community.
Jenn Chávez: I’d love it if you could start by giving our listeners some of the basic details about the event tomorrow and what people will be able to access there.
Pastor Edward Williams: So we’re having a vaccination clinic tomorrow from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. It will be held in the parking lot of the Regal Cinemas at the Lloyd Center. This is a free event. It is now billed as a drive-thru event. Obviously, in light of the governor’s mandate and in light of the raging delta variant that’s going on in our community, we wanted to give people an opportunity, who have not been vaccinated, to have an opportunity once again In the familiar confines of the Lloyd Center area to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
Chávez: We’re at a point where the vaccine has been available to the general public for months now. What do you think the best strategy is for increasing access and getting more people vaccinated at this stage in the pandemic?
Pastor Ed: Well, I think one of the things that we have to continue to do, particularly for the Black and certainly Latino communities, are to place these vaccination clinics in places that are easily accessible. Places that are familiar and clinics that are being offered, through people and avenues in which there is a high degree of trust and confidence. And we believe that, as pastors in the community who touched hundreds and thousands of people, that we represent a good measure of trust within our populations. And we feel like the Lloyd Center area is certainly an area that is accessible and just has a great deal of familiarity for a lot of people And we think that that might help in the process.
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Chávez: So we’re talking right now about access and trust as well. What are some of the different reasons you are hearing from folks about why they haven’t gotten vaccinated?
Pastor Ed: Well, you know, within the Black community we have the historical references of some pretty unsavory things that have been done to Black people by the health care system. We have situations where people just don’t trust the information that is being presented to them. You will hear one thing one day, and then you hear something else different the next day, and so folks are still just trying to get comfortable with the information. And then there are some of the very wild stories that have been put out into various media spaces. Just being able to trust the basic information is still an issue for some people.
An OPB file photo of prepared COVID-19 vaccines from a clinic held in April 2021. The Soul 2 Soul vaccine event on Saturday, Aug. 28, aims to boost vaccination levels among Black Oregonians.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff/ OPB
Chávez: How do you feel you can fight misinformation?
Pastor Ed: Well, one of the ways you can fight misinformation is to be an information carrier yourself, to be a model of the very thing that you’re asking people to do. So I know that, myself, and all of the gentlemen and ladies who are part of the Coalition of African and African American Pastors, we have all been vaccinated ourselves. And we were vaccinated, many of us, in very public settings for the purposes of trying to model, in front of our people and in front of the community, our trust of what’s being offered. And then we are living, breathing examples that speak against some of the wild claims that have been made about what that vaccine could do to Black people. You know nothing like a live example to debunk some bad information.
Chávez: This whole event is meant to increase community health. When you envision a healthy Black community in Portland or in Oregon, what do you see?
Pastor Ed: What I see is part of what’s going to happen tomorrow and that is people at the highest level. From the governor’s office to local grassroots groups where we all come together for the purposes of trying to deliver quality, accessible and real services to all walks of people. The Black population in Oregon, we are 2% of the overall population, but yet we’re 10% of the COVID-19 cases and we are five times more likely to be hospitalized. Certainly within the Black community, one of the things that we need is we need quality health care, we need accessible health care and we need health care from trusted sources.
The Soul 2 Soul vaccination event will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday in the parking lot of the former Regal Cinemas movie theater at Lloyd Center, in Northeast Portland. You can find out more at soul2soulpdx.com.