San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Following John Lewis across the bridges of today
John Lewis, the fearless civil rights leader, was beaten mercilessly by police and vigilantes on the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., on March 7, 1965, a Sunday, as he helped lead 600 marchers demanding voting rights for Black Alabamians. In the face of violence and hate, the marchers were not deterred. In the words of the civil rights folk song, they kept their “eyes on the prize.”
When the 54-mile march to Montgomery — Alabama's capital — resumed two weeks later under federal protection, people from around the country joined, including religious leaders. Among them, Rabbi Abraham Heschel famously reported he felt as if he was praying with his feet. By the time the marchers reached the Capitol after four days, they numbered 25,000. This historic march marshaled the political will President Lyndon B. Johnson needed to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Fifty years later, on the same bridge, Congressman John Lewis helped lead 40,000 marchers to commemorate “Bloody Sunday,” alongside Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, representing America's vast diversity. Feb. 21 marked the 81st anniversary of this great American's birth, who passed away in 2020.
As white clergy members, we want to uplift two aspects of Lewis' legacy, bridge-building and spirituality — Lewis was an ordained Baptist minister — and appeal to our fractured society, especially our white constituents.
Bridge-building, as embodied by Lewis and the marchers on the Pettus Bridge, is sorely needed in our ever-increasingly polarized society. There are deep chasms to cross: intractable racism, raw politicization, acute economic disparities, white privilege and abandonment of civil discourse.
Our political leaders have gone astray, and we are complicit. Legitimate give-and-take partisanship has morphed into pitched battle lines, exacerbated by unrepresentative gerrymandering. Politics, rather than accomplishing the people's business, has become a debauched and destructive blood sport.
Our ever-deepening alienation is raising the specter of even more political violence than we've recently witnessed.
Our divisions are deep and harsh, but not unbridgeable, as Lewis showed. His profound spirituality and love are models for us. He lived through perilous and violent days, and strove to heal the deep wound of racial oppression. His commitment to nonviolent, peaceful “good trouble” brought societal healing.
Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Lewis stood tall on Jesus' teaching while marching on the Pettus Bridge more than 50 years ago. If, as Lewis described his own experience, he could look into the eyes of the trooper clubbing him, love the officer, and then work harder to change the system that moved the officer to beat and hate Lewis, why can't we, even with small steps, adopt love, compassion and commitment to “good trouble” to help our society mend?
Certain matters are outside of debate. Racial equality is one. The only question is how to obtain this goal, not whether we should. The art of the possible — the best definition of politics in a democracy — succeeds best in a society that fosters healthy political partisanship (or nonpartisanship).
As we see it, democracy thrives only in a society that can bridge differences. Having a commitment to justice and love, whether from religious conviction or otherwise, guides the bridging task. In recent years, the admired American trait of liberty has too often devolved into toxic individualism. The commitment to love one another, another command of Jesus, makes for stronger communities in which individuals can flourish.
This, then, is our message that we take from Lewis: Embrace our connectedness in the community; dialogue with each other respectfully; work together compassionately toward justice; and “pray with our feet,” even if that means making nonviolent “good trouble.”
SURRY, Va. — When Charlome Pierce searched where her 96year-old father could get a COVID-19 vaccine in January, she found zero options anywhere near their home in Virginia. The lone medical clinic in Surry County had none, and the last pharmacy in an area with roughly 6,500 residents and more land mass than Chicago closed years ago.
To get their shots, some residents took a ferry across the sprawling James River to cities such as Williamsburg. Others drove more than an hour past farms and woodlands — the county got its first stoplight in 2007 — to reach a medical facility offering the vaccine.
At one point, Pierce heard about a state-run vaccination event 45 minutes away, No more appointments were available, which perhaps was for the best: the wait there reportedly could last up to seven hours.
“That would have been a daunting task,” she said, citing her father’s health conditions and frequent need to use the bathroom. “I could not have had him sit in a car and wait for something that might happen. We’re not in a Third World country.”
As the nation’s campaign against the coronavirus moves from mass inoculation sites to drugstores and doctors’ offices, getting vaccinated remains a challenge for residents of “pharmacy deserts,” communities without pharmacies or well-equipped health clinics. To improve access,” the federal government has partnered with 21 companies that run free-standing pharmacies or pharmacy services inside grocery stores and other locations.
More than 40,000 stores are expected to take part, and the Biden administration has said that nearly 90 percent of Americans live within five miles of one, from Hy-Vee and Walmart to Costco and Rite-Aid.
But there are gaps in the map: More than 400 rural counties with a combined population of nearly 2.5 million people lack a retail pharmacy that’s included in the partnership. More than 100 of those counties either have no pharmacy or have a pharmacy that historically did not offer services such as flu shots, and possibly lacks the equipment or certified staff to vaccinate customers.
Independent pharmacies that have traditionally served rural areas have been disappearing, casualties of mail-order prescriptions and more competition from
chains like Walgreen’s and CVS with greater power to negotiate with insurance companies, according to Keith Mueller, director of the University of Iowa’s RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis.
“There are a lot of counties that would be left out” of the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program, said Mueller, whose research center compiled the pharmacy data on the 400 counties. “In the Western states in particular, you have a vast geography and very few people.”
Challenges to obtaining a vaccine shot near home aren’t limited to rural areas. There is a relative dearth of medical facilities in some urban areas, particularly for Black Americans, according
to a study published in February by the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Pharmacy and the West Health Policy Center.
The study listed 69 counties where Black residents were much more likely to have to travel more than a mile to get to a potential vaccination site, including a pharmacy, a hospital or a federally qualified health center. One-third of those counties were urban, including the home counties of cities such as Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Detroit and New Orleans.
Additionally, the study identified 94 counties where Black residents were significantly more likely than white residents to have to go than 10 miles to reach a potential vaccination site. The counties were mostly heavily
concentrated in the southeastern U.S. — Virginia had the most of any state with 16 — and in Texas.
The shortage of pharmacies and other medical infrastructure in some of the nation’s rural areas highlights the health care disparities that have become more stark during the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately affected members of racial minority and lower-income groups.
The former drug store in Surry County, where about 40 percent of the residents are Black, is now a cafe. No one seems to remember exactly when the Surry Drug. Co. closed, but cafe co-owner Sarah Mayo remembers going there as a child. Now, she drives 45 minutes to a Walmart or CVS.
“I don’t know if more people would take the vaccine” if the pharmacy still existed, Mayo, 62, said. “But at least you would have a local person that you trust who would explain the pros and cons.”
In January, Surry County officials saw vaccines arrive in other parts of Virginia that had more people or more coronavirus cases. Fearing doses might not arrive for months, if ever, they began to pressure state officials.
In a letter to the governor’s office, Surry joined with surrounding communities to express concerns about vaccine “equity,” particularly for low-income and other disadvantaged populations. Some of those communities said they had reallocated money to support vaccination efforts.
“The thing about living in a rural community is that you’re often overlooked by everybody from politicians right on through to the agencies,” said county Supervisor Michael Drewry.
Surry County Administrator Melissa Rollins wrote to the regional health district, stating that driving outside the county wasn’t practical for most residents. She said Surry was willing to sponsor a mass vaccination site, had devised a plan to recruit people who could administer shots and make sure that eligible residents would be ready.
The first clinic in Surry County was held Feb. 6 at the high school in the small town of Dendron. The school district was inoculating teachers and other staff members when officials with the county and regional health district staff learned of extra doses, prompting a rush to get the word out.
Surry already had a waitlist of eligible people through a survey it designed to reach vulnerable residents. It used its emergency alert telephone system, since internet access is spotty.
Pierce got the call and quickly headed out with her father, Charles Robbins. It was a 20-minute drive to the high school and a two-hour wait. Pierce, 64, also got a shot, along with about 240 other people that day.
Three more vaccination clinics have been held in the county. And the regional health district had administered 1,080 doses there as of March 2. The number makes up the majority of doses that county residents have received, although several hundred received their shots outside of the county.
All told, about 1,800 county residents have received at least one dose. That’s about 28 percent of the population and was almost twice the state’s average rate. About half the people who’ve received vaccines are Black.
The Virginia Department of Health said that vaccine distribution has been based on population and COVID rates. But moving forward, the department said it’s considering tweaks to ensure more geographical and racial equity.
Pierce and her father were relieved to get their second shots in late February. But she said Surry’s rural character placed it at a disadvantage in the beginning.
“I have close friends, people who are essential workers, who’ve had to go as far away as an hour to get a shot,” she said. “You shouldn’t be marginalized by your ZIP code.”