AphroChic Magazine: Issue No. 11

WATCH LIST
The short documentary film Baltimore Speaks: Black Communities, COVID-19 and the Cost of Not Doing Enough
has made its premiere on baltimorespeaks.com. The documentary is the debut film from AphroChic, and it
was written and directed by AphroChic founders Bryan Mason and Jeanine Hays.
Funded by a grant from Black Public Media, the documentary focuses on the pandemic and its impact on the
Black community in Baltimore, told from the viewpoint of Baltimore community members. One of the nation’s
largest communities of African Americans, this Maryland city was deeply affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
Mason and Hays felt compelled to tell this story, especially in light of the fact that Hays herself has Long COVID.
“When we first were awarded the grant to tell the story of Baltimore’s Black community and COVID, we thought
this would be a story about vaccine hesitancy,” Mason says. “Instead, we found a city that has a population that
is over 60% Black, and within that community over 80% were already vaccinated. Through our interviews with
Baltimore’s citizens, community leaders, and health officials, we found a much deeper story, told in their own
words.” Mason and Hays produced this short documentary film to collect, acknowledge, and address Black
community concerns around vaccination, highlighting the city's accomplishments, recognizing the difficult
history of medical mistreatment of Black people, and to present the facts of vaccination.
Efforts at widespread vaccination among Baltimore’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. “We were excited to find that the city’s Black
community was tackling vaccine hesitancy head-on through 1-to-1 community interactions, which helped
propel vaccination rates,” Hays says. “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.” To
view the compelling documentary, go to baltimorespeaks.com.
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