Dahleen Glanton: Don’t blame African Americans for fearing the COVID-19 vaccine. Blame America
There aren’t many African Americans who don’t know about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. At some point, someone told us about the hundreds of Black men from rural Alabama who were forced to suffer from untreated syphilis.
They didn’t have to suffer. During the 40-year period, penicillin became widely accepted as an effective treatment for the sexually transmitted disease. But the government deliberately withheld treatment in order to see what would happen.
It was done without the men’s knowledge and consent. In return, the government provided them with burial insurance.
Long before President Bill Clinton
