Selected Podcast
Mayor Randall Woodfin on Racial Justice, COVID-19, and Birmingham's Future
Dr. Vickers talks with Mayor Randall Woodfin about the interconnected relationship of UAB and the city of Birmingham, the mayor’s experience with COVID-19, leading a city during crises, and bringing justice to communities of color.
Featuring:
Randall Woodfin
Randall Woodfin is the Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama.
Transcription:
Dr. Vickers: Mayor Woodfin, it's a pleasure and I want to thank you for joining me today on our episode of The Checkup. I am excited to have you here today. And as you know, as we are socially distanced, I look forward to this chance to have a dialogue with you and look forward to hear more about you and Birmingham as a city. But most of all, we're excited about having you here and welcome to The Checkup.
Mayor Woodfin: Doc, thanks for allowing me to be here. I will tell you, there are many gems and jewels in this city, you're one of them. In lieu of what's happening in 2020, glad to know that UAB, its leadership team and you have stepped up not only for this community, but have been a voice for the nation based on everything I've read and saw and heard. So thank you so much.
Dr. Vickers: Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. I want to cover a little bit about Birmingham, Black History Month, COVID, little health disparities, so a lot of the things that hopefully are in your wheelhouse. But I want to congratulate you on the announcement of your plan and your campaign for reelection. I'm excited to see that and I think many of us are. But want to hear briefly, what's your vision for Birmingham? What's left uncomplete? What do you want to see accomplished in this next go-round?
Mayor Woodfin: I think my vision for the city is to improve the quality of life of every citizen that lives here and create an ecosystem where anyone else who would like opportunity wants to come here. It's that short. It's that simple.
Dr. Vickers: Well, you know, that resonates with us. Our business is about getting income, bringing people to Birmingham to work at UAB in the city. And we are appreciative of any leader, particularly who wants to make us an attractive place for people to come from around the country and the world.
Mayor Woodfin: Yes, sir. You've mentioned, what's uncompleted? Everything is. I'm unaware of any elected official to be able to solve anything in three years. I've been the mayor only three years and one month. I haven't even completed four years. And so the things around quality of life, when I think of the average mother or grandmother who lives in a particular block or a particular street in a neighborhood West of 65, we have more black removal to get done. We have more streets to paint. We have more neighborhood parks to invest in. We have more lights to make LED. We have more guns to take off the street. We have more investments to do in bringing healthy food to these food deserts. We have more to do around creating opportunities for people to be gainfully employed, and we have more to do around economic development and creating jobs. There's a lot more work to be done.
Dr. Vickers: Well, we want to certainly be partners with you. You know the leadership of UAB values you and want to see that to be a partner in making that happen. Tell me why a vibrant and strong Birmingham is important for Jefferson County, the state of Alabama and the nation.
Mayor Woodfin: Well for the state -- I'll go out of order -- for the state, if I'm correct, we make up about well over 20% of the state's GDP. We are the hub of jobs for the state. We are the largest city in the state. For Jefferson County, we're the seat city. Although this region has about 1.2, 1.3 million people in the metro area, we know people flow into our city for their jobs and they flow out when they leave. But we are the hub of the county, we're the hub of the state related to the economic identity of this state and growth for this state, potential growth that is.
And so in a heart of our city, we're fortunate to have UAB. And what I like to remind people is that Birmingham has this identity of being called the Magic City, a city being founded in 1871 and that identity was rooted not only in our natural minerals, but it was tied to a pig iron and steel, et cetera. And you fast forward to the '70s and the city had to literally re-imagine itself. It had to create a new identity. That identity fell right on the shoulders of UAB.
And then you fast forward from the '70s to 2021, the present and the future of city of Birmingham is UAB and investments that UAB makes as well as the investments we as a community make UAB. When UAB meets Southern research, Birmingham's future is extremely bright, because when you talk about personalized medicine, when you talk about the future of genomics, when you talk about the future of where we're going in healthcare, UAB is to Birmingham and Birmingham is to UAB is the same as what John Hopkins is to Baltimore or what Baltimore is to Johns Hopkins. And we're linked. And I think that investments need to continue to be made. We have people like Senator Shelby, who makes them all the time. You have the partnerships with the county and other municipalities and the city of Birmingham has to be at the table as well.
Dr. Vickers: You're a great example. I've been to Baltimore and grew up, spent 16 years in Baltimore, that analogy is apropos, very, very similar to the institutions and to the cities. Well, this year of 2020 has been unique in a lot of ways, the pandemic, which we're still living through, the issues related to racial justice and health disparities that we've seen work throughout the impact on communities of color, but you actually have a firsthand experience with COVID. You don't have to go ask somebody what this thing is like and what it means. Tell us about your experience. And I know as a person early on, you've observed rules, you've led rules and you've actually moved the city toward a mask ordinance even before our state did, so I know you're careful. But tell me your experience with COVID. What was it like and would you wish it on your worst enemy?
Mayor Woodfin: So it was awful. I would not wish it on anybody, including my worst enemy. And I don't even think I have any enemies. I will also say that I'm one of those people where you asked me to do the tracking and tracing, I have no clue how I got it. No one in my intimate circle got it. And when I say intimate circle, no one I work with got it, no family members, so no one else got it. So I had no clue how I got it.
Here's what I do know. I had three phases, the first phase, you know, there's some people that have no symptoms, some have few symptoms. I had all the symptoms. No taste, no smell, body chills, body aches, fever, fatigue, and definitely the weirdest part, waking up in the middle of the night like I've been in the swimming pool or something. I just woke up drenched in sweat. I mean, it was pretty bad. All of those symptoms combined lasted I would say somewhere between the first four or five days. And all of a sudden, I started having trouble breathing.
Well, the day I tested positive my primary doctor recommended I get an oximeter and I was checking it every day. Well, I've noticed it started going down, I think the 30 was a Wednesday. By that Monday, I was at 90s. My doctor told me if it gets too low 90s or high 80s, you need to call me. I called him. I explained to him not only was I having a hard time breathing, but just the way I was feeling. He suggested I come in. It turns out I had pneumonia on my left lung. I had to be hospitalized for three days. I got Remdesivir and I got plasma and I was on IV steroids and all this other antibacterial, inflammation. It was a lot of things they had me on.
The good news is I got better. I was glad to be kicked out of the hospital. I made up in my mind if I walked in on my own, even though I was struggling, I was going to walk out on my own. And I feel blessed because a lot of people don't have that experience that I had walking out. I'm home. I think I'm getting better. I'm pretty fatigued and still weak, but I feel I'm getting better. And all of a sudden, I don't know, doc, it had to be about four or five days later, middle of the night so I would say 2:00, 2:30 in the morning, I woke up and all my extremities, my arms, my legs were feeling-- I have no clue what a stroke feels like, but I've heard some of the symptoms people describe. And it frightened me to the point where I called my doctor first thing in the morning.
Here's what I remember, it was hard to move. In middle of the night, it took me five minutes in my own place to walk from my bed to my bathroom. It shouldn't take anybody five minutes in your house. I don't care how big your house is. And I don't even have a house, I have a loft, so it's not the biggest thing, right? It turns out I have something called neuro-COVID and for me it attacked, I guess, the joints and muscles in my extremities, mainly in my legs. And there was about a three and a half, four-day window where it was extremely painful to walk.
I'm better now. I'm back at work now. I have my taste, my smell back. I can walk again. I do notice now that three flights of stairs, I'm kind of out of breath. I do notice if I'm pacing back and forth from my home while talking on the phone, I'm kind of out of breath. But overall I feel good and I feel blessed.
And the worst part about it, the second or third day I was in the hospital, my grandmother, who would be 88 today, literally it's birthday today. I was not able to attend her funeral and unfortunately, she died from COVID. So I have my personal experience of getting it. You heard it for almost a year, people saying how the entire funeral experience and not being able to see your loved one in the hospital has changed. I saw it up close. I wouldn't wish this on anybody, doc.
Dr. Vickers: Mayor, how do you build on the courage to take the stance to say and insist people wear a mask and also now realize that by doing that, a lot of lives probably were saved.
Mayor Woodfin: Well, you just said the words, saving lives. I go back to March when this thing pretty much got outside of the New York space in our country. And I remember February, watching it, right? We're all watching governor Cuomo on the TV every single day. And I'm like, "Man, I'm feeling bad for citizens in New York and residents." And I know people up there, so I'm calling them, texting them, checking on them.
And then when it started coming South, here's where my mind and my thoughts immediately went to, this thing is going to kill people. And I'm afraid as a leader of the community. This thing is going to overrun the hospitals and I'm afraid for healthcare workers. This thing is going to change our lives. I'm afraid. There was genuine fear. So what kicked in was very direct. I'm going to do everything I can to save lives. I don't care if it's not politically correct. I don't care if it's unpopular. We're going to do the right thing to save lives. So every decision I made was through the lens of saving lives and I genuinely mean that. And so a face mask ordinance or partnering with the health department to shed certain segments down of our economy was a no brainer, because I was afraid and didn't want people to die on my watch.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. No, I fully understand. And that they hear that conviction, that overriding any sense that some people have of political expediency, it was making the right decision, doing the right thing and not realizing that not everybody might agree with it.
Mayor Woodfin: Politically, it was one of the craziest times ever.
Dr. Vickers: Oh, it unbelievably was. So I remember when we first started this pandemic in maybe May and June, we had a Facebook telecast and panel with some local pastors, myself, and some leaders from the school of public health. We had our 136,000 people watch it. But it was to really speak to the fact, if you remember this, that many African-Americans didn't think that they could get COVID, that it was largely a disease that affected white people, but not African-Americans.
Mayor Woodfin: Yes, sir. I remember.
Dr. Vickers: You fast forward now, and we know it's a disease that affects people of color much worse disproportionately and the deaths that we see still in our ICU, in our area, have been pronounced for our people of color, for, you know, being essential workers often living in dense places, having you know, underlying disease, all those things have worked against them in so many ways.
What do you now give in your messaging to people who now think seeing all of this damage come to our community, but still have this fear about the vaccine and worried whether is this another Tuskegee episode? Is this another episode in South America? Is this an episode of where I felt the last time I went to a hospital, I wasn't treated right? How do you speak to our community in light of that?
Mayor Woodfin: I acknowledged the distrust. I acknowledge it. Some people's history is directly tied to their own personal family experiences from a generational standpoint. Others are tied to all the stories they've heard that have been passed down. And the bottom line is there is not enough trust related to vaccinations.
And I first speak to that by simply saying, "I get it. You're right. There's a history here." But what I want to explain to you where we are in 2021 and especially in 2020. The Rona is, what I say, you know, plain language, it is a killer and they will kill you. And it is disproportionately killing us in the black community than any other community and a city that's not only 74% black and the city where there's not only concentrated poverty and the city thats--This is one of the weirdest things, doc. You have all these hospitals, but it's the full disconnect for access to healthcare.
You got to get it because I want you to live. You got to get it because I don't want you to end up in the hospital. You got to get it because I want you to get back to your way of life. You have to take this vaccination because I want you to be able to spend time with your grandchildren again and hug your family members.
Speak plain. And you know, before I got it, I was ready to get out there and speak and use me as an example of taking it. I saw your public example and we got to just have more people take it. You know, I would love to have a row of pastors because everybody loves their faith leaders to take it. I would love to see professional athletes from this community take it, et cetera. People who have credibility, that's going to be the fastest way. If they see people they trust, if they see people, they know take the vaccination, then I think that's the easiest way to build more trust, the faster way to build trust. And this is really about building trust.
Dr. Vickers: Well, I think you're right. And hopefully, it is not a one-time event with our communities. I think you're spot on. I imagined it in the context as a little kid. I remember I wanted to go to the store and get some candy, But I wouldn't, I got beat up on the way. Now, I did not choose not ever to go to the store again, because there was something there that was going to be good for me in my mind. I found another way to get there. So there have been historical obstacles for us as a people in healthcare, but my message is like yours, don't let our past define our future, right? Because what happened to us in the past needs to inform us so that we are wise, smarter and ask better questions, but don't let it keep us from something that's going to help us.
Mayor Woodfin: You're right. And then look, we talk about, on my left hand, the three things, the three crises that existed, you had literally a global pandemic, then you have an economic crisis and then you have the civil unrest with the racial injustice. One of those alone is too much. Two, but three there's no handbook to address all three in any of our capacities. When you go back to the amount of-- it started in one hand that COVID is a hoax. And then it went to, "Well, it'll go away soon" or "No, this is not our disease" or whatever. There was too much misinformation out there, overwhelmed to the point where people didn't know to get the right and best source. That compounds the history that's not necessarily sitting well with an entire community. So the combination of those two things, it's not only an uphill battle fighting history, but it's an uphill battle fighting the amount of misinformation that existed that was created in 2020.
Dr. Vickers: I agree. And I appreciate you pointing out this combination and this cataclysmic challenge of 2020 with all three of these, if you would, massive issues related to financial health, the medical issue of the pandemic and then the civil unrest related to racial justice. I tell people, and you know this to be true too, that if George Floyd were killed in Birmingham, Alabama, that would be an Alabama problem. Because George Flores was killed in Minneapolis, that was an American problem.
Mayor Woodfin: That is
Dr. Vickers: correct.
correct What do you think Birmingham's role and what needs to occur in our city, our region to really address these issues of racial justice?
Mayor Woodfin: we need to be the model. I go back to our history and when I say history, recent history, I'm referring to the civil rights movement. You know, I'm not going to call it amnesia, but people should be reminded. How about that, doc? That's better. People should be reminded that there was racial injustice and discrimination and black people being treated and regulated as second class citizens all across America and especially all across the South. The difference between Birmingham and the rest of America, we reckon our differences on the world states.
So everybody saw the resistance here, full display. I think if you fast forward to what happened in 2020 with George Floyd and moving forward, I think it's very clear Birmingham's role in racial equity and justice. We need to be a model. We need to have a model police force, a force that's intentional about being a bridge and building trust, which is everyday work. That's never going to stop, building trust.
Because just like in the medical space and taking a vaccination, building trust with the police department is extremely hard based on America's history with policing in the black community. I think the second thing is reforms shouldn't be a knee-jerk reaction when a police department is exposed. And so what I've told my chief, what I've told them all, we created a task force, "Let's peel back where our policies are to make sure nothing happens here." And then the third thing is simple, the relationships in the community, again, making sure our officers don't engage only when there is a violation or a crime, what are officer's roles just on a day-to-day basis and their human interaction with citizens.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. We had a large grant, which you may have known about looking at African-American men's health. And we had an event with a police chief who talked about this transition. It's never clear to me why we left it, the power of community policing, the power of having people in the community versus what he described now was the police being an occupying force, right?
They show up and they're first to protect themselves and protect others. But they don't know the community well and they don't know and have the relationships. And it's by no means to say their jobs are not dangerous and difficult, but obviously it takes on a different perspective when you actually are engaged as a part of the community and it changes how you interact and how you pursue things when you know the people there.
Mayor Woodfin: So can I ask a question in response to what you just said? Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this. Do you believe the reasons as a child you grew up wanting and dreaming to be a doctor are the same wants and dreams current people in medical school who want to be a doctor?
Dr. Vickers: I think so. I think so.
Mayor Woodfin: Well, yeah, I wondered that I don't have an answer for people who want to be police officers. I do know it's hard. I do know when a George Floyd situation happens, that it's harder to recruit good people to want to be police officers, right? Medical malpractices cases aren't on display to your face. And if they were, would people still have the same wants and dreams to want to be at medical doctor?
Dr. Vickers: Nobody's ever been sent to a bad doctor.
Mayor Woodfin: Right? So the point is, you know, I believe majority of officers are great people. I know because I got a chance for eight years as a lawyer to interact with them. They were my number one witness as a prosecutor. Good men, good women, black, white, young, older. They're just like you and I, doc. They want to serve the community and then they want to go on to their family. Normal people.
But one bad apple, two bad apples, and I don't have to tell you, you can spoil a whole lot of things. And right now the temperature in the community is more police accountability. And I think that's something the chief and I have to push, because it's extremely important when you represent a city like this and it can't be that way where they only just respond to crime. That's not the only thing police are supposed to.
Dr. Vickers: Yes. As someone said, whenever there are rules without relationships, you get rebellion, right?
Mayor Woodfin: Sounds like a relationship for real, like boyfriend and girlfriend.
Dr. Vickers: Well, but you know, when people you have, you can't be able to often correct them or get them if you don't know them and they don't know you. And I think obviously being police is about enforcing the law and that's their job, but I think your points are tremendously well-taken.
We're trying to address the same issue in our own community around racial justice. I agree because we're in Birmingham, Alabama, we do need to be a model. And we need to be an example for the dialogue around critical issues for human rights and civil rights for the world. And I think we have the platform to do it.
So in light of all of the things we've talked about with racial injustice, and I agree with you that Birmingham needs to be a model. UAB wants to be a model because of where we sit in the present, but also where we have been in history. How would you like to see black history month celebrated in Birmingham and how do you prefer to do it?
Mayor Woodfin: So I prefer to do it by deviating from our usual heroes. I love our usual heroes. I love Dr. Martin Luther King, but I think we should go deeper on Fred Shuttlesworth because Fred Shuttlesworth brought King to Birmingham, all right? And knowing the history, if you go deeper, you know that what happened here was first attempted in Albany, Georgia, and it failed. And so sometimes you got to go that deep to understand. Literally for every Martin Luther King, there was a Fred Shuttlesworth and their styles were very different, but they complimented each other. I love Rosa Parks, but there was so many more strong, powerful black women who put an imprint in the civil rights movement.
And so I think our usual heroes we should celebrate, but I think we should always be exposing our children especially K through 12 to other black people in the Birmingham community and the nation who made a difference in the black community, especially around their activism, civil rights, et cetera.
I think the other thing I would like to see celebrated -- I'm sitting here at UAB. Coronavirus, we already knew it, but the coronavirus peeled back the gaps in access to healthcare for the black community. But come on? How can we call ourselves a medical hub, and literally don't take this month to celebrate and promote all the history, black history that is, that black Americans, male and female made in medicine? I don't see it on display. I'd love to see that.
Dr. Vickers: No, that's a great example. We'll take that as a challenge. I think that we've often forgotten that this is a time where we can celebrate those contributions. And there are many, particularly people who-- I'll name two. Percy Julian from Montgomery, Levi Watkins from Montgomery. And I think there are plenty that we can recognize for their contributions. So I think you're spot on that that digging under a little deeper there's some unsung heroes. We can do the same usual cast, but there are plenty who made them able to stand on a stage to be known broadly and publicly who were behind the scenes doing the hard work.
See, you're so much better than me, doc. Unsung heroes. You said it in two words. I went all off script.
So as we see a glimmer of hope with cases dropping, treatments being developed and the vaccine rolled out, what do you want to see happen in Birmingham as we get out of this pandemic? What do you want to see happen on our issues of racial justice and health disparities? What do you want to see happen economically for our city to get back on its feet? And what do you want us to be as a community as we go forward? Hopefully, we are like a rubber band that's been held back and we're able to shoot forward at a rapid pace. But how are you thinking about how do we move out of this quickly?
Mayor Woodfin: So those are really good questions. The first place I'll start with the vaccination. I want a better rollout. I know UAB, your hands are tied with the state and its logistical rollout as it relates to rules. But UAB does a lot of things right. And as it relates to opportunity and access for people to get vaccinated, I hope you all are unleashed and able to get it to the community, so people can be vaccinated. I think that's the first thing.
I think once that happens and we, you know, get into a routine of getting back to our way of life, our economic identity, if there was ever a time to triple down on logistics and tech and personalized medicine and healthcare, now's the time. And we need to run as fast as we can. I mean, run so fast, we put up a hole in our pair of shoes. That's how fast we need to run towards our economic identity because that is not only going to be the way we grow our economy, it's going to be the way we pull up everybody, including those people you said who need more access to healthcare.
And speaking of, I know there's so many things we talk about with disadvantages of access to healthcare, but I can't really move past the birth mortality rate. And I think that's a great place to start.
Dr. Vickers: We're the worst in the country.
Mayor Woodfin: And if we can fix that, then don't tell me we can't fix any other piece of gaps as it relates to access to health care.
Dr. Vickers: Well, it's encouraging to hear you put that in perspective. I agree UAB has an opportunity and role to really support our city. And I think you will see that we're going to do that. And I think we got a long ways to go. There, a lot of vaccines to come in and there are a lot of vaccinations to give, but we're committed to make that happen and in many ways, want to be a model for the nation. We have some limitations externally that we can't control, but they won't always be there. There'll eventually be enough vaccines. We need to be prepared to give them to everybody and make sure they have access to them.
Mayor Woodfin: Yes, sir.
Dr. Vickers: I fully agree that the distinction of who we are for innovative new companies, new methods of doing things, we need to put ourselves on the map for doing it. And we do need to re run very hard to do so.
I think this has been a special time, both to hear for someone who the UAB community admires, what you've brought to the city, the energy you brought, the attraction you've created for people to move back into the city and the vision you bring. We're all proud to be a part of this community because of your leadership.
So we look forward to you running a good race and continuing the good work that you've started. And again, we thank you for your contributions to our podcast, The Checkup. Thank you, Mayor Woodfin.
Mayor Woodfin: Thank you, doc. I'll come chop it up with you anytime, sir.
Dr. Vickers: All right. Thank you.
Dr. Vickers: Mayor Woodfin, it's a pleasure and I want to thank you for joining me today on our episode of The Checkup. I am excited to have you here today. And as you know, as we are socially distanced, I look forward to this chance to have a dialogue with you and look forward to hear more about you and Birmingham as a city. But most of all, we're excited about having you here and welcome to The Checkup.
Mayor Woodfin: Doc, thanks for allowing me to be here. I will tell you, there are many gems and jewels in this city, you're one of them. In lieu of what's happening in 2020, glad to know that UAB, its leadership team and you have stepped up not only for this community, but have been a voice for the nation based on everything I've read and saw and heard. So thank you so much.
Dr. Vickers: Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. I want to cover a little bit about Birmingham, Black History Month, COVID, little health disparities, so a lot of the things that hopefully are in your wheelhouse. But I want to congratulate you on the announcement of your plan and your campaign for reelection. I'm excited to see that and I think many of us are. But want to hear briefly, what's your vision for Birmingham? What's left uncomplete? What do you want to see accomplished in this next go-round?
Mayor Woodfin: I think my vision for the city is to improve the quality of life of every citizen that lives here and create an ecosystem where anyone else who would like opportunity wants to come here. It's that short. It's that simple.
Dr. Vickers: Well, you know, that resonates with us. Our business is about getting income, bringing people to Birmingham to work at UAB in the city. And we are appreciative of any leader, particularly who wants to make us an attractive place for people to come from around the country and the world.
Mayor Woodfin: Yes, sir. You've mentioned, what's uncompleted? Everything is. I'm unaware of any elected official to be able to solve anything in three years. I've been the mayor only three years and one month. I haven't even completed four years. And so the things around quality of life, when I think of the average mother or grandmother who lives in a particular block or a particular street in a neighborhood West of 65, we have more black removal to get done. We have more streets to paint. We have more neighborhood parks to invest in. We have more lights to make LED. We have more guns to take off the street. We have more investments to do in bringing healthy food to these food deserts. We have more to do around creating opportunities for people to be gainfully employed, and we have more to do around economic development and creating jobs. There's a lot more work to be done.
Dr. Vickers: Well, we want to certainly be partners with you. You know the leadership of UAB values you and want to see that to be a partner in making that happen. Tell me why a vibrant and strong Birmingham is important for Jefferson County, the state of Alabama and the nation.
Mayor Woodfin: Well for the state -- I'll go out of order -- for the state, if I'm correct, we make up about well over 20% of the state's GDP. We are the hub of jobs for the state. We are the largest city in the state. For Jefferson County, we're the seat city. Although this region has about 1.2, 1.3 million people in the metro area, we know people flow into our city for their jobs and they flow out when they leave. But we are the hub of the county, we're the hub of the state related to the economic identity of this state and growth for this state, potential growth that is.
And so in a heart of our city, we're fortunate to have UAB. And what I like to remind people is that Birmingham has this identity of being called the Magic City, a city being founded in 1871 and that identity was rooted not only in our natural minerals, but it was tied to a pig iron and steel, et cetera. And you fast forward to the '70s and the city had to literally re-imagine itself. It had to create a new identity. That identity fell right on the shoulders of UAB.
And then you fast forward from the '70s to 2021, the present and the future of city of Birmingham is UAB and investments that UAB makes as well as the investments we as a community make UAB. When UAB meets Southern research, Birmingham's future is extremely bright, because when you talk about personalized medicine, when you talk about the future of genomics, when you talk about the future of where we're going in healthcare, UAB is to Birmingham and Birmingham is to UAB is the same as what John Hopkins is to Baltimore or what Baltimore is to Johns Hopkins. And we're linked. And I think that investments need to continue to be made. We have people like Senator Shelby, who makes them all the time. You have the partnerships with the county and other municipalities and the city of Birmingham has to be at the table as well.
Dr. Vickers: You're a great example. I've been to Baltimore and grew up, spent 16 years in Baltimore, that analogy is apropos, very, very similar to the institutions and to the cities. Well, this year of 2020 has been unique in a lot of ways, the pandemic, which we're still living through, the issues related to racial justice and health disparities that we've seen work throughout the impact on communities of color, but you actually have a firsthand experience with COVID. You don't have to go ask somebody what this thing is like and what it means. Tell us about your experience. And I know as a person early on, you've observed rules, you've led rules and you've actually moved the city toward a mask ordinance even before our state did, so I know you're careful. But tell me your experience with COVID. What was it like and would you wish it on your worst enemy?
Mayor Woodfin: So it was awful. I would not wish it on anybody, including my worst enemy. And I don't even think I have any enemies. I will also say that I'm one of those people where you asked me to do the tracking and tracing, I have no clue how I got it. No one in my intimate circle got it. And when I say intimate circle, no one I work with got it, no family members, so no one else got it. So I had no clue how I got it.
Here's what I do know. I had three phases, the first phase, you know, there's some people that have no symptoms, some have few symptoms. I had all the symptoms. No taste, no smell, body chills, body aches, fever, fatigue, and definitely the weirdest part, waking up in the middle of the night like I've been in the swimming pool or something. I just woke up drenched in sweat. I mean, it was pretty bad. All of those symptoms combined lasted I would say somewhere between the first four or five days. And all of a sudden, I started having trouble breathing.
Well, the day I tested positive my primary doctor recommended I get an oximeter and I was checking it every day. Well, I've noticed it started going down, I think the 30 was a Wednesday. By that Monday, I was at 90s. My doctor told me if it gets too low 90s or high 80s, you need to call me. I called him. I explained to him not only was I having a hard time breathing, but just the way I was feeling. He suggested I come in. It turns out I had pneumonia on my left lung. I had to be hospitalized for three days. I got Remdesivir and I got plasma and I was on IV steroids and all this other antibacterial, inflammation. It was a lot of things they had me on.
The good news is I got better. I was glad to be kicked out of the hospital. I made up in my mind if I walked in on my own, even though I was struggling, I was going to walk out on my own. And I feel blessed because a lot of people don't have that experience that I had walking out. I'm home. I think I'm getting better. I'm pretty fatigued and still weak, but I feel I'm getting better. And all of a sudden, I don't know, doc, it had to be about four or five days later, middle of the night so I would say 2:00, 2:30 in the morning, I woke up and all my extremities, my arms, my legs were feeling-- I have no clue what a stroke feels like, but I've heard some of the symptoms people describe. And it frightened me to the point where I called my doctor first thing in the morning.
Here's what I remember, it was hard to move. In middle of the night, it took me five minutes in my own place to walk from my bed to my bathroom. It shouldn't take anybody five minutes in your house. I don't care how big your house is. And I don't even have a house, I have a loft, so it's not the biggest thing, right? It turns out I have something called neuro-COVID and for me it attacked, I guess, the joints and muscles in my extremities, mainly in my legs. And there was about a three and a half, four-day window where it was extremely painful to walk.
I'm better now. I'm back at work now. I have my taste, my smell back. I can walk again. I do notice now that three flights of stairs, I'm kind of out of breath. I do notice if I'm pacing back and forth from my home while talking on the phone, I'm kind of out of breath. But overall I feel good and I feel blessed.
And the worst part about it, the second or third day I was in the hospital, my grandmother, who would be 88 today, literally it's birthday today. I was not able to attend her funeral and unfortunately, she died from COVID. So I have my personal experience of getting it. You heard it for almost a year, people saying how the entire funeral experience and not being able to see your loved one in the hospital has changed. I saw it up close. I wouldn't wish this on anybody, doc.
Dr. Vickers: Mayor, how do you build on the courage to take the stance to say and insist people wear a mask and also now realize that by doing that, a lot of lives probably were saved.
Mayor Woodfin: Well, you just said the words, saving lives. I go back to March when this thing pretty much got outside of the New York space in our country. And I remember February, watching it, right? We're all watching governor Cuomo on the TV every single day. And I'm like, "Man, I'm feeling bad for citizens in New York and residents." And I know people up there, so I'm calling them, texting them, checking on them.
And then when it started coming South, here's where my mind and my thoughts immediately went to, this thing is going to kill people. And I'm afraid as a leader of the community. This thing is going to overrun the hospitals and I'm afraid for healthcare workers. This thing is going to change our lives. I'm afraid. There was genuine fear. So what kicked in was very direct. I'm going to do everything I can to save lives. I don't care if it's not politically correct. I don't care if it's unpopular. We're going to do the right thing to save lives. So every decision I made was through the lens of saving lives and I genuinely mean that. And so a face mask ordinance or partnering with the health department to shed certain segments down of our economy was a no brainer, because I was afraid and didn't want people to die on my watch.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. No, I fully understand. And that they hear that conviction, that overriding any sense that some people have of political expediency, it was making the right decision, doing the right thing and not realizing that not everybody might agree with it.
Mayor Woodfin: Politically, it was one of the craziest times ever.
Dr. Vickers: Oh, it unbelievably was. So I remember when we first started this pandemic in maybe May and June, we had a Facebook telecast and panel with some local pastors, myself, and some leaders from the school of public health. We had our 136,000 people watch it. But it was to really speak to the fact, if you remember this, that many African-Americans didn't think that they could get COVID, that it was largely a disease that affected white people, but not African-Americans.
Mayor Woodfin: Yes, sir. I remember.
Dr. Vickers: You fast forward now, and we know it's a disease that affects people of color much worse disproportionately and the deaths that we see still in our ICU, in our area, have been pronounced for our people of color, for, you know, being essential workers often living in dense places, having you know, underlying disease, all those things have worked against them in so many ways.
What do you now give in your messaging to people who now think seeing all of this damage come to our community, but still have this fear about the vaccine and worried whether is this another Tuskegee episode? Is this another episode in South America? Is this an episode of where I felt the last time I went to a hospital, I wasn't treated right? How do you speak to our community in light of that?
Mayor Woodfin: I acknowledged the distrust. I acknowledge it. Some people's history is directly tied to their own personal family experiences from a generational standpoint. Others are tied to all the stories they've heard that have been passed down. And the bottom line is there is not enough trust related to vaccinations.
And I first speak to that by simply saying, "I get it. You're right. There's a history here." But what I want to explain to you where we are in 2021 and especially in 2020. The Rona is, what I say, you know, plain language, it is a killer and they will kill you. And it is disproportionately killing us in the black community than any other community and a city that's not only 74% black and the city where there's not only concentrated poverty and the city thats--This is one of the weirdest things, doc. You have all these hospitals, but it's the full disconnect for access to healthcare.
You got to get it because I want you to live. You got to get it because I don't want you to end up in the hospital. You got to get it because I want you to get back to your way of life. You have to take this vaccination because I want you to be able to spend time with your grandchildren again and hug your family members.
Speak plain. And you know, before I got it, I was ready to get out there and speak and use me as an example of taking it. I saw your public example and we got to just have more people take it. You know, I would love to have a row of pastors because everybody loves their faith leaders to take it. I would love to see professional athletes from this community take it, et cetera. People who have credibility, that's going to be the fastest way. If they see people they trust, if they see people, they know take the vaccination, then I think that's the easiest way to build more trust, the faster way to build trust. And this is really about building trust.
Dr. Vickers: Well, I think you're right. And hopefully, it is not a one-time event with our communities. I think you're spot on. I imagined it in the context as a little kid. I remember I wanted to go to the store and get some candy, But I wouldn't, I got beat up on the way. Now, I did not choose not ever to go to the store again, because there was something there that was going to be good for me in my mind. I found another way to get there. So there have been historical obstacles for us as a people in healthcare, but my message is like yours, don't let our past define our future, right? Because what happened to us in the past needs to inform us so that we are wise, smarter and ask better questions, but don't let it keep us from something that's going to help us.
Mayor Woodfin: You're right. And then look, we talk about, on my left hand, the three things, the three crises that existed, you had literally a global pandemic, then you have an economic crisis and then you have the civil unrest with the racial injustice. One of those alone is too much. Two, but three there's no handbook to address all three in any of our capacities. When you go back to the amount of-- it started in one hand that COVID is a hoax. And then it went to, "Well, it'll go away soon" or "No, this is not our disease" or whatever. There was too much misinformation out there, overwhelmed to the point where people didn't know to get the right and best source. That compounds the history that's not necessarily sitting well with an entire community. So the combination of those two things, it's not only an uphill battle fighting history, but it's an uphill battle fighting the amount of misinformation that existed that was created in 2020.
Dr. Vickers: I agree. And I appreciate you pointing out this combination and this cataclysmic challenge of 2020 with all three of these, if you would, massive issues related to financial health, the medical issue of the pandemic and then the civil unrest related to racial justice. I tell people, and you know this to be true too, that if George Floyd were killed in Birmingham, Alabama, that would be an Alabama problem. Because George Flores was killed in Minneapolis, that was an American problem.
Mayor Woodfin: That is
Dr. Vickers: correct.
correct What do you think Birmingham's role and what needs to occur in our city, our region to really address these issues of racial justice?
Mayor Woodfin: we need to be the model. I go back to our history and when I say history, recent history, I'm referring to the civil rights movement. You know, I'm not going to call it amnesia, but people should be reminded. How about that, doc? That's better. People should be reminded that there was racial injustice and discrimination and black people being treated and regulated as second class citizens all across America and especially all across the South. The difference between Birmingham and the rest of America, we reckon our differences on the world states.
So everybody saw the resistance here, full display. I think if you fast forward to what happened in 2020 with George Floyd and moving forward, I think it's very clear Birmingham's role in racial equity and justice. We need to be a model. We need to have a model police force, a force that's intentional about being a bridge and building trust, which is everyday work. That's never going to stop, building trust.
Because just like in the medical space and taking a vaccination, building trust with the police department is extremely hard based on America's history with policing in the black community. I think the second thing is reforms shouldn't be a knee-jerk reaction when a police department is exposed. And so what I've told my chief, what I've told them all, we created a task force, "Let's peel back where our policies are to make sure nothing happens here." And then the third thing is simple, the relationships in the community, again, making sure our officers don't engage only when there is a violation or a crime, what are officer's roles just on a day-to-day basis and their human interaction with citizens.
Dr. Vickers: Yeah. We had a large grant, which you may have known about looking at African-American men's health. And we had an event with a police chief who talked about this transition. It's never clear to me why we left it, the power of community policing, the power of having people in the community versus what he described now was the police being an occupying force, right?
They show up and they're first to protect themselves and protect others. But they don't know the community well and they don't know and have the relationships. And it's by no means to say their jobs are not dangerous and difficult, but obviously it takes on a different perspective when you actually are engaged as a part of the community and it changes how you interact and how you pursue things when you know the people there.
Mayor Woodfin: So can I ask a question in response to what you just said? Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this. Do you believe the reasons as a child you grew up wanting and dreaming to be a doctor are the same wants and dreams current people in medical school who want to be a doctor?
Dr. Vickers: I think so. I think so.
Mayor Woodfin: Well, yeah, I wondered that I don't have an answer for people who want to be police officers. I do know it's hard. I do know when a George Floyd situation happens, that it's harder to recruit good people to want to be police officers, right? Medical malpractices cases aren't on display to your face. And if they were, would people still have the same wants and dreams to want to be at medical doctor?
Dr. Vickers: Nobody's ever been sent to a bad doctor.
Mayor Woodfin: Right? So the point is, you know, I believe majority of officers are great people. I know because I got a chance for eight years as a lawyer to interact with them. They were my number one witness as a prosecutor. Good men, good women, black, white, young, older. They're just like you and I, doc. They want to serve the community and then they want to go on to their family. Normal people.
But one bad apple, two bad apples, and I don't have to tell you, you can spoil a whole lot of things. And right now the temperature in the community is more police accountability. And I think that's something the chief and I have to push, because it's extremely important when you represent a city like this and it can't be that way where they only just respond to crime. That's not the only thing police are supposed to.
Dr. Vickers: Yes. As someone said, whenever there are rules without relationships, you get rebellion, right?
Mayor Woodfin: Sounds like a relationship for real, like boyfriend and girlfriend.
Dr. Vickers: Well, but you know, when people you have, you can't be able to often correct them or get them if you don't know them and they don't know you. And I think obviously being police is about enforcing the law and that's their job, but I think your points are tremendously well-taken.
We're trying to address the same issue in our own community around racial justice. I agree because we're in Birmingham, Alabama, we do need to be a model. And we need to be an example for the dialogue around critical issues for human rights and civil rights for the world. And I think we have the platform to do it.
So in light of all of the things we've talked about with racial injustice, and I agree with you that Birmingham needs to be a model. UAB wants to be a model because of where we sit in the present, but also where we have been in history. How would you like to see black history month celebrated in Birmingham and how do you prefer to do it?
Mayor Woodfin: So I prefer to do it by deviating from our usual heroes. I love our usual heroes. I love Dr. Martin Luther King, but I think we should go deeper on Fred Shuttlesworth because Fred Shuttlesworth brought King to Birmingham, all right? And knowing the history, if you go deeper, you know that what happened here was first attempted in Albany, Georgia, and it failed. And so sometimes you got to go that deep to understand. Literally for every Martin Luther King, there was a Fred Shuttlesworth and their styles were very different, but they complimented each other. I love Rosa Parks, but there was so many more strong, powerful black women who put an imprint in the civil rights movement.
And so I think our usual heroes we should celebrate, but I think we should always be exposing our children especially K through 12 to other black people in the Birmingham community and the nation who made a difference in the black community, especially around their activism, civil rights, et cetera.
I think the other thing I would like to see celebrated -- I'm sitting here at UAB. Coronavirus, we already knew it, but the coronavirus peeled back the gaps in access to healthcare for the black community. But come on? How can we call ourselves a medical hub, and literally don't take this month to celebrate and promote all the history, black history that is, that black Americans, male and female made in medicine? I don't see it on display. I'd love to see that.
Dr. Vickers: No, that's a great example. We'll take that as a challenge. I think that we've often forgotten that this is a time where we can celebrate those contributions. And there are many, particularly people who-- I'll name two. Percy Julian from Montgomery, Levi Watkins from Montgomery. And I think there are plenty that we can recognize for their contributions. So I think you're spot on that that digging under a little deeper there's some unsung heroes. We can do the same usual cast, but there are plenty who made them able to stand on a stage to be known broadly and publicly who were behind the scenes doing the hard work.
See, you're so much better than me, doc. Unsung heroes. You said it in two words. I went all off script.
So as we see a glimmer of hope with cases dropping, treatments being developed and the vaccine rolled out, what do you want to see happen in Birmingham as we get out of this pandemic? What do you want to see happen on our issues of racial justice and health disparities? What do you want to see happen economically for our city to get back on its feet? And what do you want us to be as a community as we go forward? Hopefully, we are like a rubber band that's been held back and we're able to shoot forward at a rapid pace. But how are you thinking about how do we move out of this quickly?
Mayor Woodfin: So those are really good questions. The first place I'll start with the vaccination. I want a better rollout. I know UAB, your hands are tied with the state and its logistical rollout as it relates to rules. But UAB does a lot of things right. And as it relates to opportunity and access for people to get vaccinated, I hope you all are unleashed and able to get it to the community, so people can be vaccinated. I think that's the first thing.
I think once that happens and we, you know, get into a routine of getting back to our way of life, our economic identity, if there was ever a time to triple down on logistics and tech and personalized medicine and healthcare, now's the time. And we need to run as fast as we can. I mean, run so fast, we put up a hole in our pair of shoes. That's how fast we need to run towards our economic identity because that is not only going to be the way we grow our economy, it's going to be the way we pull up everybody, including those people you said who need more access to healthcare.
And speaking of, I know there's so many things we talk about with disadvantages of access to healthcare, but I can't really move past the birth mortality rate. And I think that's a great place to start.
Dr. Vickers: We're the worst in the country.
Mayor Woodfin: And if we can fix that, then don't tell me we can't fix any other piece of gaps as it relates to access to health care.
Dr. Vickers: Well, it's encouraging to hear you put that in perspective. I agree UAB has an opportunity and role to really support our city. And I think you will see that we're going to do that. And I think we got a long ways to go. There, a lot of vaccines to come in and there are a lot of vaccinations to give, but we're committed to make that happen and in many ways, want to be a model for the nation. We have some limitations externally that we can't control, but they won't always be there. There'll eventually be enough vaccines. We need to be prepared to give them to everybody and make sure they have access to them.
Mayor Woodfin: Yes, sir.
Dr. Vickers: I fully agree that the distinction of who we are for innovative new companies, new methods of doing things, we need to put ourselves on the map for doing it. And we do need to re run very hard to do so.
I think this has been a special time, both to hear for someone who the UAB community admires, what you've brought to the city, the energy you brought, the attraction you've created for people to move back into the city and the vision you bring. We're all proud to be a part of this community because of your leadership.
So we look forward to you running a good race and continuing the good work that you've started. And again, we thank you for your contributions to our podcast, The Checkup. Thank you, Mayor Woodfin.
Mayor Woodfin: Thank you, doc. I'll come chop it up with you anytime, sir.
Dr. Vickers: All right. Thank you.