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Church, Health Groups Providing COVID-19 Vaccines in San Francisco

Published

5 years ago

March 25, 2021

Kiki

Third Baptist members waiting to get vaccinated. Photo courtesy of Dr. Jonathan Butler. Left to right: Dr. Malcolm John (Black Health Initiative), Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown (Senior Pastor, Third Baptist) Jane Brown (First Lady, Third Baptist Church), Veronica Shepard (San Francisco African American Faith-Based Coalition, founder), Betty Jones (Third Baptist member) Dr. Jonathan Butler (San Francisco African American Faith-Based Coalition, executive director)

One size, we know, does not fit all.

So, while, the Moscone Center is vaccinating thousands in the battle against COVID-19, a coalition of health and faith-based organizations is saving lives by the hundreds: and it’s working.

UCSF’s Black Health Initiative and San Francisco African American Faith-Based Coalition will offer Moderna vaccinations on Sunday, March 28, at Third Baptist Church at 1399 McAllister Street from 12 noon to 6:00 p.m. register for an appointment at www.thirdbaptist.org.

Those eligible to be vaccinated include individuals 18 years of age and older, who are:

healthcare workers
food/restaurant workers
grocery store workers
education and childcare workers
long-term care facility workers
emergency services workers

Also, those with certain chronic health conditions, the disabled, those living or working in congregate living spaces, and anyone who is homeless, or at risk of being homeless, can be vaccinated at this event.

Last Saturday, 150 people made appointments to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at Third Baptist Church. The week before, the vaccination site was Cornerstone Baptist Church. Future sites are the San Francisco Christian Center, New Providence Baptist Church, Double Rock Baptist Church and St. Paul of the Shipwreck just a few of the 21 congregations that are part of the coalition.

So far, each time the vaccine has been available – in a partnership with Walgreens- all of the vials have been used in inoculations. About 75% of the people who have come for the inoculation were Black; the remaining 25% were Latino and Asian.

It is well-documented that Black people are three times as likely to die from COVID-19 than whites. This effort, deliberately small and intimate, is aimed at closing that gap, little by little.

Jonathan Butler, a medical sociologist, spoke for the coalition, which is now also partnering with the San Francisco Dept. of Health and Walgreens. The coalition had been providing services since the onset of the pandemic: 250,000 meals have been served to 1,400 families, 10,000 from Third Baptist Church.

It is because of that previous service and the trust community members seem to have for the Black church, Butler said, that the coalition has been successful.

The vaccinators, physicians and administrators are mostly Black and people of color, Butler said. About 20 physicians or residents from UCSF are on hand throughout the course of the day answering questions and providing advice.

There is also value in intimacy of the small operation and the attention given to individuals, Butler said.

At most vaccination sites, people are required to wait 15 minutes to make sure you don’t have an adverse reaction.

The coalition personnel go even further: vaccine recipients will get a check-in call the next day and another one four days later. During those calls, recipients will also be asked what else they may need. Food? Counseling?

“We try to take care of the whole person,” Butler said.

Kiki

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 8 – 14, 2026

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.