MIAMI (WSVN) - Dozens of local healthcare professionals joined growing nationwide calls for racial equality and justice in the death of George Floyd at a march held in Miami.
7News cameras captured dozens the protesters, many in scrubs and uniforms, as they chanted and held signs, Tuesday evening.
“When you have power and you see injustice, you have to say something,” said Dr. Anthony Okafor, who organized the march. “I’ve been quiet for so long. I can be quiet no longer.”
Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals met in front of the Miami Dade College Medical Campus.
Organizers named the demonstration White Coats for Black Lives.
For participants like Dr. Shanique Wilson, an internist, the protest is personal.
“A lot of the issues that we have with our patients and their poor outcomes is directly related to these systemically racist policies and procedures that are in place in society,” she said. “I can give you your medications, I can order the tests, but if you can’t even have a good bus route to your house because they don’t believe you need a bus route in your community, if you are living in a food desert, and the only thing nearby is a convenience store, like, what am I actually doing for you?”
The growing group made their way down Northwest 20th Street, then around Jackson Memorial Hospital on Northwest 12th Avenue.
“Wherever there’s injustice, there will never be peace!” demonstrators chanted.
The protesters eventually made a left turn on Northwest 14th Street before ending at the University of Miami Medical Campus.
While they demanded accountability in Floyd’s death, many of these doctors said their march is about much more than police brutality.
“At the hospital, when these patients come in, sometimes their symptoms are minimized, or they are seen as being illiterate or not able to comprehend what their problems are,” said Dr. Stacey Williamson, a neurologist, “and therefore, they suffer at the hands of people who don’t treat them like they would their own loved one.”
Williamson said she has a duty to speak up for other black women, and that’s why she’s using her voice to make a difference.
“It’s been very sobering, knowing that this fight that my grandmother and my mother fought for is something I have to continue,” she said, “and I have to continue. I can’t have my child — she’s 5 years old — I can’t have her growing up in this environment. Something has to be done now.”
Organizers said this is just beginning. Their next step is focusing on getting young voters out to the polls.
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