Philly Black doctors group works to combat health-care injustice on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

In March, when COVID-19 burst into America’s consciousness, Marvin Edwards did a mental checklist of all his ailments and shut his life down.

Edwards, 60, of North Philadelphia, has high blood pressure and diabetes, and survived heart surgeries.

“I’ve been in the house since it started,” Edwards said Monday morning. “They didn’t really have any testing where I was living, so I stayed in. It was like I was in prison.”

Edwards stood in the cold Monday with the help of a walker, one of hundreds who lined up to get free coronavirus testing at Girard College as part of the Fairmount boarding school’s 26th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

On a typical Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, Girard College is filled with thousands of volunteers lending their hands to a variety of causes. But as the pandemic changed the rules of indoor gatherings, it also changed the focus of 2021′s events, said Todd Bernstein, founder and director of the Greater Philadelphia King Day of Service.

Several dozen volunteer doctors and nurses helped combat the virus by administering tests and handing out PPE, while also trying to balance the racial inequities of health care. Black, Hispanic, and Latino populations are at a higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than white populations.

“This year it’s about saving lives,” Bernstein said.

» READ MORE: COVID-19 vaccines have gone mostly to white Philadelphians. Here’s what the city is doing to change that.

Bernstein said he reached out to Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon and founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, in the spring to see if she and her growing team of volunteers would be interested in spearheading an event. Stanford, whose consortium has tested thousands of city residents, accepted the challenge.

“Can you make sure everyone in the tent knows the tubes are to be labeled?” Stanford said over a two-way radio Monday morning on the college grounds.

Stanford said serving people outside in January, in a socially-distanced way, was the main challenge. She said about 25 medical personnel volunteered.

“Our usual [testing rate] is about 100 per hour but I think we could probably test up to 600 today,” Stanford said.

Before the testing started, Stanford was one of several people who spoke during a news conference inside Girard College. Nearly every elected official who spoke mentioned the racial disparities of the pandemic and their hopes for a more effective response from President-elect Joe Biden.

“One silver lining about the pandemic is how much it’s shown the world we need to improve health equity and racial inequity,” Mayor Jim Kenney said.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said that, too often, elected officials get the credit when volunteers turn the wheels of progress. While he spoke, medical volunteers were readying their testing kits in an adjacent room.

“You are the outsiders who should be the insiders,” Krasner told the crowd.

Kenney urged the community to get vaccinated against COVID-19 when their time comes. Neighbors seeing neighbors get the vaccine would help boost the public’s confidence in its efficacy, he said. Stanford said the consortium has tried to address concerns about the vaccine in the Black community. Among them: the history of racism in American medicine and the quick turnaround to create the vaccine. Even though the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been produced at record speed, they have been tested on thousands of people in clinical trials and approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Stanford said the consortium has registered 8,000 people to get the injections so far.

“We listen and we educate,” she said.

Outside, most of the people waiting in line on College Avenue for their COVID-19 tests were Black. Derrick Bullock, 53, of West Philadelphia, said mask-wearing is the simplest way for anyone to follow King’s message.

“I mean, you care about your fellow man, right? It’s pretty easy,” he said. “Except for Trump.”

Elizabeth Jones, 73, of North Philadelphia, said she wouldn’t be getting the vaccine, preferring to leave her fate in “the Lord’s hands.”

But toward the back of the line, Edwards said he was eager to be vaccinated and get back to living.

“If it’s good enough for President Joe Biden, it’s good enough for me,” Edwards said. “I’m ready to get out of my house.”