tonight on "turning point." mistrust. minorities and medicine. >> what do you know about the vaccine? >> more often victims in this pandemic, more often victims of medical mistreatment in the past. >> if you don't know your history, you're bound to repeat it. >> the fight to rebuild faith and the reverend flipping the script. >> you had dr. fauci come to your church via zoom. >> dr. fauci came to my church. plus pixar finding its soul. >> you know what it's going to say? joe gardner! >> how jamie foxx is breaking barriers as the studio's first black lead. >> i don't think you've ever seen african-american characters that look this warm and this good. >> celebrating jazz and the power of representation. "turning point" will be right

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to rebuild their trust in medicine. silence and solitude. lily tyson-head needs a bit of both as she reflects on the trauma of her family's past, while leaning on faith in the future. >> things have changed. things have gotten better. but still needs to get a whole lot better. >> reporter: celebrations across the country hitting fever pitch as the new covid-19 vaccine begins to arrive. this long-awaited moment providing hope for so many amidst the pandemic. a study by the kaiser family foundation found 71% of americans say they definitely or probably will get the covid-19 vaccine. but black americans are far more hesitant. 35% say they probably or definitely will not get the vaccine. >> i want to know how much of the people who are doing the trials of the vaccine are african-american.

>> i'm still on the fence about the actual vaccine. and the african-american community, we never really receive anything that's going to be beneficial for us in the beginning. >> reporter: that distrust is well earned. lily's father was an unwitting player in one of the darkest chapters of our nation's history. >> my father was freddie lee tyson. my father is our hero. >> reporter: a share cropper in alabama in 1932, freddie lee tyson was one of 623 black men recruited into a medical study. we now know it as the infamous syphilis study at tuskegee. freddie thought it was a program to provide free health care. he had no idea the doctors' only interest was to study the infection he had been born with. >> they did not tell them they had syphilis. the only thing they told them, they had bad blood and they were treating the bad blood. but they were not, they were lying to the people. >> reporter: the study was run by the u.s. public health service. white doctors hoping to chart

the natural progression of syphilis in black men. >> what did your father think he was participating in? >> i would say they were looking to better their health and to better their conditions. he did not know that he was in a study. freddie did not know. >> reporter: the government went to extremes to keep it that way. even when penicillin became a safe and reliable cure, the study doctors actively prevented the men from getting it, circulating secret lists asking health providers not to treat them. some of the men were drafted into world war ii. the researchers had them rejected from the army so their syphilis would not be treated. >> talk about the misinformation surrounding the study. >> some people still think the men were injected with the virus. they were not. >> reporter: the truth about the study didn't surface until four decades later, in 1972, when a whistle-blower outed the experiment. >> when the cdc first called him, he was quite upset. he was angry.

and i also saw some shame. >> shame? say more. >> shame because he had been deceived. you have to understand, my father was a proud man. and he was honest. >> and our government treated him like a lab animal. >> right. these men deserved better. their dignity was taken away from them. the basic human needs of a person stripped from them. >> reporter: the syphilis study reinforced a painful reminder of the racism stitched in the very fabric of the medical system. >> as for the mistrust, i think it comes from the way that we have been treated over 400 years. the disparities, the criminal injustices, the social injustices, the economic injustices, the educational injustices. >> reporter: lily's daughter, carmen head-thornton, went into health care to change the system.

>> health care workers on one side, those needing care and needing vaccines on the other. we need more people on the health care worker side. >> reporter: that river of mistrust is at the very heart of the mission at the harry clinic in nashville, tennessee. we recognized the pandemic was devastating people of color. we felt compelled as an organization we had to be involved and do something. >> reporter: dr. james hildreth is the president of the medical college, the first medical school for african-americans in the south. >> the impact we've had on the health of minority populations in this country is very significant. >> reporter: right now the college and its clinic are moving to center stage in the battle against covid-19. harry is working with novavax on maze three of its vaccine trial. the challenge, recruiting black, latinx, and other minority groups to participate. their secret weapon, the doctors themselves. dr. vladamir berto, dr. raj

singh, are running the study. >> what do you know about the vaccine? >> almost nothing. >> it's very safe and there will be no cost to you or your insurance. >> reporter: one of the concerns about the covid vaccine centers around how fast it was developed, taking months instead of years. experts say the shortcuts were not the science, instead, speeding up approvals and distribution. >> i'm truly excited about it. honestly, i'm in awe of what has happened. but there are great reasons for why it's happened so fast. >> reporter: dr. hildreth says in order to rally support in communities of color, it's also important to spotlight the medical professionals behind them. >> messages are fine. you can have wonderful messages. but if the messenger is not trusted, it's not going to be very effective. >> reporter: one of the trusted messengers, reverend liz walker. >> how can you be so certain taking this vaccine is the right choice for you? >> from what i've seen of covid-19, the greater risk is to

get sick. so for me, there's no hesitation. >> reporter: walker is an icon in boston. >> i'm list walker, i just joined this team, and i'm so glad to be here. >> reporter: she was the first black woman to anchor the evening news in the city. >> thank you all for being here. >> reporter: walker is now the senior pastor at roxbury presbyterian church, in neighbors she likens to the biblical story of the good samaritan. >> i call the neighborhood the jericho road. you never know who's going to stop by or who's in need right outside our front door. so we are a community church. social justice is our foundation. >> reporter: in order to get the good word to her flock, reverend walker threw up a hail mary, emailing dr. anthony fauci. not expecting the nation's leading infectious disease doctor to actually respond. but he did. >> we are so blessed to have you, dr. fauci. >> you had dr. fauci come to your church via zoom. >> you know, faith. this was a god thing. i had no idea that he would.

but i knew i wanted to get as much information as i could to my congregation and the community at large. >> reporter: walker realizes in some cases she's fighting an uphill battle with her congregation. >> i was frankly surprised how many people were resistant. they talk about going to the doctor and having the doctor ignore them, going to the doctor and having the doctor dismiss their complaints. the problem's not with us, it's not my community that's the trouble. the problem is with the system. the thing about the vaccine that i want my congregation to know, this is an act of love. it's an act of survival. very much so. but it's also an act of love. >> reporter: love and faith, two guiding principles so many can relate to. like lily tyson-head, who believes her father's story should not sow doubt, it should build faith. >> as they say, if you don't know your history, you're bound to repeat it. >> based on your family's

history, would you take the vaccine? >> without any hesitation. as soon as the vaccine is available for me, i'm taking it. and all of my siblings that are still living all say they will take the vaccine. > >> there's real reason why you and your family might be suspicious of this kind of program, but no hesitation at all? >> no. we have to step forward and not be afraid to make our lives better. >> reporter: freddie lee tyson died in 1988. none of the doctors were ever held accountable in court. >> you have to be in a place where we move past rage. because rage and anger clouds our capacity to be strategic, to really be engaged in making a difference that destroys and deconstructs structural racism. >> reporter: these women fueled not by rail, but by purpose.

their foundation, voices for our father's legacy, providing scholarships and financial support for other descendents, changing the story from victim to victor, from tragedy to triumph. >> i'd imagine deacon fraley tyson is awful proud of you. >> well, i hope he approves of how i'm doing. i pray every day that my voice is not my voice, but the voice of those men. because they were forgotten. and they're unsung heroes. and at this time, during this season, i think it's important that we lend their voices to the conversation of today. >> our thanks to the families who spoke with us. coming up, the barrier-breaking animated film that moved the soul of jamie foxx. >> i don't think you've ever seen african-american characters that look this warm and this good.

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♪ 2020 has been trying. from the pandemic to racial reckoning. now the barrier-breaking animated film on a mission to bring hope and healing. pixar's latest celebration of community and culture with the soundtrack brimming with soul. here's abc's deborah roberts. >> from the moment i wake up in the morning to the moment i fall asleep at night. ♪ i was born to play. >> reporter: life's disappointments and the chance for change before it's too late is the beating heart of "soul."

a philosophical film with jamie foxx as joe gardner. >> huh? i'm joe. i teach middle school band. go for it! ♪ >> reporter: the middle-aged band teacher whose dreams of being a jazz pianist haven't quite panned out. your character bears a striking resemblance to you, although he's built a little differently. >> yeah, sure. >> did you revise a little bit on the animation? >> no, you know what i don't think you've seen african-american characters that look this warm and this good. it does become part of you. i do see that character as me. especially when it comes to the music and what he thought about jazz and things like that. so it was right up my alley. >> you know what it's going to say? joe gardner! >> reporter: for the first time, many pixar fans seeing themselves through him. >> this was the first time a black lead was cast in a pixar movie. was that a lot of pressure?

>> first time a black lead, and i got the culture on my back. no, no. but i was so happy to have that. >> one of the first things that i noticed was just the diversity on the film. i've seen that in pixar movies before. but just the black and brownfaces. it was really pretty apparent. >> how new york really is. if you walk down the street in new york, you're going to see many different colors, creeds, so many different people. portray really how we look. it gives everybody an opportunity to be seen, seen in a good light. it makes you feel good. >> reporter: kip powers codirected the movie. >> representation is more than what you see on the screen, it's also what's happening behind the screen. i love the fact that the journey of making this film, it's not just the characters you're seeing on screen. that representation became evident in every aspect of making the film.

>> reporter: pixar, opened by walt disney, parent company of abc news, says he knows the power these characters can have on viewers. >> i grew up in a world full of white characters or that representation. i think i was really educated on this film. the stories we tell about each other kind of communicate who's in. who's in the club. now, of course, shamed at how long it took us to do this. >> reporter: "soul" opens christmas day, ending a tough year defined by not only the pandemic, but the ongoing racial reckonings sparked by george floyd's death. like floyd, foxx grew up in texas and was at his funeral. >> finally got a chance to see what we've been saying all along. >> do you think this film is more resonant now because of what we're going through in this country? >> without a doubt. i mean, look, you know -- our art and what we do usually coincides with what's going on outside our doors on the street. and so now when you look at a

movie like "soul," it strikes a chord that is harmonious, it strikes a chord that allows us to escape, it allows us to feel good. because i think, you know, it has been exhausting, it has been tough. >> reporter: the movie painting a rich and textured portrait of black culture. >> oh my lord, you got to wait, son, this is an emergency! >> joe was supposed to be a black man from new york city. coincidentally, so am i. so i had a lot of personal stuff that i was able to draw from. >> playing with dorothy williams. >> dorothea williams? that's big-time, joe! >> putting the barbershop scene in a pixar film, what that means. in our culture we got preachers and the barber. >> and the beauty shop. >> and the beauty shop, ladies! my sister was like, i know you ain't forgetting -- but you're right, not a lot of brothers would go to therapists. but in a way, our barbers were that.

sometimes that is our counsel. that is our way of working things out. ♪ >> reporter: the film's also a love letter to jazz, an art form created by blacks. ♪ >> reporter: a classically trained pianist and singer, music is a passion for foxx. ♪ well i guess if you say so i'll have to pack my things and go ♪ ♪ that's right hit the road jack ♪ >> reporter: passion we all witnessed in "ray," his oscar-winning portrayal of ray charles. we discover more of informationx's talent in "soul," originally intended for summer release in the theaters, now it's a christmas treat for families at home. >> life has changed dramatically since you made this film. clearly we've been in shutdowns, the pandemic. how have you gotten on during the pandemic this. >> to be honest with you, the pandemic really -- it was tough. we had some tough things going on. >> reporter: in a year marked by

grief, jamie foxx felt it too. recently losing his beloved sister, deondra, at age 36. she was an ambassador for the global down syndrome foundation. >> you lost your beloved sister deondra. how are you doing? >> i'm going to be honest, it's been unbelievably painful. anybody that knows my sister deondra, she was a light, man. and to have her not with us, it's tough. and so for "soul" to come out, about a movie -- about a movie talking about the soul. you know, you can't help think about where she is. and knowing that she's still with us. and it's just -- we need this movie. >> this is the hall of everything! >> reporter: a kind of balm after a rough time for so many of us.

>> what do you most hope people will take away from this film? >> i hope you get a chance to escape. ♪ just enjoy the film. and merry christmas. >> "soul" premieres christmas day exclusively on disney plus. up next, a new father-son duo home on the range. le new wa. now roomba vacuums exactly where you need it. hey google, tell roomba to vacuum the kitchen counter. and offers personalized cleaning suggestions for a clean unique to you and your home. roomba and the irobot home app. only from irobot. roomba and the irobot home app. want to eliminate odors without heavy, overwhelming scents? we get it. introducing febreze light. it eliminates odors... with no heavy perfumes... in light scents you'll love. new febreze light. "you have cancer." how their world stopped and when they found a way

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♪ finally tonight, all in the family. tiger woods and his newest golf partner, his 11-year-old son, charlie. that certain smile, that certain swing duplicated. the two getting ready for their first tournament in orlando this weekend. like father, like son.