Kevin D. Jenkins is an American social media influencer and the CEO of Urban Global Health Alliance. He has been identified as a major promoter of misinformation about vaccines, especially targeting the African-American population. Jenkins has been called one of the "Disinformation Dozen", twelve individuals collectively responsible for 65% of COVID-19

anti-vaccine Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain abou ...

misinformation and

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...

on the internet and social media, according to a report by the

Center for Countering Digital Hate The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) is a British non-profit organisation with offices in London and Washington, DC. It campaigns for big tech firms to stop providing services to individuals who may promote hate and misinformation, ...

(CCDH) in 2021. The CCDH report said Jenkins berated octogenarian

Black civil rights The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United S ...

leaders

Hank Aaron Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021), nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", was an American professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976. One of the gre ...

, Billye Suber Aaron,

Andrew Young Andrew Jackson Young Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian L ...

, Xernona Clayton,

Louis Wade Sullivan Louis Wade Sullivan (born November 3, 1933) is an active health policy leader, minority health advocate, author, physician, and educator. He served as the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services during President ...

, and

, for participating in a COVID-19 vaccine event on January 5, 2021, to show Black Americans that the shots were safe. Jenkins posted on Facebook, "I told you all from the beginning they were going to pay off Black so-called leaders to trick you into becoming permit slaves! They are our modern-day slave catchers!!!!" The following day, Jenkins spoke on stage at the January 6th rallies and told the crowd that "Black people are being targeted with the vaccine." He was also a speaker at a large anti-vaccination rally on January 23, 2022, in Washington. In 2021, Jenkins co-produced a video — '' Medical Racism: The New Apartheid'' that promotes conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines — alongside Nation of Islam's Tony Muhammad. The film promotes "conspiratorial claims about a government-sponsored depopulation plot that targets Black people." Jenkins is co-founder of Freedom Airway & Freedom Travel Alliance — later shortened to Freedom Travel Alliance (FTA) — a membership-based service that advertises to help people "travel around the world without observing any masking, quarantining, vaccination, or other pandemic control measures." According to

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

, none of the co-founders of the 2020 start-up have professional experience in the travel industry, though FTA spokesperson Dolores Cahill said they had plans to purchase airplanes and to "have hotlines of lawyers to help people talk their way out of restrictions".

References

External links

Urban Global Health Alliance
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Kevin Living people American anti-vaccination activists American conspiracy theorists African-American media personalities Year of birth missing (living people)