With voices united in a shout, the Memphis medical community said George Floyd’s name over and over again during a rally Friday organized by White Coats 4 Black Lives, a student organization to end racial bias in the practice of medicine.

Hundreds of physicians from University of Tennessee Health Science Center, neighboring hospitals and medical students — almost all in white coats — knelt more than eight minutes in memory of Floyd at noon on a grassy slope at 956 Court in the center of the Memphis Medical District.

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Floyd was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

“This is the beginning. Our work has just begun,” said Dr. Latonya Washington, pediatrician and president of the Bluff City Medical Society. “So, this is a call to action. If you see injustices, you stand up, you say something and you call it out. There is no way that we can overcome this alone.

“We talk about Black Lives Matter, and I’ve heard a lot in the media about people saying all lives matter. It’s not that all lives don’t matter, but black lives are the ones that are hurting right now,” she said to applause.

The rally was organized by UTHSC students, who began Monday rallying a crowd, including hospital administrators, who responded with their hospital’s support, said Elizabeth Octavia Clayton, a rising second-year medical student from Nashville.

“From a health care position and as future physicians, we value life and the ability to preserve it,” she said before the rally. “We’re seeing time and time again that black people are losing their lives in a disproportionate rate due to police brutality. That is why my classmates and I and the residents have organized this event.”

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White Coats 4 Black Lives chapters across the nation have been organizing rallies this week to call attention to disparities in how medical resources are allocated and disease is treated.

UTHSC does not have a White Coats 4 Black Lives chapter. Minority students belong to Student National Medical Association, a group for minorities and students of color.

The Rev. Keith Norman, vice president of government affairs at Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp., led the invocation, telling the crowd that black people are living through two pandemics, COVID and police brutality.

“This is the Emmet Till moment of our generation,” he said.

Raven Okechuku-Wachuku, also a rising second-year medical student, acknowledged the inspiration of so many voices united in the fight, but said, “the black community needs and deserves more. Black women still are two to six times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than white women,” she said.

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“The black community deserves more from its physicians and the medical community. And that is why we are here today.”

She also reminded the crowd that Friday, June 5, was Breonna Taylor’s 27th birthday. Taylor is the African American emergency room technician worker who was shot and killed by Louisville, Kentucky, police in March as police were executing a no-knock search of her home, allowing them to enter without knocking or identifying themselves.

Police shot her eight times after her boyfriend fired his gun, her family says in self-defense.

The FBI is investigating.

“She was born in 1993, the same as me,” said Okechuku-Wachuku.

“And that hurts my soul. … I would like to shine light on her and send love and light to her family.”

In her remarks, Washington said she had been contacted on Thursday by a UTHSC alumnus, who was a student when a judge in 1992 acquitted three Los Angeles police officers for beating Rodney King. That violence was also captured on video.

While there was a small protest on campus, she said, “they didn’t have any support,” leading the students and others to feel the “basic fairness of the American judicial system” splits along racial lines, “and sadly excludes a significant portion of American citizens,” Washington said.

“How interesting is that that these words were written almost 30 years ago. It is as if we wrote those words just yesterday,” she said.

Alicia Brookings, an accounting assistant at UTHSC, came in on a day off for the rally, and brought her young niece with her.

“I came to represent George Floyd and Black Lives Matter,” she said.

“I feel wonderful. I’m grateful to everyone who came out and participated and showed their concern.”