DISTRICT HEIGHTS, Md. - Charles Thomas was unwell but he had no time for rest.

He was on the cusp of a management promotion and a move to Florida to begin a new chapter that would alter his family’s financial future and break the cycle of generational poverty.

Yet, as his family’s prospects improved, concerns about his health grew.

A severe bout of COVID-19 left the 52-year-old weak and in recovery for weeks. His wife, Melanese Marr-Thomas, worried he was pushing himself too hard to get back in the swing of things. Mr. Thomas was a big man at 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. He struggled for years to get his weight under control.

Later in life, that struggle gave way to high blood pressure and a medley of medications.

In a nation plagued by high blood pressure, Black people are more likely to suffer from it — and so, in the time of COVID-19, they are more likely than white people to die. It’s a stark reality. And it has played out in thousands of Black households that have lost mothers and fathers over the past three years, a distinct calamity within the many tragedies of the pandemic.

It has devastated families like the Thomases of District Heights, Md.

Mr. Thomas had an intense fear of hospitals, needles and doctors, partially because they had, in the past, brushed

aside his concerns. He felt doctors were quick to blame any ailments solely on his weight, but slow to listen to his symptoms or examine other causes. He eventually gave up on seeking medical care for a long time because he was tired of feeling judged.

His family had recently found a Black doctor who, for the first time in his life, made Charles feel comfortable— and most importantly, heard.

“He knew he needed to take better care of himself so we were trying to change his diet and be more active,” Melanese said. “His blood pressure was beginning to come down.”

But then, COVID intervened.

About 56% of Black adults have high blood pressure, compared to 48% of white people. Three in four African Americans are likely to develop the disorder by age 55.

When the force of your blood pushing against the walls of your blood vessels is consistently too high, it makes the heart and blood vessels work harder and less efficiently, which can lead to significant health issues.

While only 32% of white adults with high blood pressure have their condition under control with medication, the figure for Black Americans is even lower — 25%.

And it’s likely to get worse: By 2060, the number of Americans battling cardiovascular disease is expected to drastically increase. High blood pressure rates alone are projected to rise 27.2%, or from roughly 127.8 million to 162.5 million Americans.

When they met, the two quickly hit it off and could spend hours just talking. But they were in vastly different places in life: While Melanese Marr was focused on her studies, Mr. Thomas was trying to survive in a particularly tough Maryland neighborhood.

He eventually cut off all ties from her with little explanation.

“‘You deserve so much more than what I can give,’” Mrs. Marr-Thomas recalled Mr. Thomas saying to her.

“I was so hurt.”

Years later, she found out it was because he was struggling to find his way out of a life of selling drugs.

Mr. Thomas eventually had a son, Charles Thomas III, with another woman — a child whom Charles tried to be heavily involved in raising. But his street life eventually caught up with him.

Mr. Thomas was incarcerated off and on for much of his son’s childhood and teenage years.

“He was heavy in the streets,” Charles Thomas III, 33, recalled. “But he made his presence known even when he was in jail. He would still find a way to send me gifts for Christmas. I’ll never forget the little toy car he sent me and I said ‘My daddy sent me this present,’ not putting two and two together that he was in jail.”

It took years for Mr. Thomas to eventually begin the hard journey of changing his life. Years later, he acknowledged the vicious cycle he found himself in. As a young Black man, he grew up poor and bounced around various communities that all suffered from the simmering effects of racism and segregation-era policies, with little hope and few pathways to escape poverty.

Mr. Thomas and Melanese Marr reconnected in late 2009 and rekindled their romance. The couple eventually married and blended their families. He never shied away from talking about his earlier struggles in life. He acknowledged his mistakes and instead used it as a powerful way to teach his children to avoid the pitfalls he fell prey to.

He worked his way up at his job as a concrete truck driver and became well respected in the company — and within his community, as a known father figure to other Black boys at his youngest son’s football games. He launched a food truck and catering business, Sol Familia Mobile Kitchen, with his wife. Everything was looking up, finally.

But Charles Thomas began to feel sick around Thanksgiving in 2020. He thought it was a passing cold, but his wife was worried; the number of COVID cases was climbing, both nationally and locally, and the vaccine wasn’t yet widely available.

Mrs. Marr-Thomas was right. The entire family — parents and six children — would be diagnosed with COVID. But as the others got better, Charles’ condition worsened.

His wife convinced him to go to the hospital, where his oxygen levels dropped severely and he spent eight days in the intensive care unit, where he was nearly placed on a ventilator. But he recovered, and went home in time for Christmas.

The family thought the worst was over.

Then Mr. Thomas began having trouble breathing. The smallest tasks left him breathless and taking a few steps left him tired and struggling for air. Still, in late January 2021, he decided to go back to work.

“He was so enthusiastic about trying to make sure we got our food truck back up and running,” Mrs. Marr-Thomas said. “But I told him he just came out of the ICU with double pneumonia. I asked, ‘Why are you going back so quickly?’”

She suspects Mr. Thomas felt he still had to make up for lost time and his past mistakes.

The stress of it was toxic, and taxing on his health, and Mrs. Marr-Thomas worried it exacerbated his high blood pressure — and also his COVID complications.

“I think that also killed him,” Mrs. Marr-Thomas said.

Near the end of February 2021, Charles Thomas’ 16-year-old ran into the room one evening and shook Melanese awake. Something was wrong with Dad.

She rushed into the bedroom and found her husband on the floor on his hands and knees.

“It looked like he had fallen and was trying to get himself back up,” Melanese said. “I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t say anything to me.”

He struggled to get up, but collapsed on the floor and stopped breathing.

Emergency responders performed CPR, but it was too late. Charles died Feb. 28, 2021, of COVID-19 related complications. He was 52.

So much was lost that night. The family was getting ready to move to Jacksonville, Fla. Charles had just been offered a job he spent 10 years working toward. He was slated to be a plant manager. The family was in the midst of planning a trip to look at homes there.

“I still relive that night,” Mrs. Marr-Thomas said. “I was so numb and in disbelief that someone that was just talking to me is no longer here. He was the pillar of our family, the foundation, our protector. He was everything and it is an immeasurable loss.”

For his namesake, Charles Thomas III, that means imparting love and wisdom to his own 5-year-old daughter, who his father adored. It also means supporting Mrs. Marr-Thomas and helping her with his younger siblings.

“I can’t look in the mirror without seeing my dad,” he said. “When I go to school as teacher and I’m correcting my students, I see my dad. When I’m talking to my daughter and my girlfriend, I hear my father. Everything I say. I can hear him. He’s going to live on through me.”

This story is part of an Associated Press series examining the health disparities experienced by Black Americans across a lifetime. To read more, visit

https://apnews.com/article/%20high-blood-pressure-covid-racism-370646e86ea8868d641aba9a67664c92