Black Med Students Pose In White Coats In Front of Former Slave Plantation

“Standing in front of the slave quarters of our ancestors, at The Whitney Plantation, with my medical school classmates.

We are truly our ancestors’ wildest dreams,” Russell Labat wrote on Twitter.”

In a post that has garnered more than 82,000 likes and 19,000 retweets at press time, 16 black medical students from Tulane University pose in front of the Whitney Plantation in Edgard, Louisiana. Dressed in their white coats, they plant their feet firmly and stand proud on land where whites once owned black people.

In a planned trip, second-year med student Ledet and his classmates wanted to ignite and inspire present and future generations to achieve greatness, and that’s what they did.

“Just thinking about being a black doctor in America. I think more people should see this,” Ledet, 33, told NBC News.

After visiting the site with his daughter and talking to his classmate Sydney Labat and others about the impression it made on him, Ledet made the decision to revisit the site, but this time under different circumstances.

“‘We should go in all black and our white coats.’ Everybody was on board,” Ledet said.

Heading west with a 50-mile trip ahead of them, the group traveled from New Orleans to the former plantation.

“Seeing that many black students in training in one photo was striking. In a place that was dedicated to our ancestors and their struggles,” Labat, 24, said. “We knew this photo was going to make people stop ... and really think. I can say for myself, I definitely got emotional throughout this experience.”