WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.-- Tanzanika Lillard was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 35.
"As I was walking to the car, the tears started to fall and I called my mom and I called my dad, getting home I had to tell my daughter," she recalled.
But, she is a survivor.
Tuesday she and other women who have survived the disease helped unveil a Palm Tran bus covered in pink in downtown West Palm Beach.
They are also spreading a message that black women are more likely to die from breast cancer.
"African American women it's the second leading cause of death. They have a 41 percent higher mortality rate than white women." said Susan G. Komen Florida Executive Director Kate Watt.
She says there are many reasons. "Some of them are environmental, some of them are because of social factors, poverty, so we want to end that disparity."
She and others are encouraging early detection and screening and access to health care. "This is about everyone. In the United States we lose 41,000 people to breast cancer. Men, women, it doesn't matter race, it doesn't matter ethnicity, cancer doesn't discriminate," Watt said.
The bus will be around town for the next few months and it will be at the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure on Saturday, January 26.
