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By Veronica Mackey
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, homicide is the 7th of 10 leading cause of death for Black Americans. This alarming statistic does not exist without social and economic causes, which are, undoubtedly linked to mental health. Considering all the trauma born from racism, misogyny, lack of education and impoverished living conditions, Black people likely have the highest need for psychological intervention and receive the least amount of care.
Unfortunately, mental health is treated with disdain by many African Americans. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, there is a stigma around mental health conditions. One study found that 63% of Black people believe that having amental health condition is a sign of personal weakness. Yet, the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that of the 21% of African Americans who had a mental health concern, only 39% actually received mental health services.
In honor or mental wellness and Black History Month, here’s a look at a few mental health pioneers whose work can hopefully inspire more Black people to make mental wellness a priority.
Inez Beverly Prosser, Ph.D. (1895-1934)
Dr. Inez Prosser was the first African American woman to receive her doctoral degree in psychology. She is most known for her integral work in the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education. Dr. Prosser found that Black students flourished more in segregated schools because they received more attention, affection and support there in relation to integrated schools. The problem was all-Black schools were inadequately funded and under-resourced. Dr. Prosser helped many Black students obtain funding for college and taught at historically Black colleges.
Mamie Phipps Clark, Ph.D. (1917-1983) and Kenneth Bancroft Clark, Ph.D. (1914-2005)
Husband and wife psychologists, Doctors Mamie and Kenneth Clark were the first African Americans to receive their doctorate degrees from Columbia University after attending Howard University for their bachelor’s and master’s degrees. They’re most famously known for their revolutionary “doll studies,” which were developed from Dr. Mamie Clark’s master’s thesis.
In their research, the Clarks showed dolls with different skin tones to Black children ages 3 to 7 and asked which dolls they preferred. Black children overwhelmingly chose the white dolls. “We worked with Negro children—I’ll call black children—to see the extent to which their color, their sense of their own race and status, influenced their judgment about themselves, self-esteem,” Kenneth Clark said. Fourteen years later their work was used in the Briggs vs. Elliot case, one of the cases related to the Brown v. Board of Education Decision in 1954.
The Supreme Court cited Clark’s 1950 paper in its Brown decision and acknowledged it implicitly in the following passage: “To separate [African-American children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”
Joy Harden Bradford, Ph.D. (1979-Present)
Malcolm X once said Black women are the most disrespected people in America. But they are also the most resilient. Being the target of both racism and misogyny, Black women have had to fight not only for social justice and economic equality, but for the right to feel good about themselves.
Enter Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed clinical psychologist with a PhD from the University of Georgia, whose Atlanta practice is dedicated to the mental wellness of African American women. Bradford specializes in mental health topics affecting African Americans, and specifically Black woman. Her platform, Therapy for Black Women, teaches boundary setting and self-preservation strategies to safeguard their wellbeing. Her popular weekly podcast by the same name includes strategies for confronting racism at work to self-love and personal development. As of 2019, the podcast had been downloaded over 2 million times.
Beverly Greene, Ph.D. (1950 – Present)
Dr. Beverly Greene is a professor in the Department of Psychology at St. John’s University who teaches cultural diversity and its intersections with mental health. She is a clinical psychologist known as the “Pioneer of Intersectional Psychology,” and specifically for her work on sexism and racism. Dr. Greene’s impressive work led to her being asked to teach her predominantly white colleagues about how to work with their predominately Black patients at Kings County Municipal Hospital’s Child Psychiatry Division in Brooklyn. She has also created many public health frameworks for understanding mental health in marginalized communities. She is the author of close to 100 psychological literature publications. Greene is also involved with the Association for Women in Psychology and the Society for the Psychology of Women. She is one of sixteen women to have received the Distinguished Publication Award (DPA) from the Association for Women in Psychology in 2008.
