Front Matter

Contributors ix

Preface xiii

PART I

Conditions Affecting Life in Black Communities

1 Public Health and Mental Health Disparities in Black Communities

CHALLENGES FOR AMERICAN PSYCHIATRY 3

2 The Highs and Lows of Public Health Practice 19

3 Why Economic Disparities Matter in Mental Health 37

4 African Americans and Substance Use 61

5 Black Psychiatrists Responding to the Mental Health Impact of Natural and Human-Caused Disasters and Systemic Inequities 91

PART II

Responding to the Realities of Racism

6 Application of an Emotional Competence Framework to Racism 113

7 Centering Blackness in Mental Health Equity 131

8 The Media Is the Message

FILM AND TV INFLUENCES ON BLACK MENTAL HEALTH145

PART III

A Call to Research

9 The Work and Legacy of Dr. Carl Bell 163

Part 1: Building a Better Village

Part 2: Public Health Efforts

10 Will Advances in Research Address Racial Disparities? 185

11 Identities at the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Mental Illness

REMEMBERING CHESTER PIERCE 197

PART IV

Racism, Leadership, and Organized Psychiatry

12 Reflections on the Origin of the Black Psychiatrists of America 217

13 The Urgency of Responsible Leadership in American Psychiatry

RACIAL BIAS AND THE BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL CRISES IMPACTING MENTAL HEALTH IN COMMUNITIES OF COLOR 235

14 The Caravan Moves On

FROM SOLOMON CARTER FULLER TO PSYCHIATRY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 255

15 Nigrescence and the Future of American Psychiatry 271

Appendix

Solomon Carter Fuller Award Lecturers 283

Index 287

Professor Emeritus of Behavioral Science, City of New York Medical School, New York, New York

Dean’s Executive Professor of Public Health, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California

Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, Connecticut

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Chief Behavioral Health Officer, Ibn Sina Foundation, Houston, Texas

Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco Volunteer Faculty; President, EQDynamics, San Francisco, California

Former UCLA–Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program Member, Los Angeles, California

Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

Associate Professor of Finance and Policy (retired), Boston College Carroll School of Management, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida

Assistant Professor (part-time), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

Psychiatry Resident, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

Senior Medical Director, The Steve Fund; Associate Professor (part-time, volunteer), The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baltimore, Maryland

16th U.S. Surgeon General; Founder and Senior Advisor, Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia

Luke and Grace Kim Professor in Cultural Psychiatry, Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Associate Dean, Diverse and Inclusive Education, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California

Senior Associate Dean for Community Health Engagement, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee

Clinical Instructor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois Chicago; President, Spectrum Behavioral Health, Hinsdale, Illinois

In this book, we establish the Solomon Carter Fuller Award lectures, named for the first Black psychiatrist in the United States, as a critical reference on African American history and mental health in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The editors undertook this book project as a tribute to the Solomon Carter Fuller awardees who have been honored by the Black Psychiatrists of America and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Committee and Caucus of Black Psychiatrists since 1970. As we attended these lectures over the years, we became aware that there was no archive of this seminal collection of writings. We are passionate about documenting the insights offered by awardees during their lectures at the APA Annual Meeting. These lecturers used their voices and scholarship as tools for advocacy to increase awareness of the imprint of enslavement and racism on the lived experience of Black people in the United States as well as society on the whole. This body of knowledge is a treasure that needs to be recognized for its merit, celebrated for its impact, and shared with a wider audience.

Among the chapter authors are Solomon Carter Fuller lecturers from the past 30 years. In addition, several psychiatrists contributed chapters using the work of past awardees as inspiration. A scholar expert in finance developed a chapter on the role of economic disparities on mental health in Black communities.

The authors present a multidisciplinary cross-sectional look back in history and examine the contemporary environment in which Black people are living in the United States. Notable aspects of this environment include the law enforcement killing of unarmed Black people and horrific acts of mass violence. Mass shootings in a wide array of diverse communities have become more frequent in recent years, and the May 2022 murders in Buffalo, New York, were identified as a federal hate crime against Black people. This occurrence underscores that for a Black person, engaging in everyday activities such as attending church or grocery shopping may represent life-endangering events.

The authors of this volume also use the historical lens as a bridge to the future as it relates to mental health in Black communities. The areas covered intersect with a wide expanse of American life, including public health, public policy, health care inequities, racism, economic well-being, media, and education.

Thinking critically about the perspectives shared in this book will permit readers to gain insight into the biopsychosocial and political realities of life in Black and other communities of color. This material is clinically applicable in mental health practice. Furthermore, the pernicious aspect of racism is discussed as it relates to Black psychiatrists as clinicians and leaders within the profession. Each chapter offers salient takeaways that encourage hope in the face of adversity.

We give heartfelt thanks to all of the chapter authors for their perseverance in completing their contributions to the book during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are grateful to Alison Bondurant, M.A., CAPM, for her diligence and indispensable project management. To our distinguished psychiatrist colleague, Yvonne Ferguson, M.D., we express gratitude for her support. We greatly appreciate the artist Mr. Emmett Wigglesworth for granting us permission to use his vibrant original artwork on the cover of the book. We extend a special thank you to Ms. Erika Parker, Acquisitions Editor, American Psychiatric Association Publishing, who has been our guide throughout the process of developing the book.

We dedicate this book to our children, who are the future: Marlaina Norris, M.D., M.B.A.; Michael Norris, M.B.A., M.Fin.; and India Primm-Spencer, M.H.A.