May 19th, 2023

Dr. Laura Roberts is joined by Ezra Griffith, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and recipient of the 2023 Chester Pierce Human Rights Award, to discuss his book Race and Excellence: My Dialogue with Chester Pierce, the culmination of his personal and professional relationship with Pierce, (1927 – 2016) a tenured professor of education and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, the first African-American full professor at Massachusetts General Hospital, and past-president of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American Orthopsychiatric Association. Pierce was a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a senior consultant for the acclaimed educational children's television series Sesame Street and coined then developed the term "microaggression". In the first of two episodes in the company of Ezra Griffith, he discusses the life of the pioneering psychiatrist Pierce, and explores his legacy.