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Black History Month and the Achievements of African-Americans in the Area of Public and Behavioral Health
By: Roberta Sanders, BSN, LMSW
February 9, 2022
Pioneers and Unsung Heroes of Behavioral Health who work against all odds.
In Black history month we certainly want to celebrate the numerous African Americans who have worked to improve the behavioral health of all Americans and in order to do that we would like to celebrate the following Professionals some well-known and others who have worked for years to improve behavioral health for African American and other minority populations.
Kenneth Clark, M.D., the first black president of the American psychological Association. Dr. Clark worked on the study famously known as the “DOLL STUDY” that provided valuable evidence in favor of ending school segregation in the Supreme Court case “Brown vs. the Board of Education”. This study helped to prove that school segregation was psychologically harmful to black children.
James P Comer M.D., MPH, is a professor of Child Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine in the Child Study Center at New Haven Connecticut. He is known nationally and internationally for his creation of the Comer School Development program in 1968, within Yale university school of medicine, which focused on improving school restructuring, in order to improve overall student success. He is the co-founder and past president of the Black Psychiatrist of America and has received over 48 honorary degrees.
Jennifer Eberhardt, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and is an expert on the consequence of the psychological association between race and crime. She has done extensive research on the topic of implicit bias, criminal justice and the education system. Her work has provided the evidence needed to educate law enforcement officers in the area of implicit bias training.
M. Joycelyn Elders, M.D., she was the first African American and second woman to be sworn in as the Surgeon General of the United States, during her tenure as Surgeon General, Dr. Elder advocated for universal health coverage, and comprehensive health education including sex education in the schools. While she was only Surgeon General for 15 months and was asked to resign. Following this, she continued to work to address minority health issues particularly when she was appointed by then Governor Clinton to the Arkansas Department of Health. While there, she focused on improving minority health which led to the establishment of the Office of Minority Health within the Arkansas Department of Health.
In more recent years we continue to have black pioneers in mental health.
Bebe Moore, an African American, author, journalist, teacher and mental health advocate who worked tirelessly to shed light on the mental health needs of the black community and other underrepresented groups. She founded a Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Inglewood California, a predominantly black neighborhood, in order to create a space that was safe for black people to talk about mental health concerns.
Altha Stewart, M.D., is a key member of the national network to eliminate disparities in behavioral health and participated on their Steering Committee. She is a nationally recognized expert in the public sector on issues of mental health care for minority populations and the effects of trauma and violence on African American children. In May 2018, Dr. Stuart made history as she began her term as president of the American psychiatric Association making her the first African American to lead that organization.
Gayle Porter, PsyD, is the co-developer and trainer of the award-winning Prime-Time Sister Circle, with Marilyn Gaston M.D, former Assistant Surgeon General. This program is a theory- driven, empirically supported behavioral health intervention that is geared for middle-age African American women. This course-based intervention is an integrated model that focuses on emotional health and risk and promotes positive healthy decision-making and establishing social supports.
Howard Stevenson, PhD, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Racial Empowerment Collaborative, and the Forward Promise Program. Within this program, he is the developer and trainer of a program that addresses the impact of trauma and chronic stress on African American boys. The program has been shown to improve school attendance and reduce suspension rates and improve relationships among African American youth their peers and their teachers.
These are just a few of the unsung heroes who have worked in the past and continue to work currently in improving behavioral health for African Americans and communities of color. These persons and thousands of other African Americans, who work daily in mental health institutions in the role of attendance, and nursing assistant staff. This staff support the professional behavioral health personnel and offer day-to-day care for a significant number of African American behavioral health clients, without their ongoing and continuous support and services for these clients daily the services for this client group, would be difficult to endure.
Black History Month
By: Roberta Sanders, BSN, LMSW
February 12, 2020
The month of February is the month when we honor and celebrate the achievements of African-Americans and recognize their important role in a number of areas central to the history of the United States. A number of names that are readily recognizable during Black history month, such as Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Justice Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier – all who worked to advance the Civil right of African-Americans. This group and thousands more have found a permanent place in the history of America.
However I would like to share with you a few names that may not be as recognizable who’ve also had profound influence on the development of public health and behavioral health awareness throughout the nation. While these are not household names, they have had a significant historical role in moving forward both public health and behavioral health policy.
Solomon Carter Fuller, M.D. (1872-1953) This pioneering African-American psychiatrist made significant contributions to the study of the disease of Alzheimer’s. Dr. Fuller was one of the first known black psychiatrist that worked alongside Dr.Alois Alzheimer who first discover the traits of the disease in 1901.
Maxie Clarence Maultsby Jr. M.D. (1932-2016) Dr. Maultsby is the founder of the psychotherapeutic method, rational behavioral therapy. Through his work he explored the emotional and behavioral self management and how these tools could be used as a therapeutic method to assist in the field of behavioral health. He authored four pioneering books for behavioral health professionals his writings describe this method of emotional self-help known as rational self counseling.
Mamie Phipps Clark, Ph,D (1917-1983) Mamie Phipps Clark , was the first African-American woman to earn her doctorate degree in psychology from Columbia University .Her groundbreaking research on the impact of race in child development help to end legal segregation and influence desegregation efforts including The supreme court decision rendered in the case of Brown versus the Board of Education in 1954. Her dedication and passion for adequate mental health services for all, prompted Dr Clark to open her own agency to provide comprehensive psychological services to the poor black and other minority children and families. In February 1946 Dr. Clark and her husband open the doors of “The Northside center for child development” for those in Harlem New York.
Paul Bertau Cornely, M.D., DrPH (1906-2002) In 1939 Dr. Conley was the founder of the national student health Association and president of the physicians Forum in 1954. Dr. Cornely was the founder and first president of the district of Columbia public health association in 1962. His life work focused on the development of public health initiatives that aimed at reducing healthcare disparities among the chronically underserved. He made significant contributions to the civil rights movement through his efforts to desegregate health care facilities across the United States.
David Sarcher M.D. The 16th surgeon general of the United States. He has held numerous positions including United States secretary of health, Sacher served as president of Meharry Medical College in Nashville Tennessee from 1982 to 1963 he also held positions at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. During his time as the Surgeon General of the United States he worked tirelessly to eliminate healthcare disparities among the chronically underserved, because of race or mental illness. He authored a surgeon general reports outlining the disparities in terms of physical health services for mental health clients, indicating that mental health clients were dying 25 years earlier than their cohort group of preventable illnesses, due to these disparities.
While this is just a short list of the many African-Americans who have contributed to the health and welfare of all Americans, they had specific influence in assisting and improving the health care of both behavioral health clients and African-Americans throughout the country. We wish to salute them and offer a thank you and appreciation for their work some who are continuing to work on healthcare disparities in the United States.
During Black history month learn more about all of the African-American pioneers who have worked tirelessly to improve behavioral health for all Americans.
