February is Black History Month, and we here at bonmente celebrate all of the advancements in mental health care that came about because of black pioneers in the field, some of whom we highlight below.
In 1897, Solomon Carter Fuller became the first black psychiatrist in America.
He was born in 1872 in Liberia, where his grandparents who were American slaves had moved to after purchasing their freedom.
He studied medicine in America at Boston University School of Medicine and interned at Westborough State Hospital in Massachusetts.
After a brief yet successful stint as a pathologist and instructor at Boston University, he decided to study in Europe in the hope of gaining skills to advance his career.
There, he worked with a psychiatrist who would change the course of Fuller’s life: Dr. Alois Alzheimer.
You can probably guess what they were researching. Solomon Carter Fuller, MD, played the role of a neuropathologist, providing insights into the anatomical and histological aspects of the mental illness that came to be known as dementia.
By the time he returned to the United States, he had an abiding interest in studying dementia. In fact, in 1912 he published what is considered to be the first paper that offers a comprehensive overview of Alzheimer’s disease.
Beyond that, he enjoyed a fruitful career training black psychiatrists at the Tuskegee Veterans Hospital. While there, he helped mitigate misdiagnoses of syphilis among black veterans by teaching proper diagnoses; doing so helped prevent black veterans from being deemed ineligible to receive military benefits.
All along the way, he had to contend with racism inside and outside of psychiatry. Throughout his career, he dealt with unfair pay and employment barriers. And at home, white people petitioned to remove Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller and his family from their home in a predominately white neighborhood in Massachusetts. The petition failed.
Today, Fuller enjoys a legacy as one of the key figures in studying Alzheimer’s disease, among the most-challenging mental health conditions.
If you ever find yourself in the American Psychological Association’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., you will find a portrait of him. He even has an award named after him, given to Black citizens whose pioneering work in an area “has significantly improved the quality of life for Black people”.
One of the first openly lesbian black psychologists, Beverly Greene received the APA 2023 Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology.
After graduating from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, she earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in clinical psychology from Adelphi University and currently teaches at St. John’s.
She made inroads into her teaching career through her experience working at Kings County Municipal Hospital’s Inpatient Child Psychiatry Division in Brooklyn.
While she was there, the hospital was composed of mostly white psychiatrists and mostly black patients. She taught her colleagues about specific aspects of the Black American experience that they should consider when treating patients. This sent her on the path to becoming “the Pioneer of Intersectional Psychology.” Today, she is recognized as a leading figure in psychology.
Her innovations in bringing intersectionality into psychology have made her a key figure in the movement. Mental health professionals have been able to better reach patients because of her contributions.
She has secured her legacy as one of the leading black women in American psychiatric history. She has helped raise awareness in medical schools about the importance of intersectionality in psychiatry. Her influence extends beyond academia, shaping broader mental health practices.
By considering differences in race, gender, and cultural background, psychiatrists better understand their patients. This leads to more productive communication in mental health services.
The Clarks are among science’s power couples, like the Curies and the Lavoisiers. They balanced a happy marriage while collaborating on challenging research that would have long-lasting effects on the world.
Both of them attended Howard University for their undergraduate studies and master’s degrees. They were also the first Black Americans to earn doctorate degrees from Columbia University.
For the Clarks, their famous “Doll Study” played a direct role in ending racial segregation in American schools.
The study gave dolls with different skin colors to Black children aged three to seven. The children were then asked what doll they preferred and to ascribe characteristics to the different dolls.
The Clarks found that the majority of black children preferred the white dolls to the black dolls. They associated positive characteristics like(“nice”) to the former and negative characteristics (“bad”) to the latter.
The majority of black children even said that the white dolls looked more like them.
The doll study played a pivotal role in the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education, as evidence that segregation leads to a sense of inferiority within black children. It provided that the long-running “separate but equal” status quo did not actually fulfill the “equal” promise.
These findings continue to be influential to this day, as evidence of the psychological impact of racism within black communities.
This blog just scratches the surface of the contributions that black people have brought to mental health care. At bonmente, we celebrate these contributions and appreciate the value of diversity in advancing mental health care for us all.
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