Opinion

Black Mental Health, A Global Necessity

Published

9 years ago

February 21, 2017

By  Wade W. Nobles, Ph.D.,  Ifagbemi Sangodare, Nana Kwaku Berko I, and Bejana, Onebunne

It is worth noting that as we enter this Black History Month, we are just one month away from the end of the Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama, the first Black President of the United States, and one month into the beginning of the Presidency of Donald J. Trump, a billionaire businessman, who some believe has fanned and unleashed white privilege/supremacy, hatred, divisiveness, misogyny, inequality, and xenophobia which are buried in the American psyche.

Without question, now is a critical time to support, examine, guide, and monitor the issues of social justice, the healing of trauma and disenfranchisement, and the ultimate advancement of mental health and human wellness.

In the early 19th century, the German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1956) asserted that:

“At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit… What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which had to be presented here only as on the threshold of the World’s History.” (p. 99)

As representative of the age, Hegel’s thinking fed an emerging Western Grand Narrative that supported the belief in White (European) superiority and Black (African) inferiority. What was (is) essential to this narrative is the idea of a “linear hierarchical oppositional structure” that is the implicit legacy of the Western mindset as having epistemic certainty.

This Western Grand Narrative is the foundation for almost all the knowing frameworks in the development of American and European social behavioral sciences, especially psychology and anthropology.

The resultant paradigm for understanding has been the actual dehumanization of African people; the devaluation and disenfranchisement of African life processes; the denigration and denial of African culture; and the disregard and disrespect for African and African American intellectual contributions.

It is important to note that hegemonic imposition of the Western Grand Narrative as universal equals “Epistemicide” for most of the World’s peoples and the inability to ever achieve a fair, true, and just worldwide community.

In privileging this time of Black History Month and the above stated context, I would like to draw attention to the question of Black Mental Health as a global necessity. As counter to Hegel’s directive to leave Africa, not to mention it again, the father of Negro History Week (later to become Black History Month), Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1935), noted that:

“If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.” (p. 2)

While reclaiming our history is critical, Cheikh Anta Diop (1974) noted that Africa (and African people) can only be understood by examining the domains of history, language, and psyche. It is the psyche or psychological domain that I, for obvious reasons, believe to be the most important.

It is also important to note that given the Western legacy of anti- Africanness, there is a need for a particular authentic Black Psychology, ergo Skh Djr, which requires one to think deeply and profoundly about African meanings and understandings about being human wherein one engages in deep, profound, and penetrating search, study, and mastery of the process of “illuminating” the human spirit or essence, as well as all human experience and phenomena (Nobles, 2013).

It must be noted that the unaddressed trauma of enslavement and colonization have left a legacy of psychic damage to both continental and diasporan Africans that necessitates the need for a global healing of the African mind. Black people are a world people.

Hence, Black Mental Health has to be a worldwide proposition. This is best understood within the construct of “Pan African Humanness” wherein African humanity worldwide and its intellectual and cultural developments have greater commonality (than difference) and are seen as a “particular” state of being (Nobles, 2006).

Accordingly, Black Mental Health must involve the study of the psycho-cultural, geopolitical, intellectual, and artistic history of African peoples in both its historical unfoldings and contemporary expressions worldwide across time and place.

Black Mental Health in its global context requires engagement with all forms of African intellectual, literary, and artistic production across time and space and in relationship to the differing realms of reality.

The thrust for multicultural understanding and diversity in psychology must allow for and support the “particular” in the multicultural world. Black Psychology, Asian Psychology, Hispanic Psychology, etc. must all stand and evolve within their own integrity.

The raison d’être of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) was (is) to build a psychology that respects and reflects African human authenticity. In this regard, in 2013 the Association of Black Psychologists established a joint ABPsi and FAP (Forum for African Psychology) educational task force. The charge and challenge of this coming together is to further build a psychology congruent with the culture, context, and humanity of African peoples.

In the context of Black Mental Health as a global initiative, the intent is for continental African Psychologists (South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, etc.) and Diasporan African psychologists (USA, Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, England, Canada, etc.) to forge working relationships to critically examine the assumptions and paradigms concerning the understanding, development and emergence of Black/ African peoples; commit to developing a culturally grounded discipline and practice of African/Black Psychology; and endorse and adopt the development and utilization of Black/African Psychology for understanding, analyses, treatment, and restoration of Black/African spirit wellness worldwide.

This is an on-going and unfolding endeavor and African (Black) psychologists, whom I classify as Skh Djaerists, must continue to invite each other (as practitioners, academicians, students, and professionals) to join together in exploring, defining, and understanding Black Mental Health as a global necessity supportive of the full participation in wellness, freedom, and unity for African people.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

1 day ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.