BLACK PEOPLE: LET'S GET HEALED

By Felicia Pride

We pride ourselves on being strong. Shoot, we survived slavery, Jim Crow, and a host of other institutions designed to eradicate us and break our spirits.

As a result, sometimes we forget that we're human. We forget that we're not invincible. We suffer. We succumb. We got issues and baggage.

Despite what we tell ourselves to get through the day, month, or year, many of us are silently suffering from an array of forces, one of which we don't like to discuss: mental illness.

Today, The Stay Strong Foundation, led by author and mental health advocate, Terrie M. Williams, unveiled a plan to launch a national campaign called "Healing Starts With Us." The campaign coincides with the recent release of her book Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting, which Williams wrote after going public about her own battle with depression.

The "Healing Starts With Us" movement aims to provide a support network to encourage open dialogue about emotional distress within the African American community. The campaign, which was produced by Artis Connection, kicks off next Tuesday, March 18, from 6-8 pm with an event at The Malcolm X & Dr Betty Shabazz Memorial & Educational Center in New York, formerly known as the Audubon Ballroom.

The event will be hosted by Susan L. Taylor, founder of the National Cares Mentoring Movement, editor emeritus of ESSENCE, and author of All About Love, and Geoffrey Canada, educator and founder of the Harlem Children's Zone. A diverse group of members of the African American community including Ruby Dee, John Amos, Mo'Nique, Terry McMillan, HBO's The Wire co-stars Jamie Hector and Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, Rev. Al Sharpton and Madeline McCray will read excerpts from Black Pain to spark an open public discussion about depression. Denzel Washington will also pay special tribute to Malcolm X.

"This taboo topic," says Williams, "is linked to most street violence, drug/alcohol abuse, homelessness, domestic violence, child abuse as well as physical health problems such as obesity and heart disease. We're afraid to talk to a therapist-we're afraid to talk to each other and the silence is killing us. According to the World Health Organization Report on Mental Illness, by the year 2020, depression is projected to become the second largest killer in America behind heart disease. Ultimately this work helps us to recognize what depression looks, feels and sounds like and offers solutions."

Black people: It's time to get healed.