I am humbled and honored to serve as the 45th President of the Association of Black Psychologists. Standing on the threshold of our 50th anniversary and having just completed our 49th annual international convention whose theme was “Our Roots, Our Future,” the courage and commitment of our forefathers and foremothers who took the audacious step towards Kujichagulia (Self-determination) demand our deepest respect and appreciation. Our formation as an autonomous professional association in 1968 was an historical turning point in the discipline of psychology and a declaration of independence for Afrikan/Black psychologists.

Consistent with the theme from our recent convention, “Our  Roots, Our Future,” our Association’s survival   and thriving is directly related to our ability to remain strongly connected to our roots. There are many Afrikan proverbs that instruct us about this: “However long the stream, it never forgets its source.” “Cut your chains and you are free, cut your roots and you die.” “A tree cannot stand without roots.” So what are our roots? Asa Hilliard declared over 20 years ago that our challenge is “to be Afrikan or not to be.” We cannot drift away  from this without committing suicide. We cannot allow differences based upon religion, sexual orientation, age, education, income or any other characteristics to separate and fragment us and put us in conflict with each other rather than the source of our continued oppression. Our future must entail the construction of an umbrella that is inclusive enough to embrace all persons of Afrikan/Black ancestry who are committed to the mission of liberating the Afrikan mind, empowering the Afrikan character, and enlivening and illuminating the Afrikan spirit. And that includes our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. If we truly believe in Ma’at, we cannot engage in behaviors that isolate, reject, or disrespect the humanity of anyone, including our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. On the other hand, we cannot be trapped by Western conceptualizations of what these identities mean. We must utilize our lens, our Afrikan reality to examine all aspects of how we live, how we relate, how we work, how we play, how we build, and how we organize ourselves to promote our health, well-being and prosperity as Afrikan/Black people.

The Association of Black Psychologists represents the premier institution dedicated to the mental liberation of Afrikan people. Afrikan/Black psychologists grounded in Afrikan-centered philosophy recognize that the battle for the hearts, minds, and spirits of Afrikan people is the front on which the most decisive war for our liberation must be fought. Our members include the foremost thought leaders on Afrikan-centered psychology. We have developed theories, conducted research, created assessment strategies, and advanced healing practices centered in the principles and values of Afrikan philosophy. We have been advocates for the voiceless members of our community. Our work, however, is only just beginning. The recent tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia remind us that we have miles to go before the dawn. We must extend and deepen our reach into our communities that are devastated by the persistence of white domination through terror and deceit, unresolved traumas perpetuated by the Maafa, and environmental and institutionalized racism that has diminished our capacity to protect, nurture, and socialize our children and youth. We must continue to partner and collaborate with other organizations, agencies, and institutions engaged in the struggle for Afrikan/Black liberation and sovereignty. We must strengthen and formalize our connections with our brothers and sisters on the Continent, in the Caribbean, in South and North America, as well as Europe, who are suffering the same injustices and dealing with the effects of similar historical and contemporary traumatic assaults. Our knowledge, skills, and resources are urgently needed by Afrikan/Black families in the US and throughout the world.

Proposed Presidential Initiatives

My vision for ABPsi is for us to definitively assert our commitment to applying our knowledge and skills to    the healing and reconstruction of Afrikan/Black people, families, communities, and institutions based on Afrikan principles and values. Towards this end, there are three key strategies that I propose:

1. Publication of an annual State of Black Mental Health Report that provides standards, sets goals, and establishes cultural policies directed towards the promotion of Black mental health.

Our mission is the liberation of the Afrikan mind, the empowerment of the Afrikan character, and the enlivenment and illumination of the Afrikan spirit. We have been in existence now for 49 years, but we have not defined what this means nor how we will achieve it. We continue to use Eurocentric metrics to evaluate our mental health,  in spite of the fact that ‘White inferiority racism’ and domination has been the bane of our existence and the most prominent dimension of our unabated oppression. Striving to emulate and adopt Eurocentric standards  of desirable behavior is extremely lethal and can only result in more sickness, death, and despair in our families and communities. As Krishna Murta has said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” The fact that we are living in a profoundly sick society can no longer be disputed, as the recent Charlottesville tragedy illustrates. We must develop our own standards and criteria for defining mental health and for assessing the state of the mental health of Afrikan/Black people. It is our responsibility delineated by our founders who dedicated their lives and work to fulfilling our sacred mission. Only we can define what a liberated Afrikan mind is, what an empowered Afrikan character looks like, and how an enlivened and illuminated Afrikan spirit can be attained. It is time for us to bring together the knowledge, the research, and the theories that we have developed over the past 49+ years and present the best of what we have learned to our families, communities, our leadership, and our institutions, in the form of standards, goals, and cultural policies that we collectively strive to achieve which will lead to the manifestation of a liberated Afrikan mind, an empowered Afrikan character, and an enlivened and illuminated Afrikan spirit.

Once this document is developed, we must deliver it to our people, in our educational institutions, religious institutions, social service organizations, in our sororities and fraternities, in our HBCUs, to our legislators and in all the other places where we exist, so that our people will have the guidance that we need to escape from the wilderness that so many of us are lost in. Ideally, we should provide annual updates to our community enabling us to evaluate our progress and to make necessary adjustments. As the Bible says: “A people without a vision will soon perish.” Our collective voice is needed because we are being led deeper and deeper into the matrix where truth and fiction become more and more indistinguishable. This work must be done, not only at the national level, but our chapters must be charged with conveying these standards, goals, and cultural policies directed at promoting Black mental health in their communities.

1. Establishment of the ABPsi Online Communiversity to disseminate the knowledge that our thought leaders have developed through online curricula and courses grounded in the principles and values of Afrikan/Black psychology.

The members of ABPsi have led the way in the development of Afrikan-centered theory, research, and conceptual frameworks that deconstruct ‘White inferiority racism’ and its insidious as well as blatant effects on the lives and well-being of all persons of Afrikan ancestry; that reconstructs theories and models that have erroneously conceptualized and analyzed the experiences of Afrikan people; and that constructs new theories and models based on our best thinking and grounded in Afrikan-centered philosophy. Most of this work has been disseminated in either books or scholarly articles that appear in academic journals, or at professional conferences/conventions, and sometimes through university courses; however, for the most part, this knowledge has been relatively inaccessible or simply invisible to everyday people in the Afrikan/Black community as well as to many scholars and professionals inside and outside the discipline. It is time for ABPsi to make this knowledge available and accessible to our families, organizations, and communities, and to our educational, religious, and social institutions.

Utilizing the models implemented by both Drs. Bobby Wright and Frances Cress Welsing which consisted of bringing theory, research, and knowledge to persons regardless of their educational backgrounds, this virtual communiversity would provide courses grounded in Afrikan-centered thinking to individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions across the world.

The Communiversity is an online platform of courses and digital media designed and taught by ABPsi members. Through the Communiversity, ABPsi will offer licensed content to entities, such as:

• K-12 School Districts
• Colleges/ Universities
• Social Services Agencies
• State Psychological Associations
• Textbook Publishers & Educational Providers

The Communiversity will enable those interested in receiving certification as Afrikan-centered psychologists    to pursue it online. It will enable members of our community to have access to the knowledge that we have developed over the past 49 years.

The 21st century has brought radical changes in the delivery of education. Some of the findings and predictions regarding online education indicate that:

• elearning systems offer organizations tremendous advantages in meeting their strategic goals, and have become the industry standard in many areas of society.
• By 2019, 50% of all college students will be engaged in eLearning.
• Today, 4.6 million students are studying in at least one online course.
• Industry-wide, since the year 2000, the elearning industry has grown 900%.
• elearning typically requires 40-60% less employee time compared to traditional classroom settings.

Some of the potential benefits and outcomes that could accrue from the implementation of an ABPsi Online Communiversity include:

• the development of a revenue stream that would contribute to the strengthening of ABPsi organizational structure, specifically hiring a full-time Executive Director and staff persons;
• increasing the visibility of ABPsi and its members;
• reinforcing ABPsi’s position as the pre-eminent authority on issues of Afrikan/Black mental health;
• facilitating the mental liberation of Afrikan/Black people; and
• leveraging Afrikan-centered interventions.

1. Formation of an HBCU Consortium composed of HBCU chairs, faculty, students, and alumni working together to increase membership from HBCUs, enhance HBCU psychology curricula, and implement collaborative research projects.

We must continue to target our HBCUs, many of whom have very uncertain futures. We have resources that can strengthen them, particularly their Psychology departments and we need their involvement in ABPsi. Currently, the General Assembly is reviewing and refining the standards that were developed by the past chairs of the HBCU Initiative, Drs. Lennell Dade and Timothy Moore, so that they can be disseminated to HBCUs. We have more work to do and must continue to build our relationship with the faculty and students at these institutions.

I propose the formation of an HBCU Consortium composed of chairs of HBCUs, faculty, students, and alumni of HBCUs. The purpose of this Consortium would be to:

• increase membership of HBCU faculty and students within ABPsi;
• influence development of Afrikan-centered curriculum in Psychology Departments at HBCUs;
• offer resources to assist HBCUs in the preparation of Black psychology students for graduate school, e.g., syllabi, course lectures, etc.;
• establish MOUs between HBCUs to implement research projects;
• create a data base that organizes data on mental health of Black students at HBCUs; and
• train faculty to implement Afrikan-centered interventions with their students.