Brittany M. Griffin, M.S. | The University of Akron, Counseling Psychology Doctoral Student

Student Circle Strategic Planning Chair of The ABPsi

The Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) is an organization that I am a proud member of and beyond grateful for. I became a member of the organization in 2006, after being encouraged to do so by psychology faculty members at Florida A&M University (FAMU). Attending this illustrious HBCU, but specifically, my majoring  in psychology there, gave me a confidence in being an American Afrikan woman that I do not believe I would have gotten anywhere else. I was affirmed as a dark-skinned Black/Afrikan woman with very kinky/curly hair in a way that I had never been affirmed before. I was also educated about the many great feats, as well as the inconceivable inhumane treatment of my ancestors that the public school system in America makes no mention of. It was in this environment that my affinity for Black/Afrikan people came to be. It was also in this environment that I was exposed to individuals that I would one day want to be just like and who would heavily influence my career path. Majoring in psychology at FAMU impressed upon me the fact that the liberation of Afrikan people ultimately requires a psychological solution at its foundation (Kambon, 2012).

I was first introduced to Afrikan/Black Psychology during the junior year of my undergraduate career at FAMU. The professor of my Black Psychology course was the esteemed Baba Kobi K. K. Kambon, a past president and life member of ABPsi. I remember sitting in class one day and listening to Baba Kobi say something along the lines of, “If your great, great, great, great grandparents were Afrikan, how can you not be Afrikan?” I had never thought about it like that before. I had called myself Afrikan American more times than I could count, but emphasis had always been put on American, rather than Afrikan. And I had been racially socialized from an early age, so I was proud to be Black….but an Afrikan though? I had never seen, or been taught to see myself as such. It was in that moment that I realized I was indeed an Afrikan. I may not have been a continental Afrikan, like the ancestors from which I am a descendent of, but I was an American Afrikan (a term I would be introduced to years later by Mama Huberta Jackson-Lowman) all the same. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what an honor and privilege it was to be taught by one of the giants upon who’s shoulders I stand. I was also unaware of the magnitude of the information I was being given during the matriculation through my undergraduate career. I did, however, know that what I had been taught gave me an inability to continue to move through this world unconsciously and the ability to take an Afrikan-centered critical analytical approach to the remainder of my life (Kambon, 2012).

I graduated from FAMU with my B.S. in psychology in 2007. Unbeknownst to me, finding a job that was somewhat related to my field of study, that I could make “good” money at with just that B.S., would be extremely difficult. Fast-forward  seven years later,  I had spent some years managing retail stores followed by being a Soldier in  the U.S. Army.  While stationed at Guantanamo Bay (GTMO), Cuba, I realized that my  true passion was, and  had always been, psychology. I was especially interested in studying my people, Afrikan people. I remembered what it had been like to be exposed to all that I was exposed to while pursuing my B.S. in an Afrikan-centered psychology department. There is this sort of safe bubble that students are in while attending FAMU as a psychology major, which I had grown to miss. After serving in the Army and experiencing a cognitive dissonance, that is too cumbersome to be discussed here, there was only one place for me to go to resolve that cognitive dissonance while also pursuing my educational goals, and that was back to FAMU’s psychology department.

I reached out to the director of the Community Psychology program, Dr. Jermaine T. Robertson, the President of the North Florida Chapter of ABPsi who has since become my jegna, whose advice and opinion I rely heavily on, to inquire about admissions into the program. Dr. Robertson did not know me from a can of paint at the time, but he went above and beyond to answer all of my questions, and even went so far as to call me back long distance while I was still stationed at GTMO. I applied to the program, was accepted, and graduated with my M.S. in Community Psychology in the Spring of 2016. The year before I graduated, however, I remember asking Dr. Robertson and Mama Huberta Jackson-Lowman, ABPsi member and current President-elect, just how important they thought it was for an aspiring doctoral student to attend the national ABPsi convention. They both informed me that they thought it was very important and that it could be extremely beneficial to me if I were able to network while I was there. They also informed me that it would provide me with an opportunity to see what current research was being done, which might also help to inform and give direction to my thesis. I took their advice, created a GoFundMe account that helped to alleviate some financial burdens, and attended my first ABPsi convention in Las Vegas in 2016. While in attendance, I found out they were right on all accounts, especially as it related to networking.