Frances Cress Welsing, a psychiatrist, educator, author, and political commentator, died on January 2 after suffering a stroke. She was 80 years old.
Dr. Welsing was a native of Chicago. She was a 1957 graduate of Antioch College and received her medical training at Howard University. Dr. Welsing worked as a staff physician for the Department of Human Services for the District of Columbia and opened a private practice in general and pediatric psychiatry in Washington. She also served for more than a decade as an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Howard University College of Medicine.
Dr. Welsing was an outspoken critic of White supremacy and placed most of the blame for the mental health problems of African Americans on the racism they had to deal with everyday in American society. She was the author of The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors (Third World Press, 1991).
may she rest well at peace with the ancestors!
Dr Welling was a intellectual giant who used her scholarly research as a Psychologist to challenge and explain the myths of white supremacy, the debilitating effects of enslavement and institutionalized racism on African Americans at all stages of their lives and to offer practical ways that African Americans could change the quality of our lives collectively and individually using the information that she discussed in her engrossing and informative lectures. I had the good fortune to attend all of her lectures held at the First World Alliance in NYC in the 1980s- a long time ago right? But all that she taught is as true today as it was over twenty years ago. There was standing room only in her lectures sessions. People found her views regarding the trauma that we have suffered living in this racist, hostile country to be radical. But Dr Welling was an intellectual warrior and she would patiently answer any questions asked relative to the enlightening information that she shared. I thank God for her life and for blessing me to have the opportunity to meet and learning from this woman. She was a role model to me as well because she was a highly credentialed scholar but was NOT a self-hating negros like those cowards at Howard University that refused to grant her tenure. She clearly showed that one could use scholarly work to teach African Americans about our current history and experiences by using Google research and past historical data as a basis for discussion. If you are not acquainted with the work of Dr Welsing research her on YouTube