July Commemorates Minority Mental Health Awareness
Bebe Moore Campbell, a champion, advocate, and founder of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Urban Los Angeles chapter, said in 2005:
“Once my loved ones accepted [my] diagnosis, healing began for the entire family, but it took too long. It took years. Can’t we, as a nation, begin to speed up that process? We need a national campaign to destigmatize mental illness, especially one targeted toward African Americans… It’s not shameful to have a mental illness. Get treatment. Recovery is possible.”
In May of 2008, the US House of Representatives announced July as Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.
The resolution was sponsored by Rep. Albert Wynn [D-MD] and co-sponsored by a large bipartisan group to achieve two goals:
Improve access to mental health treatment and services and promote public awareness of mental illness.
Bring awareness to the unique struggles that underrepresented groups face in regard to mental health awareness.
Who was Bebe Moore Campbell?
Bebe Moore Campbell was an author, advocate, and co-founder of NAMI Urban Los Angeles.
Campbell advocated for mental health education and support among individuals of diverse communities.
In 2005, inspired by Campbell’s charge to end stigma and provide mental health information, longtime friend Linda Wharton-Boyd suggested dedicating a month to the effort.
The duo got to work, outlining the concept of National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month and what it would entail.
With the support of the D.C. Department of Mental Health and then-mayor Anthony Williams, they held a news conference in Southeast D.C., where they encouraged residents to get mental health checkups.
Support continued to build as Campbell and Wharton-Boyd spoke in churches, and created a National Minority Mental Health Taskforce of friends and allies.
Read more about Bebe Moore Campbell and listen to an interview with friend Marita Golden, a fellow novelist, about how Campbell's journalism background and coming of age in the 1960s shaped her work.
*Note that Bebe Moore Campbell is not affiliated with Bobby E. Wright Comprehensive Behavioral Health Center.