Two-Time Suicide Survivor And Ex-NFL Player Partners With The American Psychiatric Association To Break The Stigma Around Mental Health

The oldest medical association in the U.S. is promoting mental health equity for young minorities.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) announced the MOORE Equity in Mental Health Initiative to celebrate Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.

The initiative includes a 5K: Run, Walk, and Roll, Sneaker Soirée, youth summit, community fair, virtual roundtables, and community grants, according to the APA’s website.

The Community Mental Health Fair will partner with Morgan State University to share information about mental health resources for DMV residents. The fair will happen July 8, 2023. The 5K event can happen anywhere, but will be centralized in Wheaton, MD. Money raised from the 5K will go toward the APA Foundation Moore Equity in Mental Health Community Grants Program.

Jay Barnett, marriage and family therapist and former NFL player, will serve as the grand marshal for the 5K run. During BLACK ENTERPRISE‘s Black Men Xcel Summit in 2022, he shared his mental health struggles.

“Through my battles with depression, and as I’ve shared publicly, I’m a two-time suicide survivor,” he said. “That led me to really take a journey on the discovery of mental health, and the state of how our quality of life is associated with our mental health.”

Campbell was a journalist, author, teacher, and mental health advocate. She died in 2006 at the of 56.

In 2006, Campbell spoke to BLACK ENTERPRISE about mental health, “We don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about it, either. I went into denial. I was ashamed. I was very stigmatized by this illness that had no business in my family. But it was. So I had to confront the stigma. And it took me years to come to grips with it and to control the impact it had on my life. And those were years of secrecy and shame.”

The U.S. Congress named July Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month in 2006.