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Dear Colleagues,
As we celebrate Black History Month, in honor of the contributions of Black psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, doctors, nurses, community leaders, and activists who dedicated their lives to behavioral health and allowed us the opportunity to continue their critical work, CBHA would like to recognize Black pioneers of behavioral health.
Today, CBHA would like to honor is Inez Beverly Prosser, Ph.D.
Though the exact date is debated, many scholars believe Inez Beverly Prosser was born to Samuel Andrew Beverly and Veola Hamilton Beverly in Yoakum, Texas in December of 1895. Prosser was the first daughter of 11 children [1].
Prosser had a lifelong passion for education and an understanding of the power it offered for changing lives. Her family planned to send her older brother, Leon, to college, believing that they could afford it for only one of their children [2]. After graduating as valedictorian of the Yoakum Colored School in 1910, her parents in part convinced by her older brother Leon, chose instead to pay for her to enroll at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college northwest of Houston.
Due to the segregation of schools, Prosser was forced to leave Texas for graduate school and completed her master's degree at the University of Colorado. In 1931, Prosser applied to the General Education Board (GED) for a fellowship to fund doctoral research. According to the application, her interest was in research that would further the advancement of teaching at the elementary and high school levels. The GED granted her $1,000 towards one year of doctoral study. Prosser left Tougaloo for the University of Cincinnati where she enrolled in the Doctor of Philosophy program within the College of Education for the 1931-1932 academic year. She graduated with her doctorate in psychology at the University of Cincinnati in 1933. Dr. Inez Beverly Prosser is considered to be the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in psychology in the United States [3].
Her dissertation, "The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools," evaluated the effects of racial inequality and racism on the development of Black children's identity and mental health. Many of her conclusions were cited during the debates over school segregation in the 1920's.
Prosser remained close with her family in Texas. She actively encouraged and financially supported the education of her siblings, all 10 of whom obtained High School degrees and five of whom earned College degrees. On August 28, 1934, on her way back to Mississippi following a visit to her family in Texas, Prosser, along with her husband and sister, was involved in a automobile collision. Dr. Inez Beverly Prosser died at the Tri-State Sanitarium in Shreveport, Louisiana on September 5, 1934.
CBHA is honored to continue the work of Inez Beverly Prosser, Ph.D.. as we advocate for public policy initiatives that create system change and equity in behavioral health for diverse communities across California.
In Service,
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