Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint ’56, Advocate for Black Mental Health and Social Justice

Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint ’56, a psychiatry professor at Harvard for more than a half-century, an authority on race relations and an adviser to public figures who challenged Black Americans to stand up to systemic bigotry, died on Feb. 24, 2025. He was 90.

Poussaint was a professor of psychiatry and dean of students, among other roles, at Harvard Medical School (HMS), working to increase diversity in medicine and reduce health disparities by bringing more members of underserved populations into the medical field. He was known for increasing public understanding of issues that affected Black children and families, including mental health and suicide, school violence and substance abuse. Poussaint wrote and spoke about the importance of nonviolent parenting and advocated for positive images of minorities in the media.

From the time he joined HMS in 1969 until his retirement in 2019, Poussaint recruited and mentored nearly 1,400 students of color and established supplemental educational programs to help students from underrepresented groups achieve successful careers in medicine.

Born on May 15, 1934, in East Harlem, N.Y., Poussaint graduated from Stuyvesant H.S. and earned an M.D. from Cornell in 1960. He did a psychiatry residency at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, where he became chief resident in psychiatry, and also earned a master’s in psychopharmacology from UCLA.

During the height of the civil rights movement in June 1965, Poussaint moved to Jackson, Miss., where he was southern field director of the Medical Committee for Human Rights. He spent two years providing medical care to civil rights workers and helping to desegregate hospitals and health care facilities throughout the South. He was among more than 100 volunteer healthcare workers who participated in the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, risking his life in the process of administering medical care to protestors, many of whom were attacked and beaten while marching.

Poussaint moved to Boston in 1967 to direct a psychiatry program in a low-income housing development through Tufts University Medical School. Two years later, he became an associate dean for student affairs at HMS and an associate professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was a clinician at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and Boston Children’s Hospital and was the founding director of the school’s Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs.

Poussaint recognized the continued impact of systemic racism while also calling for Black Americans to embrace personal responsibility and traditional family structures. In books like Why Blacks Kill Blacks (1972) and Black Child Care: How to Bring Up a Healthy Black Child in America - A Guide to Emotional and Psychological Development (1975), he walked a line between those on the left who blamed persistent racism for the ills confronting Black America, and those on the right who said that Black people needed to take responsibility for their own lives.

Poussaint was the author or co-author of Raising Black Children: Two Leading Psychiatrists Confront the Educational, Social and Emotional Problems Facing Black Children (1992), Lay My Burden Down: Suicide and the Mental Health Crisis among African-Americans (2000) and Come On, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors (2007). He was also a television script consultant for TV programs including The Cosby Show, wrote more than 100 articles in lay and professional publications, and lectured at colleges across the country.

Poussaint was a founding member of Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) and was chair of the Board of Directors of PUSH for Excellence. In 1987 he was presented a John Jay Award for distinguished professional achievement by the College. He received the 2010 Association of American Medical Colleges’ Herbert W. Nickens Award, which honors outstanding contributions to promoting justice in medical education and health care. In 2014, HMS honored him with a Diversity Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1973, Poussaint married Ann Ashmore in a ceremony officiated by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. They had one son, Alan, and divorced in 1988. He married Tina Young in 1992; together they had a daughter, Alison. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his son, daughter and sister, Dolores Nethersole.

—Alex Sachare ’71