Chris FrazierIf you walked into room 2128 in N.C. Central University’s New Student Center on Feb. 28, you would’ve witnessed a conversation which compared life to a rollercoaster.
Rashad Little, an administrative support assistant from Winston-Salem University, was smiling ear to ear as he introduced “Candid Yams Kickback,” a social experiment that motivates the community.
“It is normal for you to go through highs and lows in pursuing your happiness,” Little said. “But know that it’s going to be okay on the other side.”
This breakout room, “How to Use Film Therapy and Conversation to Reboot Your Health, Wealth, Love and Happiness,” was one way attendees received the inaugural Black Male Mental Health Summit.
When welcoming the crowd, Lamarcus Howard, NCCU’s assistant vice chancellor for health and wellness, said the summit was more than an event.
“It’s a call to action,” he said. “A movement, dedicated to removing stigma, fostering open dialogue and ensuring that mental well being is prioritized just as much as our physical health.”
Howard also said that the day’s festivities started as an idea he shared with Kalvin Franklin, NCCU’s assistant director of outreach and Deshawyn Middleton, an NCCU staff counselor.
Howard, Franklin and Middleton looked for a hot topic that could best help the nest.
They applied for the “HBCU Get Back Grant,” a fund designed to assist HBCUs in creating an opportunity “designed to implement community/regional based service and leadership development programs,” according to the grant’s press release.
And the rest, as they say, was history.
“I made a post three months ago asking for presenters,” Howard said. “The post got 520 likes, 104 comments, 148 reposts and 25,000 impressions.”
Tryan McMickens, an associate professor, program coordinator and higher education administrator, was the keynote speaker for the event. McMickens’s research on Black mental health resulted in four books and more than 70 publications.
Through his work in “Black College Men’s Mental Health” and “The National Black Male College Achievement Study,” McMickens used his address to inform attendees of the current status of college-aged Black males.
Enrollment among Black men at HBCUs was at 31% in 2005, and dropped to 26% in 2022, according to McMickens’ research. Eagles experience this trend with a nest that is 29% male, according to NCCU’s registrar.
McMickens’s research also suggested that Black college men prefer to be treated by therapists and counselors who look like them, adding that “representation matters.”
Black men are also less likely to seek therapy. However, in conversations with a psychologist, McMickens discovered how Black men used alternatives to conduct mental fitness.
“Spaces like the barbershop, or the church, or Black male initiative programs on college and university campuses,” said McMickens, who once discussed running as a tool for wellness with his barber.
Additional statistics further confirmed the importance of the summit. Black men are four times more likely to die from suicide, according to “Black College Men’s Mental Health.” Economic and social factors, including “cultural taboos and gender roles,” had influence.
He also informed the crowd that the top disorders Black college men face include anxiety, depression, stress and suicidal ideation.
“Sixty-one percent of first-year undergraduate Black men reported at least one anxiety symptom,” McMickens said. “Eighty-three percent of Black men reported depressive symptoms during the fall of their freshman year.”
When facing mental health challenges and disabilities, it has become common for Black college men to be perceived as “hopeless, threatening, unintelligent, or broken,” according to McMickens’s research.
To end his keynote speech, McMickens provided a list of programs and events NCCU does to promote mental health, adding a piece of advice Eagles usually associate with Chancellor Karrie Dixon: Protect your peace.
As guests left the event hall, they were greeted with multiple breakout rooms that elaborated on McMickens’s topics.
A panel discussion and movement break followed before additional breakout sessions and the closing address.
The transfer of ideas was felt throughout the region. Nicholas Mcdougall, a business management sophomore from Shaw University’s Male Achievement Center, said the dialogue will “tremendously” help the community.
“I want to lead conversations like this and be able to impact young Black men,” he said. “It’s okay to speak up for yourselves.”
One of the breakout rooms was Little’s “Candid Yams Kickback.” Starting the organization in 2016, Little told the session that he loves candid conversations and hopes to make every space feel akin to the kickbacks everyone has at their “auntie’s house.”
A lesson he repeated throughout his presentation was for the audience to believe in themselves.
“The mere thought that you think that you as he progressed through his presentation can do it is a blessing within itself,” Little said. “The most powerful thing in the human experience is curiosity.”
After watching a scene in the 2006 film “Pursuit of Happiness,” where Chris Gardner impressed a stock broker by completing the Rubix Cube, Little and high schoolers laughed as they read “sometimes you gotta pop out” on the screen.
“This is what we got to do sometimes,” Little said. “Be ready to perform what you know under pressure.”
He ended the presentation with the clip where Gardner overcame the odds and was hired. The scene, which saw the new stock broker fumble over his pens, and achieve true happiness through tears included Little’s last lesson.
“The negative self-talk is always going to be there,” said Little, adding that you need to focus on the positives.
“You gotta embrace the unknown too, because the unknown is going to prepare you to be known in the space.”
