Typically, college chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) focus their efforts on promoting social justice protests, advocating for voter registration and educating students to protect against voter suppression. While this year’s leaders of the University of Mississippi NAACP chapter agree that these efforts are important, president Demetrius Harris and vice president Savannah Avery want to bring a new focus to the university’s Black community: mental health.
“I feel like we always work on things like prison reform and big stuff like that, but we don’t really focus on the Black community as individuals, like their mental and physical health,” Avery said. “(Mental health) is something that’s very thrown under the table with the Black community, and I feel like when kids get to college, they realize how emotional they are, and they don’t really know how to deal with their emotions because the Black community doesn’t show us how to do that as we’re growing up.”
In her time at the university, Harris said she has seen great advancements and events come from previous NAACP leadership, but she has not seen the education on mental and physical health that she thinks UM needs.
“We are living in some very traumatizing times. We see the Black Lives Matter thing going on. We’re also dealing with the pandemic that we are in, and we can’t catch a break, personally, and the Black community as a whole nationwide,” Harris said.
Since June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 40% of U.S. adults said they were struggling with mental health or substance abuse. The CDC report also stated that younger adults and racial and ethnic minorities reported having experienced disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, increased substance use and elevated suicidal ideation as compared to other demographics.
These statistics made Harris and Avery realize that mental health was one of the most important issues that their organization could focus on this year. The NAACP will host virtual health events every day next week, Nov. 2-6, to promote these efforts and start trying to expand the way people think of the UM chapter of the NAACP.
“We’re trying to really redevelop and expand (our organization) to make it more memorable for our chapter,” Avery said. “That’s something we’re trying to implement this year is get a name for ourselves and let them know that we’re here for y’all, and we’re really trying to carry out this mission in a way that does everything possible for this chapter.”
From hosting political education events with the Black Student Union to expanding the organization’s views on mental health by partnering with UM’s Mental Health Matters, Harris and Avery said they plan to hold on to the core values of the NAACP while making room for growth in the organization.
