88 Unashamed Black Mental Health Stories

Coming to a medicine cabinet near you May 2026.

Reading is good medicine. We can all agree on that, yes?

Publishing Inlandia Books was one of my absolute greatest joys. I’m really proud of the work we produced, in particular the anthology These Black Bodies Are… Before I left, a new Blacklandia anthology on mental health was just heading into production. I’ve been watching it from the sidelines and over the moon that it is being published this May in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month.

It’s called 88 Unashamed Black Mental Health Stories. Edited by Romaine Washington. Organized into nine sections, each concludes with discussion questions that could alternately function as writing prompts. In her introduction, Romaine says,

Imagine reading a short story, a poem, an essay, or viewing artwork that speaks to you about a struggle you wrestle with in secret. The reason you don’t share your very private experience is shame. You feel like you should be stronger; you shouldn’t be going through this.

In his essay, “Exploring Black Mental Health Through a Christian Lens,” Pastor Samuel J. Casey makes the case that “faith and mental struggle are not opposites; they are often companions on the same spiritual journey” while also observing, “[i]n the Black community, conversations around mental health often carry both sacred weight and social stigma.”

These stories seek to destigmatize the conversation and to provide readers an opportunity to see themselves reflected back.

Denial is one of our greatest enemies because it masquerades as strength…. Some of the fear and denial of the need for help is rooted in the biases in psychiatry and medical institutions.—Romaine Washington

Oftentimes, fear is rooted in painful historical truths. In “The Mental Health of Slaves”, Kache’ Attyana Mumford discusses some of the ways in which a mental health “diagnosis” can be twisted into another form of bondage:

The first thing I learned while getting my Master’s Degree in Therapy was that runaway slaves were listed as being mentally unstable by a licensed psychiatrist. The diagnosis was drapetomania, published in 1851. A disease that causes slaves to run away. A disease-causing rascality, even in black folks who are already free. Samuel A. Cartwright created a name and used scripture to find purity in the vitality of a race he said shouldn’t be treated fairly. Just fair enough for no scars to be seen.

Other pieces grapple with all facets of the day-to-day realities of coping with mental illness.

In “Door Into the Mind of My Mother”, André Wilson writes about how he and his brother posthumously discover an essay written by their mother. In it, she details her silent struggle as a Black single mom in the late 1950s-early 1960s, a piece of her history she never shared with them during her lifetime. In this poignant braided essay, both Wilson’s voice and his mother’s intertwine to tell her story.

Another question I cannot answer is, “Was she mentally ill when she raised me?” I searched my past for clues to my mother’s mental state. Nothing screamed “crazy” to me. Perhaps I was so close to her and lived so long with her that everything seemed “normal.” I thought I knew my mother because she raised me, but I soon realized that I didn’t know her well enough.

To that question speaks the mother’s voice from the past:

Alone in the living room, I would go from wall to wall—sometimes even hitting them. Just to have been able to cling to the walls and walk on the ceiling would have been a relief. When deeply depressed, I would scratch myself and grip my hands. There was a desire to cut my wrist and get out of this living hell.

In Carmen Saleh’s “Diagnosing It”, a child must learn to cope with her mother’s volatility:

We didn’t know how to describe it. Is it that she was upset, agitated, apoplectic, agonized by an affliction we could not name? Our eyes, wild and aphasic, watched her in silence as she assaulted us, my dad and me, with high-pitched screams.

Some of the pieces are purely visual, offering hope and solidarity like this piece “Sticky Notes” by Davian Chester:

Or this piece titled “Medicine Is the Best Medicine” by Alora Young:

This anthology is brave, truthful, hopeful, and not to be missed.

There will be related reading events in the Inland Empire later this spring and summer, TBD. For now, pre-orders are open and if you’ve read this far I encourage you to take that extra step and reserve your copy today by clicking the image below.

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