Race and Excellence

Chester Pierce's list of accomplishments was second to
none: graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Medical School, president
of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, president of the American
Orthopsychiatric Association, founding national chair of the Black
Psychiatrists of America, and namesake of the American Psychiatric
Association's Human Rights Award. Moreover, his musings about racism as an
environmental pollutant, of the daily microtrauma that racially oppressed
individuals endure, are foundational to modern mental health.

But who
was the man behind the numerous professional achievements and seminal
theories? And what can knowledge of his life, when evaluated in conjunction
with his profound impact on psychiatry, reveal about the Black
experience?

First published in 1998 and reprinted here with a new
introduction, this collection of interactive discussions between Ezra
Griffith and Chester Pierce takes readers on a journey through different
stages of Pierce's life, including the following:

* His upbringing in
the Long Island community of Glen Cove
* His undergraduate years at
Harvard, including his athletic pursuits, membership in the Alpha Phi Alpha
fraternity, and early married life with Patsy Blanchet
* His training at
the University of Cincinnati and experiences as a Navy psychiatrist
*
His time at the Oklahoma Veterans Administration Hospital

What
emerges is more than just a portrait of one particularly determined and
talented man's path to achievement in the face of individual and
institutional obstacles. We find distinct methods of managing the stress of
racial discrimination. There is also a new way to approach narratives about
Black lives. Anyone interested in gaining a greater understanding of how to
evaluate the salience of race matters in people's lives and develop
therapeutic approaches to coping with the stress will find this a
particularly revelatory resource.