BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : HAITIAN-AMERICAN " ALVIN FRANCIS POUSSAINT " IS A PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AT HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL AND AUTHOR OF NUMEROUS BOOKS ON CHILD PSYCHIATRY : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

           BLACK     SOCIAL   HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Alvin Francis Poussaint

Alvin Francis Poussaint (born May 15, 1934 in New York City) is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the author of numerous books on child psychiatry, with a particular focus on the raising of African-American children.

Biography

Poussaint is a Haitian-American, born to Haitian immigrants in New York City's East Harlem neighborhood. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1952.^[1] As a youth, he took ill with rheumatic fever, which left him unable to engage in the physical activities of his peers. He graduated from Columbia University in 1956 and earned an M.D. from Cornell University in 1960. Poussaint completed postgraduate training at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied psychopharmacologyand served as chief resident in psychiatry.

After his initial academic accomplishments, Poussaint took part in the civil rights movement, which solidified his notion that racism resides at the core of mental health problems in the black community. Later in life, Poussaint served as a consultant for The Cosby Show and currently combines an advocacy for responsible media programming with his academic work.

Along with Bill Cosby he co-authored the 2007 book Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors.