Op-Ed: Remembering Sonya Massey-We Must Prioritize Black Women’s Wellness – Essence

We are currently living in an era where police terror is being televised. For every precious Black life we tragically witness being unjustly taken by police violence, there is a Black family that mourns and a larger community of Black people whose mental health hangs in balance.

As we continue to collect and remember the names of Black women and men, usually unarmed, that we lose to senseless police brutality, there’s a silent, yet potent sense of despair and exhaustion bubbling under the surface. One study found a correlation between declining Black mental health and the police killing of an unarmed Black person.

“There’s a body of evidence emerging that suggests these incidents are having a negative impact not just on [victims’] family members,” David R. Williams, Harvard professor of public health and the author of the 2018 study, told The Harvard Gazette. “But there’s a broader community grieving; there’s a broader “threat” to the community; there’s a broader increase in personal vulnerability that’s having mental health consequences.”

And for Black women, it’s a double burden. 

While facing threats of violence on their own lives, Black women must also grapple with being a pillar of support for members of their own family who are incarcerated or impacted by police violence.  

We are  still shaken by the senseless passing of 36-year-old mother, Sonya Massey. On July 6, a white police officer fatally shot Massey in her home after she called police for assistance when she believed she was in danger. 

She was later pronounced dead at the same hospital that William K. Donnegan, a shoemaker and underground railroad conductor who was lynched during the 1908 Springfield Race Riot. He died despite efforts from him and his wife to seek protection from police. Police failed Donnegan in 1908 and again, in 2024, police failed Massey. Police officers were supposed to be responding to Massey’s safety concern, instead they turned her sanctuary into a shooting range.

Her family shared that Massey was living with schizophrenia, a mental health condition that affects how people think and behave. “It can result in a mix of hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking and behavior,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

Massey’s story is a testament to how Black women with mental health conditions are vulnerable and subject to more harm from police. 

According to data from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, African Americans are 20 percent more likely to experience serious psychological distress than white Americans. These studies also show that Black women are about half as likely to seek mental health care. 

While it’s common to dismiss these concerns as “cultural,” the fact is the root of these issues are largely systemic. Black people’s fear of misdiagnosis or being labeled as “crazy” by a clinician who does not fully understand their life experiences are valid. 

There is a devastating trend in which Black women are either overdiagnosed or underdiagnosed based on preconceived racial and gender biases. Furthermore, as we saw in the tragic case of Sonya Massey, these misreadings can have deadly consequences. As many as half of all police shootings involved untreated severe mental illnesses.

A little over two weeks after Massey was murdered, Black women across the nation were forced to relive and mentally grapple with the tragedy of the scene, as the Illinois State Police released body cam footage of the incident. 

As social media users circulate graphic eulogies and scholars pen crucial think pieces, there are some Black women who are struggling to find their peace.  But, there’s a chance you’ll likely never hear about it because they are too busy helping everyone else. When Brooklyn native Michelle Barnes-Anderson lost her son, Melquain Anderson, to gun violence, she founded an organization, the Melquain Jatelle Anderson Foundation: Fighting Against Gun Violence Via Education, in his honor to help end the cycle of violence.

“I’ve always been an advocate all my life, always helping out when I was younger,” she shared. “Then I lost my child. And what do you do once you lose your child? You have to fight some more. You just stand up and you fight some more.”

In addition to her 9-5 job, Barnes-Anderson uses her lunch break and off-hours to help other families in need.

“My typical day runs 24 hours, basically,” she said. “If someone calls me at two in the morning because they just need to talk, I’m available and I’m answering my phone so I can speak to them and just give them reassurance,”she said.

The persistent failure to keep Black women safe forces them to take matters into their own hands, often at the expense of their emotional labor. If there’s a Black woman in your life presently, here’s one question you should strongly consider asking yourself weekly: Have I checked in on her, and even if she didn’t ask, how can I be of service?

At Common Justice, the first alternative to incarceration and victim service program in the United States that focuses on violent felonies in the adult courts, we believe healing and trauma support is central to the movement. Our services, including therapy and a wraparound service plan co-created by the survivor, provides an opportunity for survivors’ needs to be validated and addressed. 

Black women are not strong by choice. The system forces them to be this way. But that does not mean that they do not need or are not deserving of protection.

Dr. Candacé King is an African American Studies scholar and Emmy-Award winning journalist who is currently the Manager of Storytelling and Content Strategy at Common Justice. She was formerly a News and Production intern with ESSENCE Magazine.