As America Turns 250, Mental Health Experts Say Black Americans Continue to Carry the Weight of History

By Stacy M. Brown Senior Global Correspondent

The United States will celebrate its 250th birthday with fireworks, parades, and patriotic ceremonies. For many African Americans, however, the milestone also stirs memories of slavery, segregation, discrimination, and continuing inequities that mental health advocates say leave lasting emotional scars.

A recent Navigator Research survey found that many Black Americans question whether the nation's celebration fully recognizes their history or reflects their lived experience. While Americans broadly view the anniversary as a time for unity, Black respondents were significantly more likely to say the country has yet to fulfill its promise of equality and justice.

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The survey focused on America’s 250th anniversary and participants widely agreed on several American values, though many simultaneously felt their rights and freedoms are slowly being eroded. With the deterioration of rights and freedoms, participants expressed feeling a lack of belonging in America today. Participants lamented that the erosion of rights and freedoms leads many to feel a lack of belonging, though optimism for the future of the country remains. They said good wages, home ownership, and providing for a family are seen as tenets of the American dream, though many don’t see it as achievable anymore with inflation and stagnant incomes

“By being an African American, I can come in and be a convicted felon and get an X number of years, but someone else comes in with a different color and may be charged with the same crime but get a different sentence on the color of their skin. And that’s not justice,” said one survey participant from Mississippi, who identified as a “Black strong Republican.”

A Georgia survey participant, who identified as a Democrat, said, “They’re stripping away all our voting rights for the African American…. President Trump has gerrymandered these maps, and these states are taking away all the Black voting rights. They killed the 1965 Voting Rights Act.” 

In arguing that the 250th presents an opportunity to confront the nation's unfinished work rather than simply celebrate its accomplishments, Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. said, “The history of Black people in America is a history of extraordinary resilience, but resilience should never be confused with the absence of pain.”  

Mental health professionals say that history has measurable consequences.

According to Mental Health America, only about 1 in 3 Black adults who need mental health care receive it. African Americans are more likely to experience persistent sadness and psychological distress while facing barriers that include cost, stigma, provider shortages, and distrust rooted in generations of unequal treatment by the medical system. Studies also show Black Americans are more likely to seek help first from relatives, pastors, and community leaders before turning to licensed mental health professionals.

Those disparities are visible in the District of Columbia.

BlackHealth.org reports that nearly 20% of District adults experience a mental illness each year, while approximately one-third of Washington residents live in federally designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas. Although the District has expanded behavioral health programs and crisis services, advocates say access remains uneven east of the Anacostia River, where many predominantly Black neighborhoods continue to face shortages of providers and longer waits for care.

Researchers who study racial trauma say repeated exposure to discrimination, economic inequality, community violence, and chronic stress increases the risk of anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. They also note that resilience, while celebrated, should not be mistaken for immunity.

For many Black Americans, mental health experts say, healing remains part of the unfinished promise of American freedom.

As the nation marks its semiquincentennial, Black Lives Matter argues that the anniversary cannot be separated from the nation's history.

“Whose freedom and independence are we truly commemorating?” the organization said in a statement. “The freedoms built upon the exploitation and oppression of enslaved Black people? The liberties still unequally applied to Black communities today? If there is anything worth celebrating, it is the historic resilience, strength, and beauty Black people continually demonstrate in our ongoing fight for genuine liberation.”