[ad_1]
Among his many fights for equality, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sought to address inequities in healthcare and raise awareness of the power of prioritizing love — especially self-care and self-love.
Healthcare injustice had no place in King’s dream of an equal nation.
“Of all forms of discrimination and inequalities, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhuman,” King said at a Medical Committee for Human Rights annual meeting in spring 1966, according to reports at the time.
With the many health challenges disproportionately affecting Black Americans today – such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia and HIV/AIDS, as reported by Pfizer — fighting healthcare injustice continues King’s legacy of speaking out against inequities.
Following in the footsteps of King and other civil rights leaders, Dr. Edwin Chapman has dedicated his career to working with underserved communities across D.C. His goal is to lessen health disparities and socioeconomic challenges affecting the livelihood of many African American residents.
“That’s really my whole focus — closing the gaps in care that we knew were present even before COVID-19. Now it’s been exacerbated, of course, with the 12% increase in homelessness,” said Chapman. “The problems that we’re having with food insecurity and all that is related to what we’re seeing with the so-called shoplifting in our grocery stores, [shows] that we have an underlying health disparity that’s really being played out in terms of economics.”
Further, as King pushed for equal rights in health care, he also emphasized prioritizing one’s own health, particularly mental health.
King reportedly attempted to take his own life twice before the age of 13. Further, throughout his career, King worked to combat the stress, emotional pressure and anxieties of leading a movement, violent attacks coupled with death threats, and grappling with the challenges of the world.
The civil rights leader spoke on depression without having to blatantly say the word.
“You know, a lot of people don’t love themselves. And they go through life with deep and haunting emotional conflicts. So the length of life means that you must love yourself. And you know what loving yourself also means? It means that you’ve got to accept yourself,” King said in his sermon “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life,” delivered at New Covenant Baptist Church in Chicago in April 1967.
When planning this year’s MLK Holiday DC Health Fair, Wendell Whren Jr. knew he wanted to emphasize Black male health and mental health.
“I’m in the process of transitioning to become better and I’m going through my own personal things. A lot of my buddies are going through things. I think a lot of men suffer in silence,” said Whren, 35, organizer of the health fair. “Based on the nature of the lives of the men around me, I just felt like men needed to be supported and addressed on [Martin Luther King Jr. Day].”
Whren said King’s notion of freedom directly aligns with his goals for Black male wellness.
“We talk about being free… but a lot of us have been held captive to our thoughts. We’ve been held captive to the opinions of other people and we’re not free. So we’re walking around with this baggage, we’re not happy or miserable, we’re suffering. And that’s not what Dr. Martin Luther King talked about,” said Whren. “[The health fair] puts us in a space where we can be free to just be our authentic selves for those few hours. [I hope] when these men encounter these different health care providers, that they find it safe enough and inviting enough and welcoming enough to be free in the moment — to have a moment of freedom that Dr. King was talking about.”
As he preached about in 1967, King’s keys to combating mental health challenges were prioritizing love and working toward being a good person.
“We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade,” King said in his sermon “The Drum Major Instinct,” at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia on February 4, 1968. “And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. It is a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.”
In that same 1968 sermon, he stressed his message of love by noting even mental health professionals recommend love as opposed to hate as a means of survival.
“Hate is just as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity,” said King. “Many of our inner conflicts are rooted in hate. This is why psychiatrists say, ‘Love or perish.’ Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
[ad_2]
Source link
