Dr. Frances C. Welsing, noted psychiatrist, scholar, dies

11th January 2016   ·   0 Comments

By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor

Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, a noted psychiatrist, African-centered scholar, activist and author, passed away in Washington, DC on Saturday, Jan. 2, after suffering a stroke several days earlier. She was 80.

Welsing, author of the critically acclaimed and controversial book The Isis Papers, was surrounded by loved ones, colleagues, friends and members of her inner circle when she passed away.

News of her death spread rapidly across the U.S. and the African Diaspora after information about her condition was posted on social media.

A fearless, unrelenting warrior who was often referred to as “the Goddess,” Dr. Welsing remained active until her final days, presenting monthly lectures on the Howard University campus and traveling across the U.S. to participate in conferences and gatherings that focused on the plight of Black people.

Frances Luella Cress was born on March 18, 1935 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Dr. Henry N. Cress, a physician, and Ida Mae Griffen, an educator. After earning a B.S. from Antioch College in 1957, she went on to earn a degree in psychiatry from the Howard University School of Medicine.

Her years under the tutelage of Dr. Neely Fuller, author of Textbook for Victims of White Supremacy (1969), helped to shape her theories about the significance of melanin and the roots of white supremacy. Fuller’s mentorship also helped to shape Welsing’s lifelong mission and fueled her scholarly activism.

While some white scholars tried to refute Dr. Welsing’s findings, the former Howard University professor’s academic and medical credentials strengthened her research and no one could argue that her theory about white supremacy being fueled by white fear of genetic annihilation was supported by Charles Darwin’s observation that “self-preservation is the first law of nature.”

Among those who knew her best was Deven Collins, a New Orleans native who graduated from McDonogh 35, the University of New Orleans and Howard University before pursuing a doctorate in engineering from Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. Collins, who attended Welsing’s monthly lectures at Howard University for two decades, became a part of Welsing’s inner circle after Hurricane Katrina when he shared his firsthand knowledge of the harrowing days after the devastating storm that flooded 80 percent of New Orleans.

He told The Louisiana Weekly last week that he will forever treasure the times he was allowed to spend time with Dr. Welsing.

“She was vibrant, engaging, easy to talk to and had an insightful sense of humor,” he added. “She enjoyed listening to others’ stories and often asked me about how things were going in post-Katrina New Orleans.”

Collins said Welsing was sharp and quick-witted and spent countless hours after her lectures standing outside talking to those who attended. He said during one of those post-lecture gatherings, she referred to Kerry Washington’s character in the TV drama “Scandal” as “Mammy Unchained” and said she was no more than a “modern-day Sally Hemings.” Welsing also mused about how she could never spot “a single book” in the lavish mansions featured on TV shows like MTV’s “Cribs” and how America would often dispatch a “white woman brigade” to take down successful Black men.

Welsing visited New Orleans twice over the past five years — once to speak at a gathering of conscious Blacks in eastern New Orleans and also to make a presentation at a conference for Black medical professionals.

Collins said Welsing was an avid reader of The Louisiana Weekly, one who charged him with bringing a stack of the latest issues of the New Orleans publication every time he attended her monthly lectures.

In 1970, Dr. Welsing published an essay titled “The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy,” which she later expanded to a collection of essays titled The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors in 1991.

Welsing said that the system of white supremacy/racism was a by-product of white fear of genetic annihilation at the hands of people of color around the world. Because they were a global minority, Welsing theorized, white people created a system of racial privilege that gave them a distinct advantage over Black, brown, red and yellow people in every facet of human existence.

To that end, Welsing described racism/white supremacy as “the local and global power system and dynamic, structured and maintained by persons who classify themselves as white, whether consciously or subconsciously determined, which consists of patterns of perception, logic, symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as conducted simultaneously in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labour, law, politics, religion, sex and war); for the ultimate purpose of white genetic survival and to prevent white genetic annihilation on planet earth – a planet upon which the vast majority of people are classified as non-white (Black, Brown, Red and Yellow) by white skinned people, and all of the nonwhite people are genetically dominant (in terms of skin coloration) compared to the genetic recessive white skin people.”

“May God bless the living legacy and memory of freedom fighter Dr. Frances Cress Welsing,” NNPA president and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. said in a statement. “More than anyone else in the 20th and 21st centuries she personified the intellect and courage to speak the truth about the pseudo-ideology of white supremacy and its longstanding impact on the consciousness and lives of millions of Black people throughout the world.”

Welsing inspired several generations of Black artists and leaders and was the inspiration behind legendary rap group Public Enemy’s saminal album Fear of a Black Planet.

James Small, a Black Studies professor at City University of New York, spoke last week with reverence about Dr. Welsing’s contributions to the ongoing quest of people of African descent for liberation, justice and the right to be. “She was one serious, serious warrior,” he told The Louisiana Weekly. “The courage she had, to stand up at the time she stood up — the 70s and 80s. Remember, she was a medical doctor — you didn’t have a whole lot of MDs standing up to defend the Black community against white supremacy and racism and taking on those who were pushing their theories of white supremacy in the 1960s and 70s. It was Frances Welsing who shut them down. No one else in the country had the skills to articulate scientifically what race was all about — and she did.

“I think her greatest contribution was to break down to the world — and particularly to our community — what white supremacy is and what it does, how it damages Black people and white people, and what Black people can do to defend themselves against white supremacy as a policy… And how to then recover from the damage caused by white supremacy economically, politically, culturally, in terms of the educational system and in terms of the socialization process in our community.”

Asked what can and should be done to preserve Welsing’s legacy and cultivate future generations of Frances Cress Welsings, Small said, “The first thing we need to do is study her work, The Isis Papers. Frances has hundreds and hundreds of DVDs and tapes out — we need to listen to them and study her instructions.

Small said Welsing set a sterling example of fearlessness in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, a lesson all Black men and women should pass on the future generations. “If we don’t defend our communities and ourselves against white supremacy, then we will not teach our children how to protect themselves and their children from the damages and ravages of white supremacy,” he told The Louisiana Weekly.◊

She was reportedly working on a follow-up book to The Isis Papers at the time of her passing.

This article originally published in the January 11, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.