[Disclaimer: This article discusses suicide and self-harm and may be triggering for some readers. If you have thoughts of self-harm, please call 911 for assistance for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988. September is National Suicide Prevention Month.]
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, affecting individuals across a wide range of demographics. While efforts to end community violence centers on homicides, the growing suicide rates among Black youth may require a shift in focus.
In the last 25 years, self-reported Black youth suicide attempts increased by 73 percent, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported. Recent data and other research also indicates that the rise in suicides among Black youth is directly linked to neighborhood disinvestment, community destabilization, weakened family bonds, and the absence of crucial social support systems.
According to the CDC, the suicide rate for African Americans of all age groups has been steadily increasing over the past decade. The nation’s public health agency noted that the suicide rate among Black populations increased from 5.5 per 100,000 in 2011 to 7.7 per 100,000 in 2020. Overall, in 2022, the highest U.S. age-adjusted suicide rate was among American Indians and Alaskan Natives (16.11 per 100,000) and the second highest rate was among Whites (15.83 per 100,000). Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. had the lowest level (6.93 per 100,000).
Between 2018 and 2021, the age-adjusted suicide rate for non-Hispanic Black or African Americans persons increased from 7.3 to 8.7 per 100,000, which is a 19.2 percent increase in only four years, the CDC reported. “Age-adjusted” refers to a statistical method used by researchers to compare rates of events (such as deaths, diseases, or other health outcomes) across different populations while accounting for differences in age distribution.
Even more alarming is the data regarding self-slaughter and Black children. Statistics show the suicide rate among Black youth ages 10 to 19 surpassed that of their White peers for the first time in 2022, increasing a whopping 54 percent since 2018.
In the United States, suicide is the second leading cause of death in youths 5 to 17 years of age, according to the National Institute of Medicine. In 2019, a total of 1,646 suicide deaths were reported, and 111,000 cases of self-harm behavior were seen in hospitals nationwide for this age group.
In 2019, McKenzie Adams, a 9-year-old fourth grader, hanged herself in her grandmother’s home in response to being bullied by classmates at her Demopolis, Alabama, school. In 2021, 10-year-old Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor committed suicide after being bullied by classmates and teachers due to her race and autism, her mother said at the time, noting she was one of a handful of Black children who attended her public school in Utah. The family was awarded $2 million in damages in a civil suit, the largest such victory in the state’s history.
Also in 2019, a 7-year-old Black boy in San Antonio, Texas, fatally shot himself with his parents’ weapon after what they say was “relentless” bullying by classmates. Called “blacky,” and other derogatory terms, Jeffrey Taylor was the only African American first grade student in his Salado Elementary School classroom.
Other children have been triggered to commit self-harm due to cyberbullying and negative interactions on social media and online games that allow chatting with other players.
The City of Chicago has been aggressive in providing resources for parents, community members and school leaders in identifying children and adults who may be experiencing mental health trauma. The Department of Health initiative focuses on building community, connection and knowledge to prevent suicide. It includes free in-person and virtual “Question, Persuade, and Refer Gatekeeper” (QPR) training. The program also provides for direct outreach to at-risk individuals.
There have been 139 suicides in Chicago this year, according to the city’s online dashboard. There have been 877 self-induced deaths since 2021: 47.4 percent White, 26.5 percent Black, 19.5 percent Latino/Hispanic, 5.7 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, and 0.8 percent race not identified. Nearly 80 percent of those deaths were male. About 3 percent of suicides involved people aged 17 and under.
In response to the growing national crisis, U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) introduced legislation to address the issue after a Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) task force on mental health and suicide released a scathing report entitled, “Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America.” The working group included physicians, social workers, mental health experts, clergy, and educators.
“The 2019 Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act” sought to include new and existing legislative proposals to increase funding in research relating to Black youth mental health through the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health. In addition, the legislation would also provide resources for training students, parents, teachers, and other school leaders to identify and screen young people for signs of trauma and other mental health disorders. The bill prohibits federal funding from being used for conversion therapy and sought to restrict federal SAMHSA (substance abuse and mental health) grants to states that allow the practice.
“The historical suicide rate gap between Black and White youth is narrowing by some measures; and among the youngest, Black children actually have the highest rates of suicide,” said Dr. Michael Lindsey, a professor of social work at New York University. “…We are ringing the alarm on the growing mental health crisis among Black youth and calling attention to the need for more research funding, mental health professionals in schools; and local, state and federal attention.”
Despite the CBC’s efforts, child and youth suicide numbers continued to climb. Lurie’s Children’s Hospital in Chicago reported that in early 2021 or a full year into the coronavirus pandemic, local hospitals had a significant increase in mental health emergencies and incidents of self-injury or suicide in children between the ages of 5 and 17 compared to the same period in 2019.
Alarming reports on Black youth suicide were neither groundbreaking or new. A similar approach was conducted 44 years ago when suicides and self-injury among Black teens began to spike as the 1970s ended. In 1980, Robert Davis published the report “Suicide Among Young Black Victims” with Clark Atlanta University and sought to identify conditions that led to the uptick.
He found that in addition to issues involving identity, personal relationships, or economic hardships, African American youth also had difficulty navigating a hostile society fueled by racism, classism, ageism, and anti-Black youth stereotyping—all of which can lead to stress and anxiety, or other emotional and mental duress. The research said the illusive pursuit of the “American Dream” had begun to take its toll.
The “dream” was a utopian concept developed and popularized by historian James Truslow Adams in 1931 to describe European settlers’ aspirations and economic pursuits, many of whom became colonizers of indigenous people. His book, “Epic America,” did not consider or address how the experience of chattel slavery, racial hatred and violence, Jim Crow, segregation, and other white supremacist’ concepts would impact Black Americans.
In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created social safety nets in response to the Great Depression. By 1970, the system had been branded as a “welfare system,” and its need was falsely attributed to unemployed, lazy Black people, particularly single mothers, wanting to only get over on “the system.” Though there were federal or state laws in place that prohibited men from being in the homes, the notion was promoted, leading to spikes in children being raised in single-parent households, with a primary parent unable to find or obtain work or childcare.
By the end of that decade, drug and substance abuse was on the rise, leading to an escalation in crime and incarceration. For example, the Bureau of Prison Statistics noted that in 1980, more than 15,000 inmates were added to the rolls of federal correctional institutions, continuing an upward trend. “As correctional authorities coped with a record year-end total of 329,122 inmates, 28 States and the District of Columbia were under court orders to reduce overcrowding, and 16 states had a backlog of sentenced prisoners waiting in local jails for space in State facilities.” Most of those incarcerated were Black males.
Between 1970 and 1975, there were 8,136 suicides by Blacks, 25 percent of which were female, and 75 percent were male, the report stated, some of which were attributed with controversy to young Blacks dealing with “the stresses of urban life and racial institutions.”
The Clark-Atlanta University report also noted that overall, when African Americans are “effectively denied all other mechanisms to compensate for rejection and abuse, Blacks [sic] have in the past used their families, communities, and institutions (i.e., churches, social clubs, fraternal organizations, etc.) to develop positive and functional forms of response to recurrent stressful social situations,” Davis wrote. “The Black community, in effect, has functioned as a protective society, providing participation and purpose, a sense of belonging, and the possibility of cooperative and self-help approaches to problems.
However, what happens when the Black neighborhoods and the families within them become destabilized by poverty, crime, underfunded schools, nutrition insecurity and other health and social maladies? The 1980 study had an answer to that question, too: Black children and young people suffer because the adults they depend on are also suffering.
“…The Black [sic] community as a caring and protective system has become less available to an increasing proportion of young Blacks,” Davis wrote. “… The illusion of widespread social acceptance and social opportunities has tended to loosen or weaken communal and family ties. When young Blacks begin to internalize personal failures and frustrations and no longer use the traditional institutional structures, relationships, and groups within the Black community to shield them from full personal impact, alienation and anomie set in, increasing the likelihood of self-destruction.”