During Black History Month and beyond, MAPS celebrates and reflects on the many transformative contributions the Black community has made to the fields of psychedelic science, medicine, and therapy.
In honor of Black History Month, MAPS has compiled an intimate list of visionary Black leaders and educational resources pertaining to justice, race, and equity in psychedelics. Acknowledging that we have a long way to go, we commit to doing the work for collective liberation.
Visionary Black Leaders in Psychedelic Science
Sara Reed a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the Creative Executive Officer of Mind’s iHealth Solutions, a digital health company that provides evidence based and culturally responsible mental health services for underserved groups. She supervises and trains clinicians in providing culturally responsible mental health treatment.
Jamilah R. George, M.Div., was a MAPS-sponsored phase 2 MDMA-assisted psychotherapy co-therapist whose site focused on treatment-resistant PTSD among people of color. Jamilah’s passion for social justice and equality issues fuels her work as she advocates for the mental and holistic wellbeing of socially disenfranchised groups, including women, people of color, impoverished domestic and international communities, and the intersections thereof.
Monnica Williams is a board certified licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa. She received her undergraduate degree from M.I.T. in 1992, and worked in the UCLA Department of Computer Science until 2000. She holds a Doctoral Degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia as of 2007. She has also served as research and instructional faculty at the University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Louisville, and University of Connecticut.
Camille Barton is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and embodiment researcher, who uses afrofuturism to imagine creative interventions towards systems change. Camille was the project manager of the Psychedelic Medicine and Cultural Trauma Workshop, hosted by MAPS as a precursor to the first MDMA Psychotherapy training for therapists of color in 2019. Camille has written for Vice, Talking Drugs, the MAPS Bulletin, and DoubleBlind on drug policy & racial justice.
Ayize Jama-Everett graduated from the Graduate Theological Union in 2001 with a Master’s of Divinity. His thesis was on the spiritual use of substances among the homeless youth of Morocco, London, and the Bay Area. Soon after, he began teaching “The Sacred and the Substance,” one of the first survey courses of sacred plant use at the Graduate Theological Union. In 2003, Ayize received a Masters degree in Clinical psychology from New College of California. In 2019, he received a Masters in Fine Arts, Creative Writing, from The University of California, Riverside. He is the author of four books. As an African-American male, Ayize’s focus has been consistently on underrepresented communities in the sacred plant community.
Dr. Carl Hart is a member of the MAPS Board of Directors and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Columbia University. He is also the Ziff Professor of Psychology in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry. Professor Hart has published numerous scientific and popular articles in the area of neuro-psychopharmacology and is co-author of the textbook Drugs, Society and Human Behavior (with Charles Ksir). His most recent book, “High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society,” was the 2014 winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
Educational Resources
Who Will Benefit From Psychedelic Medicine?
Culture and Psychedelic Psychotherapy: Ethnic and Racial Themes from Three Black Women Therapists