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Alvin F. Poussaint, a psychiatrist who, after providing medical care to the civil rights movement in 1960s Mississippi, went on to play a leading role in debates about Black culture and politics in the 1980s and \u201990s through his research on the effects of racism on Black mental health, died on Monday at his home in Chestnut Hill, Mass. He was 90.<\/p>\n
His wife, Tina Young Poussaint, confirmed the death.<\/p>\n
Dr. Poussaint, who spent most of his career as a professor and associate dean at Harvard Medical School, first came to public prominence in the late 1970s, as the energy and optimism of the civil rights movement were giving way to white backlash and a skepticism about the possibility of Black progress in a white-dominated society.<\/p>\n
In books like \u201cWhy Blacks Kill Blacks\u201d (1972) and \u201cBlack Child Care\u201d (1975), he walked a line between those on the left who blamed persistent racism for the ills confronting Black America and those on the right who said that, after the civil rights era, it was up to Black people to take responsibility for their own lives.<\/p>\n
Through extensive research and jargon-free prose, Dr. Poussaint (pronounced pooh-SAHNT) recognized the continued impact of systemic racism while also calling for Black Americans to embrace personal responsibility and traditional family structures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
That position, as well as his polished charisma, made him a force in Black politics and culture. He served as Massachusetts co-chairman for Reverend Jackson\u2019s 1984 presidential campaign and was reportedly the model for Dr. Cliff Huxtable on Mr. Cosby\u2019s sitcom \u201cThe Cosby Show.\u201d<\/p>\n
He repeatedly denied being Mr. Cosby\u2019s inspiration, but he certainly was Mr. Cosby\u2019s guiding light. He read almost every script as a consultant for the show, he said, sending notes about how to avoid stereotypes or deepen a story line and advising writers before they tackled a particularly thorny theme.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t rewrite,\u201d Dr. Poussaint told The Philadelphia Daily News in 1985, \u201cbut I indicate what makes sense, what\u2019s off, what\u2019s too inconsistent with reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long before Mr. Cosby was accused by more than 50 women of sexual assault and misconduct<\/a>, he was known as America\u2019s Dad, a stern but loving paterfamilias of not just the Huxtable clan but also America at large. Much of the advice Huxtable gave to Black youth mirrored what Dr. Poussaint had been saying for years. (There is no evidence that Dr. Poussaint knew about the accusations against Mr. Cosby.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Dr. Poussaint became a go-to commentator for journalists looking for insight into Black culture. When \u201cFamily Matters,\u201d another sitcom centered on a Black family, featured a brainy, goofy teenager named Steve Urkel, Dr. Poussaint was on the case.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that he\u2019s a nerd and very bright may be a step forward,\u201d he told The New York Times in 1991<\/a>, \u201caccepting that a Black kid can be bright and precocious and might end up in an Ivy League school.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Poussaint consulted for both \u201cThe Cosby Show,\u201d<\/a> which ran from 1984 to 1992, and its spinoff, \u201cA Different World,\u201d which aired from 1987 to 1993. He wrote the introduction and afterword to Mr. Cosby\u2019s 1986 best seller, \u201cFatherhood\u201d; the two then co-wrote \u201cCome On, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors\u201d (2007).<\/p>\n By the time \u201cCome On, People\u201d was published, Dr. Poussaint had grown concerned about Black men, particularly young ones. His older brother, Kenneth, had spent years in and out of jail, drug rehab and mental-health institutions, a tragedy that Dr. Poussaint saw as equal parts personal and social.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With the journalist Amy Alexander, he wrote \u201cLay My Burden Down: Suicide and the Mental Health Crisis Among African-Americans\u201d (2000), and during the 2000s he took multiple tours around the country with Mr. Cosby, interviewing Black men and families.<\/p>\n \u201cI think a lot of these males kind of have a father hunger and actually grieve that they don\u2019t have a father,\u201d he told Bob Herbert<\/a>, a columnist for The Times, in 2007. \u201cAnd I think later a lot of that turns into anger. \u2018Why aren\u2019t you with me? Why don\u2019t you care about me?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n By then, Dr. Poussaint was addressing a new generation of Black Americans \u2014 not the one that had taken lessons from \u201cThe Cosby Show\u201d \u2014 and some found his message simplistic. He also drew criticism for arguing that racism was partly a mental disorder.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time for the American Psychiatric Association to designate extreme racism as a mental health problem,\u201d he wrote in The Times in 1999<\/a>. \u201cOtherwise, racists will continue to fall through the cracks of the mental health system, and we can expect more of them to act out their deadly delusions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n That position, critics said, risked absolving racists and misdiagnosing the systemic nature of racism in American society.<\/p>\n But Dr. Poussaint continued to find a ready audience among those who understood the balance he was trying to strike between recognizing racism and not allowing it to be an excuse for what he saw as nihilism and irresponsibility.<\/p>\n \u201cI always wonder, whenever I talk to Dr. Poussaint, why he isn\u2019t better known,\u201d Mr. Herbert wrote. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the smartest individuals in the country on issues of race, class and justice.\u201d<\/p>\n Alvin Francis Poussaint was born on May 15, 1934, in East Harlem, one of eight children of immigrants from Haiti. His father, Christopher Poussaint, was a printer, and his mother, Harriet (Johnston) Poussaint, ran the home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Dr. Poussaint described himself as a studious, conscientious child, very much in contrast to his brother, Kenneth, with whom he shared a bedroom. As a teenager, Kenneth suffered from mental health issues and drug addiction and engaged in petty theft to support his habit. He died of meningitis in 1975.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The experience, along with a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, pushed Alvin toward studying medicine. He graduated from Columbia University in 1956 and received his medical degree from Cornell in 1960. He completed his residency at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also received a master\u2019s degree in pharmacology in 1964.<\/p>\n