African-American psychiatrist and educator Alvin Francis Poussaint was born May 15, 1934, in East Harlem. He received his bachelor's degree from Columbia College in 1956 and an M.D. from Cornell University Medical School in 1960. From 1965 to 1967, he worked for the Medical Committee for Human Rights in Jackson, Mississippi, where he provided medical care to civil rights workers and helped desegregate Southern health facilities. He later taught at Tufts Medical School and at Harvard Medical School. In 1971 he joined the Reverend Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and served as one of Jackson's advisers in the 1984 presidential campaign.Dr. Poussaint was a consultant for "The Cosby Show" from 1984 to 1992 and for "A Different World" from 1986 to 1993. He ensured that the two television series presented positive images of Blacks. He became a professor of psychiatry and an associate dean at the Harvard Medical School in 1993. He has researched and written about such topics as the psychological and social adjustments of children of interracial marriages and the impact of racism on the psychological development of Blacks. He is the author of Why Blacks Kill Blacks and The Raising of Black Children.
Reference:
Black Heroes of The Twentieth Century
Jessie Carney Smith, editor
Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1998