Dr. Frances Cress Welsing

The Psychiatrist Who Read America Like a Patient File — And Why She Still Haunts the Conversation on Race from the Grave.

The Color of My Politics by Malik Shakur

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If you've ever wondered what would happen if Sigmund Freud, Malcolm X, and your sharp-tongued auntie who "doesn't mince words because life is short" all shared a brain, the answer is Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. Born Frances Luella Cress in Chicago in 1935 — back when America was still wearing its racism like a varsity jacket — she grew up to become one of the most controversial, provocative, and stubbornly relevant thinkers on race in the last half-century.

And honestly, she deserves a second look by some of y'all. Not because she was perfect. Not because all her theories were airtight. But because she was one of the few people willing to say:

"America, you need therapy. And not the cheap kind."

A Doctor in a Time of National Delusion

Welsing came from a family where intelligence wasn't optional — it was the household décor. Her father, Henry Cress, was a physician. Her mother, Ida Mae Griffen, was a teacher. And if you've ever had a doctor for a father and a teacher for a mother, you know you don't get to slack at anything — not grades, not chores, not your ability to think…