Psychiatric expert advocates tolerance and diversity

Co-author of Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, Alvin Poussaint, will present the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial lecture for the Assembly Series. The talk will be held at 4 p.m., on Tuesday, April 15 in the Laboratory Sciences Auditorium.

Poussaint co-wrote Come on People with activist comedian Bill Cosby and worked as a script consultant on the 1980s comedy, The Cosby Show. It was Poussaint’s job to review scripts and consult on psychological and educational issues to avoid inappropriate humor or stereotypes.

He is also the author of Why Blacks Kill Blacks and co-authored Raising Black Children, as well as Lay My Burden Down: Suicide and the Mental Health Crisis Among African Americans.

An expert on race relations, prejudice and diversity issues in a multicultural society, Poussaint is director of the Media Center of the Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston. He is also an advocate for reducing the influence of advertising in children’s lives. Poussaint is a psychiatry professor and Faculty Dean for Student Affairs at Harvard Medical School.