Rising: Summoning the Village

In 2015, BMHA was lauded for its quick and profound response to a citywide uprising, which followed the brutal death of a young man that occurred while he was in police custody. In addition to its already established links and commitment to the Sandtown-Winchester community, BMHA staff and Board members developed a year-long series called Summoning the Village: Call to Action, strategically offering healing sessions in the most affected neighborhoods in order to support the Black community.

This series was an innovative and inclusive approach to community engagement and change guided by the wisdom of national thought leaders, researchers, scholars and local experts on many of the social conditions impacting one’s mental health. The involvement of people from all walks of life, ensures that the recommendations that arose from the series were shaped by and therefore relevant and valuable to the impacted communities.

This seminal work toward healing acknowledges the historical trauma and stress that black people experience on a daily basis and explores how it affects their feelings, thinking and actions with the goal of crafting a solutions-focused model of prevention, treatment, sustainability, and replicability. The series was a natural extension of the over three decades of history of the Black Mental Health Alliance in addressing the mental health needs of Baltimore’s communities.