Convocation: Joy DeGruy

Renowned educator, psychologist, and social worker Joy DeGruy is the author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. While African Americans managed to emerge from chattel slavery and the oppressive decades that followed with great strength and resiliency, they did not emerge unscathed. Slavery produced centuries of physical, psychological and spiritual injury. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome lays the groundwork for understanding how the past has influenced the present, and opens up the discussion of how we can eliminate non-productive attitudes, beliefs and adaptive behaviors and, build upon the strengths we have gained from the past to heal injuries of today.