Title Pending 6397

This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.The focus of this research is to offer critical analysis of the ways in which the conditions of poverty and religion contribute adversely affect Black Americans. In the aftermath of the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the United States and visibility of continued police violence from both physical and racial components, Black Americans are often cast within the throes of a state of anxiety, and as some would insist, a state of emergency. These circumstances, among many others, are emblematic of the precarious conditions which besiege Black mental health. Within the sphere of social stratification, many lower income Black communities are exploited and suffer where the poverty rate exceeds any semblance of reasonable justification.Moreover, as poverty concerns an American educational system whose surviving legacy has been the wanton and brazen undermining of Black children, school age children of color are historically rendered at a disadvantage educationally. Furthermore, they are routinely targeted by a prison industrial system who which generates billions of dollars annually through the willful and expressly racist exploitation of the prison-to-pipeline system. Managed duplicitously by local, state, and federal governments as a barometer or measuring stick to determine the likelihood that a child of color will transition from the classroom to a state sponsored prison facility, the Black body and mind is virtually under attack from the moment he or she enters grade school.This research, therefore, aims to briefly analyze the various mental health conditions prevalent within Black America - particularly PTSD, severe depression, and suicide. Furthermore, it is the goal of this research to discover productive and proactive ways in which the fight against Black mental health disorders can be waged. As collected data accumulated over the past several decades by leading psychologists, sociologists, and pediatrics has confirmed, the state of Black mental health in America is at a critical point. According to the Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health and a report by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), African Americans are 20 percent more likely to experience serious mental health problems than other ethnic and racial groups (African American Mental Health, 2018). Moreover, adequate treatment is often scarce. This is especially true concerning Black Americans.Therefore, I hope to shed light on a growing and yet still invisible problem within the Black community whose results have consequences which stretch far beyond the margins of Black life and into the very heart of America’s troubled future.