Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting
Author: Terrie M. Williams
Terrie M. Williams, one of Ebony magazine’s “Power 150” for Activism and Woman’s Day magazine “50 Women On A Mission To Change The World,” is an advocate for change and empowerment. For more than 30 years, she has used her influence and communications expertise to educate and engage audiences in causes. She launched The Terrie Williams Agency in 1988 with superstar Eddie Murphy and the late jazz legend Miles Davis as her first clients and has continued to represent some of the biggest personalities and businesses in entertainment, sports, business and politics. Terrie is known as a consummate deal maker—connecting the right people with the right situations. She was responsible for the initial financing for the renowned Hue-Man Bookstore located in Harlem, NY– and was associate producer for the 2008 Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
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Terrie’s latest critically acclaimed book, entitled Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting, is credited with starting an unprecedented national dialogue that recounts her personal struggles with depression and the impact the stigma of mental illnesses have particularly on the African-American community. Her dialogue has led to a national mental health advocacy campaign called “Sharing Ourselves…Healing Starts With Us” with the collaboration with the Ad Council’s and SAMHSA’s Campaign of Mental Health Recovery. To date, the campaign has garnered $2.5 million in donated national advertising space and 11 million media impressions to significantly heighten the awareness and importance of mental and emotional health. Most recently, Williams spoke at the United Nations’ World Mental Health Day where she provided a global perspective on mental health and depression– and shared some commonalities that exist worldwide.
Terrie will soon launch a self-care, lifestyle series based on her philosophy of re-inventing ones’ self by addressing challenges and scars that re-surface in ones’ life. Not a lecture, the experience is a guided dialogue between Terrie and participants. It is specifically designed to bring about positive and permanent shifts in the quality of life for your employees. These shifts make available a new and unique kind of freedom and power: The freedom to be absolutely at ease no matter where they are, who they are with, or what the circumstance-the power to be in action effectively in those areas of their lives that are important to them.
Terrie has a B. A. cum laude in Psychology and Sociology from Brandeis University, an M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University, and has received numerous awards for her mental health advocacy work.