Speakers asked lawmakers to fund resources targeting Black mental health in the state budget on June 17, 2025. (Christine Zhu/NC Newsline)
Advocates representing the group Advance Carolina and a coalition of progressive nonprofits gathered in front of the North Carolina Legislative Building Tuesday morning to raise awareness about the mental health of Black people.
Speakers from a variety of backgrounds targeted the state budget, asking lawmakers to support increased funding for mental health services in schools and communities and halt the dismantling of mental health resources in public education. Speakers also called lawmakers to demand accountability from federal leaders for failing to meet the mental health needs of vulnerable groups.
Turquoise LeJeune Parker, the media coordinator at Lakewood Elementary School in Durham, said she came to speak not just as an educator, but also as a mom, an activist, a citizen, a taxpayer, and a witness to what happens without sufficient funding in schools.
She emphasized that what’s happening to the education system is not an accident.
“We’re watching arts, music, counseling, and essential support services get cut every year — and those are not just services, but those are real people — while are prisons are fully funded and billionaire tax breaks are handed out like candy, chronic underfunding hits Black and Brown schools and under-resourced districts hardest,” Parker said.
This isn’t a new challenge, Parker pointed out. Rather, she said, it’s the continuation of an “incredibly deep injustice.”
“When educators of color or others from marginalized communities don’t see themselves reflected or supported, it sends a clear message that you don’t belong here, and that must change,” Parker said. “We must be the ones to change it.”
Drew Washington, a youth organizer with Education Justice Alliance, talked about mental health and Black youth.
He said one of the greatest challenges in addressing men’s mental health is starting the conversation.
Often, when Black men are growing up, they’re told what they should be before they’re given a chance to figure out what they want to be, Washington said, referring to stereotypes of becoming a rapper or football player instead of a doctor or lawyer.
“We aren’t given the agency on what we want to do, the person we want to be when we grow up,” he said.
Washington emphasized the importance to begin the conversation earlier, when kids are still young.
Samuel Scarborough is a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an organizer with their chapter of their NAACP chapter.
He said young people are the innovators of the future, but they’re also in a crisis.
“Since 2017, the Black youth suicide rate has risen faster than any other ethnic group in the past two decades,” Scarborough said.
The issue has deep roots, he said. But funding for mental health programs, support for K-12 schools, and jobs for working class families would make a difference.
“When our incomes don’t keep up with the ever-rising cost to live, that attributes to the Black mental health crisis,” Scarborough said. “When we’re going to schools that can get shot up any given day… that fuels the Black mental health crisis.”
Scarborough asked lawmakers for more money to support existing and future mental health initiatives for Black communities, not only across North Carolina, but across the country.
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