The Black Men’s Research Institute (BMRI) at Morehouse College hosted its first Spring Symposium addressing health issues for African American men.
Taken place at the Atlanta University Center’s Woodruff’s Library, the “Changing the Paradigm” symposium began its two-day conference with a discussion on mental health.
Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough, Interim Executive Director for BMRI, wants the symposium to dive deeply into mental health and how it affects Black men and their communities. 
Funded by a $1.4 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the BMRI amplifies collaborative thought leadership, and social justice and strives to counter conflicting narratives, distrust and ambiguity with a clear, authoritative voice on the experiences of Black men.
Morehouse College has several professors exploring this subject and encouraging deeper conversations about understanding manhood and masculinity.
“This is the only all-men’s HBCU in the country that is digging into something that we do,” Kimbrough said, “and we are offering grant opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to do some of this work.”
“There is no place on the planet with the moral authority to speak to the issues of our times that address Black men’s well-being in our society,” said Dr. David Thomas, President of Morehouse. “We are an institution that, for 156 years, has defied the racial gravity of this nation as regards Black men because, on most indices of well-being, Black men are at the bottom.”
