How Prominent Black Women Battled & Defeated Depression

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

As some celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month in May, notice how more high-profile Black women are now speaking openly about a subject that was once taboo among many Blacks.

In fact, an increasing number of high-profile women are not only acknowledging that they suffered from chronic depression but are also explaining how they defeated it. Remember, Essence magazine Editor-in-Chief Susan L. Taylor? For decades, she wrote “In the Spirit,” a breezy inspirational monthly column that urged Black women to “Love yourself.” Yet she was personally suffering from deep depression that had crippled her as a child and continued into adulthood.

Meanwhile, Alicia Keys, whose resume includes 17 Grammy Awards, told People in a 2007 interview that she actually felt “so sad all the time, and I couldn’t shake it.” But that was not the case with seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles. She vigorously shook her head no when some urged her to hide her own depression. Instead, Biles sparked headlines when she withdrew from the individual all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympics on July 28, 2021, after undergoing a medical evaluation due to concerns about her mental health.

“I just felt like it would be a little bit better to take a back seat, work on my mindfulness,” Biles said at a press conference.

“You usually don’t hear me say things like that, because I’ll usually persevere and push through things … I’ve just never felt like this going into a competition before.”

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President Joe Biden presents the Medal of Freedom to gymnast Simon Biles, Thursday, July 7, 2022, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

According to 2025 CDC records, more individuals are not only experiencing depression but also becoming aware of it. Specifically, depression is a mood disorder that causes persistent feelings of sadness and loss of interest. It is increasing nationwide at a time when awareness is also increasing, in other words.

This means that while more than 1 in 8 people ages 12 and up in the US reported depression in recent years, according to recent data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics – these numbers also mean overall depression prevalence has nearly doubled. It increased from 7.3 percent in 2015-16 to more than 13 percent in 2021-23. Meanwhile a 2022 CNN/Kaiser study showed that 90 percent of adults said the country is facing a mental health crisis, at a time when awareness is actually increasing.

“The question then is, has that truly increased, or have we just been able to identify it more?” Dr. Matt Mishkind, deputy director of the Johnson Depression Center at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus asked in an April 16, 2025 CNN interview. “I definitely think it has increased, and I think that’s because I think the world is a difficult place right now,” he said. “I think there’s been stressor after stressor after stressor for a long time now, and I think that is starting to truly affect people.”

The problem is Blacks have historically refused to discuss depression since racism is a known but largely unacknowledged stressor that requires the mobilization of coping resources. Since racism is deeply embedded in the culture, according to a 2019 NIH study titled, “Stress and the Mental Health of Populations of Color: Advancing Our Understanding of Race-related Stressors,” many don’t bring it up.

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It feels like a stray hair on your face, famed opera singer Marian Anderson said, describing the debilitating sting of racial prejudice decades ago, “Sometimes it’s like a hair across your cheek. You can’t see it, you can’t find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating.”

It’s unclear if Anderson made her trademark quote before she made pioneering appearances at the White House in 1936. Or she made the statement after the Daughters of the American Revolution blocked her from performing at Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Hall in 1939. (The group blocked Anderson’s performance, due to a policy devised by the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) that committed the hall to being a place strictly for white performers). In any event, Anderson made history that same year when she performed at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939. In front of a crowd of more than 75,000, Anderson offered up a riveting performance that was broadcast live for millions of radio listeners.

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“You can’t see it, you can’t find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating,” Anderson explained.

That’s how depression felt to Susan Taylor who is now 79. Meanwhile, Keys who is now 44, and Biles, age 28, offer similar comparisons. Although these three high-profile Black women have never complained publicly about racial discrimination, they have publicly discussed their journey from the darkness to the light.

Taylor, the former editor-in-chief at Essence described her depression in Blackdoctor.org. “I began spiraling downward, downward, downward and further and further into a depression that I couldn’t pull myself out of. I felt like everything coming out of my mouth was incorrect. I’m out there speaking in front of thousands of people with a smile pasted on my face but dying on the inside.”

In January 2008, Taylor left Essence magazine after 27 years. She began to work full-time as a mentor with the National CARES Mentoring Movement.

Individuals volunteer at least an hour a week for a year. They guide and encourage challenged youngsters in one-to-one or group mentoring relationships, where several adults spend time with a larger number of children.

“With mentoring I see light shining at the end of a long dark tunnel,” Taylor said. “There is a chance that if I devote more time and space…it will) give our children in peril a chance to develop the extraordinary in themselves.”

Meanwhile, Keys, the Grammy winner, described her journey from the darkness to the light.

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“I started burying my feelings, and it got to a point where I couldn’t even tell my family or my friends, ‘I’m twisted,’ or ‘I’m exhausted,’ or ‘I’m so angry.’ … I became a master of putting up the wall so that I was unreadable,” she explained.

But Keys said she beat depression by shifting her perspective. As an entrepreneur, she began to create a comfortable, peaceful and productive working environment.

“I have to work extra hard to create the proper culture,” Keys said. “It’s important to me that we are not only doing well in our business, but we’re doing well in our lives and that our families are well,” she said.

Biles’ journey from the darkness to the light bubbled to the surface when she withdrew from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, citing a mental block. By prioritizing her mental health, Biles defeated depression. Three years later Biles won three golds and one silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

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Depression is more likely to strike women rather than men, according to data from the CDC’s latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The report showed that more than half of high school girls (53 percent) said they felt persistently sad or hopeless – nearly twice the rate of share of boys (28 percent) who said the same and 14 percentage points higher than a decade earlier.

But, Taylor’s, Keys’ and Biles’ personal survival stories suggest depression is neither a gender issue nor a death sentence.

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Taylor said she battled depression by recycling random flashes of insight. “My sadness and depression came out of giving myself to my career before I would give myself to myself,” Taylor explained. “Everything for Essence; nothing for me.”

Taylor added, “My mother was really depressed all of my life, and I thought it had to do with me,” she said. “So one day my uncle straightened me out. He said, ‘Susan, it’s not you. Babs has been depressed since she was a little child. So don’t take it personally.’ That was clarifying and also liberating.”

Taylor said, “I sought help, and everything began to unfold. Hiding sadness makes you more and more sad because it closes you off to your healing. Giving voice to what you’re feeling is part of the healing.”

Meanwhile, Keys described how she bounced back. “[Early in my career] people watched [me] intently. I’m a New Yorker. I didn’t want people to violate me. I immediately put up a wall, but I put up the worst kind of wall: the one that you pretend is not there. You think you’re protecting yourself but you’re actually hurting yourself. All I knew to do was just to fake it till you make it. Once I stopped doing that – which I have to remind myself to do every day – I started to feel much more honest, because I didn’t have to pretend.”

Biles has also moved on, Describing her plans for 2025 in several interviews in late 2024, Biles said, “Besides relaxing and going on a couple of vacations with my husband, I really am just trying to be involved in the community as much as I can as well as giving back.”

On May 3, she wore a pink dress, matching hat and her wide signature smile to the Kentucky Derby. On May 5, Biles sparked headlines once again when she attended the Met Gala with her husband Jonathan Owens.

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