{{Short description|American psychiatrist (1935–2016)}} {{use American English|date=February 2020}} {{use mdy dates|date=February 2020}} {{Infobox person | image = Dr. Frances Cress Welsing receives Community Award at National Black LUV Festival in WDC on 21 September 2008.jpg | image_size = 220 | name = Frances Cress Welsing | caption = Welsing receiving the Community Award at National Black LUV Festival on September 21, 2008 | birth_name = Frances Luella Cress | birth_date = {{Birth date|1935|3|18}} | birth_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2016|1|2|1935|3|18}} | death_place = Washington, D.C., U.S. | occupation = Physician | alma_mater = Antioch College (B.S.)<br>Howard University (M.D.) | known_for = ''The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors'' (1991) }}
'''Frances Luella Cress Welsing''' (March 18, 1935 – January 2, 2016) was an American psychiatrist and well-known proponent of the pseudoscientific melanin theory.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Newkirk|first=Pamela|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PqBrinKtzWAC&q=black+supremacist+welsing&pg=PA3|title=Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media|date=September 2002|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-5800-7|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1980/09/25/controversial-black-doctor-provokes-reporters-reactions/fb5487f4-a45d-49d6-a235-b69d13d42ff0/| title = Controversial Black Doctor Provokes Reporters' Reactions - The Washington Post| newspaper = The Washington Post}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Newkirk |first1=Pamela |title=Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media |date=September 2002 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-5800-7 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PqBrinKtzWAC&q=Within+the+Veil+Black+Journalists,+White+Media |access-date=31 December 2020 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|3}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=Clarence E. |title=We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism |date=June 14, 2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-535730-1 |page=80 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n15_tf0hoT0C |access-date=31 December 2020 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|80}} Her 1970 essay, ''The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy)'',<ref name="theory">{{cite journal|last1=Welsing|first1=Frances Cress|title=The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation|journal=The Black Scholar|date=May 1, 1974|volume=5|issue=8|pages=32–40|doi=10.1080/00064246.1974.11431416|issn=0006-4246}}</ref> offered her interpretation of what she described as the origins of white supremacy culture. She was the author of ''The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors'' (1991).<ref>{{cite book|last=Jaynes|first=Gerald D.|title=Encyclopedia of African American society, Volume 1|year=2005|publisher=Sage|isbn=978-0-7619-2764-8|page=34}}</ref>
==Biography==
=== Early life and education === Welsing was born Frances Luella Cress in Chicago on March 18, 1935. Her father, Henry Noah Cress, was a physician, and her mother, Ida Mae Griffin, was a teacher. She was the middle child of three girls, her elder sister named Lorne, and the younger Barbara. In 1957, she earned a B.S. degree at Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
In 1962, Welsing received an M.D. from Howard University.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}} In the 1960s, Welsing moved to Washington, D.C., and worked at many hospitals, especially children's hospitals.
=== Career === While Welsing was an assistant professor at Howard University, she formulated her first body of work in 1969, ''The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation''. She self-published it in 1970.<ref name="theory" /> The paper subsequently appeared in the May 1974 edition of ''The Black Scholar''. This was an introduction to her thoughts that would be developed in ''The Isis Papers'',<ref name=":0" /> released 22 years later. This was a compilation of Welsing's essays about global and local race relations.<ref>{{cite news| url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1990/05/02/pe-the-pigment-envy-theory/b9512f67-1976-4ca2-9473-453c0c9a17fa/| title = PE THE 'PIGMENT ENVY' THEORY - The Washington Post| newspaper = The Washington Post}}</ref>
In 1992, Welsing published ''The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors''. The book is a compilation of essays that she had written over 18 years.
The title was inspired by the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis. According to Welsing, all the names of the gods were significant; however, Welsing specifically chose the name Isis for her admiration of "truth and justice".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Isis Papers|last=Welsing|first=Frances|publisher=C.W Publishing|year=1991|isbn=978-1-60281-959-7|location=Washington, DC|pages=i–9}}</ref>
In her book Welsing talks about the genocide of people of color globally, along with issues faced by black Americans. According to Welsing, the genocide of people of color is caused by white people's inability to produce melanin. The minority status of whites has caused what she calls a preoccupation with white genetic survival.
Welsing believed that injustice caused by racism will end when "non-white people worldwide recognize, analyze, understand and discuss openly the genocidal dynamic."<ref name=":0" /> She also tackled issues such as drug use, murder, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, incarceration, and unemployment. According to Welsing, the cause of these issues is white supremacy. Black men are at the center of Welsing's discussion because, according to her, they "have the greatest potential to cause white genetic annihilation."<ref name=":0" />
=== Death === By December 30, 2015, Welsing had suffered two strokes and was placed in critical care at a Washington, D.C.-area hospital.<ref name="death">{{cite web |title=Educator Frances Cress Welsing Dies at 80 |url=http://rollingout.com/2016/01/02/noted-author-dr-frances-cress-welsing-dies-at-80/ |access-date=January 1, 2016 |publisher=Rolling Out.com}}</ref> She died on January 2, 2016, at the age of 80.<ref name="death" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Dr. Frances Cress Welsing Dead at 80 |url=http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/01/dr_frances_cress_welsing_dead_at_80.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160104181454/http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/01/dr_frances_cress_welsing_dead_at_80.html |archive-date=January 4, 2016 |access-date=January 2, 2016 |publisher=The Root.com}}</ref>
Welsing was mourned by Benjamin Chavis, president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=Stacy M. |date=4 January 2016 |title=Famed author and doctor Frances Cress Welsing dies at 80 |url=https://www.stlamerican.com/entertainment/famed-author-and-doctor-frances-cress-welsing-dies-at-80/ |work=St. Louis American}}</ref> by Kevin Washington, president of the Association of Black Psychologists,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Harris |first1=Hamil |title=Memorial service to be held for celebrated, controversial Frances Cress Welsing |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/memorial-service-to-be-held-for-celebrated-controversial-frances-cress-welsing/2016/03/17/c6e35244-e619-11e5-a6f3-21ccdbc5f74e_story.html |access-date=26 October 2024 |issue=18 March 2016}}</ref> and by Chuck D of Public Enemy, who credited her as inspiration for the album ''Fear of a Black Planet''.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Chappell |first1=Bill |title=Activists Mourn Race Theorist Dr. Frances Cress Welsing |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/02/461765446/activists-mourn-race-theorist-dr-frances-cress-welsing |access-date=26 October 2024 |issue=2 January 2016}}</ref>
==Views== In ''The Isis Papers'', she described white people as the genetically defective descendants of recessive genetic mutants. She wrote that due to this "defective" mutation, they may have been forcibly expelled from Africa, among other possibilities.<ref name="map">{{cite journal|doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330360604|volume=36|issue=S17|title=Melanin, afrocentricity, and pseudoscience|year=1993|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|pages=33–58|last1=Ortiz de Montellano|first1=Bernard R.}}</ref> Racism, in the views of Welsing, is a conspiracy "to ensure white genetic survival". She attributed AIDS and addiction to crack cocaine and other substances to "chemical and biological warfare" by white people.<ref name="map" />
Welsing defined racism as: {{Quotation|text="Racism (white supremacy) is the local and global power system dynamic, structured and maintained by those who classify themselves as white; whether consciously or subconsciously determined; this system consists of patterns of perception, logic, symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as conducted simultaneously in all areas of people activity: economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war. The ultimate purpose of the system is to ensure white genetic survival and to prevent white genetic annihilation on Earth—a planet in which the overwhelming majority of people are classified as non-white (black, brown, red, and yellow) by white skinned people. All of the non-white people are genetically dominant (in terms of skin coloration) compared to the genetic recessive white skinned people".}} Welsing was against white supremacy and what she saw as the emasculation of black men.<ref name=":0" /> She theorized that white people were the first people with albinism who were driven from Africa by the black natives.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Afrocentricity vs Homosexuality: The Isis Papers |url=http://www.spunk.org/texts/pubs/lr/sp001715/isispap.html |access-date=2018-04-04 |website=www.spunk.org}}</ref>
==Criticisms== Welsing's beliefs surrounding melanin have been criticized as pseudoscientific. She claimed that melanin gives Black people supernatural powers such as extrasensory perception. She gave as an example George Washington Carver, saying that his melanin enabled plants to talk to him and reveal their nutritional qualities.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=kreidler |first1=Marc |title=Magic Melanin: Spreading Scientific Illiteracy Among Minorities: Part II |journal= Skeptical Inquirer |date=1 January 1992 |url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/1992/01/magic-melanin-spreading-scientific-illiteracy-among-minorities-part-ii/}}</ref>
Welsing caused controversy after she said that homosexuality among African-Americans was a ploy by white males to decrease the black population,<ref name="homosexuality">{{cite book|last=Lehr|first=Valerie|title=Queer Family Values: Debunking the Myth of the Nuclear Family|year=1999|publisher=Temple University Press|isbn=978-1-56639-684-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1eKacWgOh8MC&q=%22Cress+Welsing%22+black+male+homosexuality+%22imposed%22+by+white&pg=PA108|page=108}}</ref> arguing that the emasculation of the black man was a means to prevent the procreation of black people.
== Personal life == In 1961, she met Johannes Kramer Welsing, a Ghanaian, while enrolled at Howard University Medical School. They eventually married but had no children.{{cn|date=March 2026}}
==Film appearances== * Welsing appeared in the documentary ''500 Years Later'' (2005), directed by Owen Alik Shahadah, and written by M. K. Asante.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.africanholocaust.net/500/review.pdf|title=500 Years Later|publisher=African Holocaust.com|access-date=January 2, 2016|archive-date=March 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304073044/http://www.africanholocaust.net/500/review.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> * Welsing also appeared in ''Hidden Colors: The Untold History of People of Aboriginal, Moor, and African Descent'', a 2011 documentary film by Tariq Nasheed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/30/hidden-colors-tariq-nasheed-eric-garner-lynch_n_5632601.html|title='Hidden Colors' Filmmaker Tariq Nasheed: 'Eric Garner Was Lynched'|date=July 30, 2014|publisher=Huffington Post.com|access-date=January 2, 2016}}</ref>
==Works== *''The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors'', Chicago: Third World Press, c 1992 (3rd printing); {{ISBN|978-0-88378-103-6}}, {{ISBN|978-0-88378-104-3}}.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * Ortiz de Montellano, B. (2001) [http://www.csicop.org/si/show/magic_melanin_spreading_scientific_illiteracy_among_minorities ''Magic Melanin: Spreading Scientific Illiteracy to Minorities''], csicop.org; accessed June 29, 2017.
{{Authority control}} {{Pan-Africanism}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welsing, Frances Cress}} Category:1935 births Category:2016 deaths Category:20th-century American women writers Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:Afrocentrists Category:Antioch College alumni Category:Anti-LGBTQ activists Category:Howard University alumni Category:Pseudoscientific psychologists Category:Writers from Chicago Category:Proponents of melanin theory Category:20th-century African-American writers Category:20th-century African-American women writers Category:American women non-fiction writers