NPR Live Event Confronts Rising Suicide Rates Among Black Americans

NPR reported that suicide rates among Black youth are rising particularly dramatically, and that in 2022 the rate of Black youth suicides by firearms exceeded the rate among white youth. The host who led the event wrote that his brother took his own life on May 10, 2010, and that for years he could not bring himself to speak about it; he said the silence is not protecting anyone. He added that the discussion came at a time when government-sponsored public health initiatives are retreating from issues that affect different communities differently.

The panel included Debra Lee, chief executive emerita of BET; Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.; Dr. Paul Nestadt, a psychiatrist and medical director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention; Vernon Davis, a retired NFL tight end who won the Super Bowl; the WWE wrestler Ettore "Big E" Ewen; and the Rev. Johnny Parker, who is both a pastor and a counselor. The event set out to examine why the crisis is happening, how it is affecting Black Americans and what can be done about it.

Davis described episodes of panic and depression that surfaced during games. "I would have these episodes in the game," he said. "I would go sit on a bench and breathe hard. I just felt like, for a split second, that I didn't want to be here. I had nothing to live for. It happened so fast, and it was just so sudden." He said tending to his mental health is now a daily priority, and that after losing his brother and sister in quick succession he began speaking more openly. "There's people out there who are going through the same thing that I went through," he said. "They just need to hear that there's someone else out there that is going through the same thing."

Nestadt said white Americans still account for the majority of suicide deaths and that the suicide rate among white Americans has declined slightly, while the rate among Black Americans has gone up. Part of that increase, he said, comes down to access to guns. "When that trend in young Black people, especially young Black males, started to go up was also a time when we saw a dramatic increase in firearm ownership in the Black community," Nestadt said, placing it in 2020, in the context of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd.

Survey data from 2025 show the lowest rate of self-reported suicide attempts among young Black people in the United States in years, but Nestadt said the death rate "has gone higher than it's ever been." He attributed the gap to the number of guns in homes: when an attempt is made, he said, it is now more likely to be fatal.

Nestadt also addressed two beliefs he said are wrong: that only people with long-term mental illness are at risk, and that asking someone whether they are considering suicide plants the idea. Suicide is often an impulsive act, he said, and interrupting the thought can work.

Panelists offered similar guidance. Reaching out to a loved one who appears to be struggling can be lifesaving, they said; free and low-cost treatment options exist and are effective; and remembering those lost to suicide as the full people they were can help those left behind. In the United States, anyone in crisis can call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, to reach someone at any hour for conversation or help getting care.

Editor's Summary

Black suicide rates have risen more than 50 percent over about a decade, and firearm suicides among Black youth surpassed those of white youth in 2022, according to CDC data cited by NPR. An NPR Morning Edition event brought together clinicians, a lawmaker and public figures to examine causes including expanded gun ownership and to press for open discussion and use of resources such as the 988 lifeline. Researchers on the panel said a 2025 survey showing fewer self-reported attempts among young Black people alongside record death rates reflects how access to firearms changes whether an attempt proves fatal.