Dr. Price M. Cobbs Biography Favorites Color Red Food Fish Quote “Right on.” Time of Year Summer Vacation Spot Paris

Dr. Price Mashaw Cobbs, black psychiatrist, author and management consultant, was born November 2, 1928, in Los Angeles, California, the youngest of three children. Cobbs' parents were politically left, sophisticated immigrants from the South, who called it the "old country". They gave Cobbs the analytical tools to feed his endless questions. As a youth, Cobbs read Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, Sigmund Freud, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. He also eagerly read Time , the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender. Cobbs wondered about religion, lynching and what it was like to live in other cities. He graduated from Jefferson High School in 1946 and started that same year at the University of California, Los Angeles. Transferring to the University of California at Berkeley, he dropped out, joined the Army, served in Germany, but returned to graduate from Berkeley in 1954.

Cobbs graduated from Meharry Medical School with an M.D. in psychiatric medicine in 1958 and was board certified in 1966. He built his private practice with patients referred by local hospitals and doctors. The civil rights movement exacerbated the problems of his black patients and the discomfort brought on by intense social change. In 1968, he co-wrote the classic, Black Rage, with William Grier. The timely book contended that at the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., all – not some – blacks were angry. The book's analysis of seething black anger and real white racism startled the country and challenged black people to reject practices based in the continuum of a slave culture. Black Rage became standard reading in college classrooms and community study groups across the nation. Cobbs was a popular lecturer and talk show guest. His next book, The Jesus Bag, further challenged the comfort zone of the establishment. His most recent work, Cracking the Corporate Code: From Survival to Mastery co-authored with Judith L. Turnock, is about power.

Cobbs is the president and CEO of Pacific Management Systems of San Francisco and applies the principles of enthnotherapy to his work as a management consultant.

Cobbs was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on March 26, 2002.