William H. Grier was born on February 7, 1926, in Birmingham, and died on September 3, 2015 at a hospice in Carlsbad, Calif.

William was a psychiatrist and author.

He enrolled at the historically black Howard University at 16 years old.

He was transferred after a year to the University of Michigan, to earn his bachelor of science degree, in 1945 and a medical degree three years later.

William did his residency at Harlem Hospital Center.

He trained as a psychiatrist at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kan.

He served in Korea with the Army during the Korean War, attaining the rank of captain.

Dr Grier then returned to Detroit, where he established a private psychiatric practice and taught at Wayne State University.

He worked at a psychiatric clinic in San Francisco.

He and his partner ran the Pacific Psychotherapy Lab. He was a chairman of the department of psychiatry at Meharry Medical College in Nashville in the early 1970s.

His book “Black Rage,” written with his colleague Price M. Cobbs, drew widespread attention to the psychic damage inflicted by racism and the causes of black anger, a topic of intense interest in the aftermath of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..

William passed away at age 89 on September 3, 2015 at the hospice in Carlsbad, Calif.