(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Dylann Storm Roof, the White man accused of killing nine members of an historic Black church in Charleston, S.C., last year, was attacked Aug. 4 by a Black inmate in the Charleston County Detention Center, where the two were housed in the protective custody unit, authorities said.

Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon Jr. said Roof was on his way to the shower when fellow inmate 25-year-old Dwayne Stafford accosted him and beat the younger man with his fists. The self-proclaimed White supremacist was vulnerable because the guard on duty stepped away to get toilet paper for another prisoner.

A weapon was not involved in the attack and Roof sustained only minor bruising on his face and back, Cannon said. Roof is not pressing charges.

The federal trial for the 22-year-old has been set for the first week of November.

The high school dropout, who told authorities he intended to start a race war, faces 33 federal charges, including a hate crime offense. In May, United States Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced the Justice Department would be seeking the death penalty in his case.

“The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision,” Lynch said at the time.

Roof has also been indicted on 12 state charges, including nine counts of murder, one count of possessing a weapon during the commission of a violent crime and three attempted murder charges. The state trial is slated for January 2017 and State Solicitor Scarlett A. Wilson said in July that South Carolina will also be seeking the death penalty.

Roof’s defense attorneys have filed a legal challenge to the U.S. death penalty, hoping prosecutors would decide not to pursue it in their client’s case, CNN reported.

“The facts of this case are indisputably grave,” Roof’s defense team stated in its motion, as cited by CNN. “But if, as we contend here, the FDPA [Federal Death Penalty Act] is unconstitutional, no one can be lawfully sentenced to death or executed under it, no matter what his crimes.”

The lawyers added that if federal prosecutors removed the death penalty, “Mr. Roof will withdraw this motion and plead guilty as charged to all counts in the indictment.”

On June 17, 2015, Roof attended a Bible study class at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, known as Mother Emanuel. And, after participating for a while, he shot and killed nine members, including the church’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and injured several others, according to prosecutors. Roof was arrested in North Carolina the day after the massacre.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) -  The “Changing Minds Mental Health Conference: The State of Mental Health in the Minority Community," placed mental health in the Black community front and center July 30 with an open and frank conversation moderated by Councilwoman Karen Toles of Prince George’s County, known as the most wealthy predominately Black county in the nation.

“There is so much stress on you,” the Democratic Party council member said to the predominantly Black female audience. “I remember what first lady Michelle Obama said in her speech to the Democratic convention. She said that as bad as things can get for us, there is always someone that is worse off than us.”

Toles added, “We Black folks don’t want to talk about mental health. What we have here is a stigma-free, open dialogue on mental health.”

Dr. D. Kim Singleton, author of the book “Broken Silence,” said mental health challenges are more common in the Black community than many think. “Twenty million Americans [of any race] are suffering from depression according to the National Institutes of Health,” Singleton said. “However, 12 percent of Black women get treated for depression.”

Collette M. Harris, executive director of the Prince George’s County chapter of the National Association of Mental Illness, said one in five adults will be diagnosed with a mental health condition in their lifetime and one in 10 children will be diagnosed the same.

“The thing is that one day you can seem okay and the next day you are somebody else,” Harris said. “Mental illness doesn’t discriminate based on race, sex, educational attainment, income level and social status. Mental illness isn’t curable, but it is treatable.”

Singleton said many people “walk around in pain.” “That pain surfaces in the form of mood, anxiety, and bipolar disorder,” she said. “There is a mood disorder called dysthymia that affects a number of people without revealing itself openly. It is triggered by situational circumstances such as problems with work, children, and money issues, and can show itself in such ways as people who eat too much, sleep too much, and unexplained crying.”You consistently feel bad and it affects your self-esteem.”

Singleton said cultural factors of being Black in America add to this mood disorder. “We are still dealing with mental health issues surrounding slavery,” she said. “During slavery we learned to grin and bear pain, and we do the same today to a certain extent. We have learned to hold in our pain and think that is a normal state of being.”

Singleton said, “Today, many insurance companies will pay for mental health treatment and while therapy can be expensive some therapist have sliding scales based on the ability to pay. There have been times when I have treated people when they didn’t have the money.”

There was a panel discussion on the role of the church in facing mental health challenges. The Rev. Debyii Sababu-Thomas of the Ward Memorial AME Church of Washington, D.C. said “so many of us are on the edge,” and cited the lyrics of the 1982 hit by rapper Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message.”

“So many people are one catastrophe, one injury, and one accident from going over the edge. There is a crisis in leadership in the Black community because so many of our leaders have serious mental pressures,” she said.

The Rev. Peggy Maclin of The Sanctuary at Kingdom Square said the church should get more involved in their congregants mental health. “In the past, pastors talk, pray, and send their members back to the wolves,” Maclin said. “Pastors should counsel their members and recommend a therapist if needed. There are members who suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, and attention-deficit disorder and we just can’t pray those things away.”

Pamela Creekmur, health officer at the Prince George’s County Department of Health, told the gathering that the county has a number of resources to deal with mental health challenges and is only a phone call away. “If you dial 3-1-1, we can connect you with services,” she said. “Mental health is a chronic disease and the county is working on a plan to deal with it that way in the long haul.”