8 Kenneth Clark

*Note: There are 2 versions of this chapter, written by 2 different groups of students.

Group 1: Haley Hase, Jaxon Erie, Anonymous Contributor, and Jeremiah Talley

General Biography

Kenneth Bancroft Clark, one of the most remembered psychologists and early pioneers in the advancement of social psychology, was born on July 24, 1914, in the Panama Canal Zone to his Jamaican-born parents, Miriam Hanson and Arthur Bancroft Clark (Jones & Pettigrew, 2005). Miriam and Arthur, originally from the West Indies, traveled to the Canal Zone to work for the United Fruit Company (Selassie, 2007). After giving birth to her children, Miriam longed to move to the United States in order for her children to be able to obtain a valuable education. However, Arthur did not agree with this life changing transition to the United States, as he believed the career discrimination he would face would inhibit him from finding a career that was remotely equivalent to his job in the Canal Zone. Unfortunately, the opinion of Arthur was not going to stop Miriam from following her idea of prosperity for her children, which further led to their separation and the move of Miriam and their children to the United States.

With Clark’s new opportunity in the United States, he attended high school and went on to receive a higher education. Clark attended Howard University in Washington D.C., where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1935 and a master’s degree in 1936. Clark was accepted into the doctoral psychology program at Columbia University, where he focused on race relations and graduated in 1940 (Selassie, 2007). At this time, prior to the civil rights movement and equal rights, Clark was the first African American to earn a doctoral degree in psychology from Columbia University, further demonstrating and foreshadowing his future accomplishments for the African American community. While enrolled in the doctoral psychology program, Clark began a relationship with Mamie Phipps, another prominent pioneer in the advancement of psychology. Like Clark, Phipps was one of the first African American women to receive a doctoral degree in psychology. Additionally, in 1938, Clark and Phipps were married (Jones & Pettigrew, 2005). Clark and Phipps-Clark worked together on social psychological research relating to race. Together, they would later make history as well as monumental and societal changes in the United States in favor of the civil rights movement and equality.

In terms of Clark’s career path, he held several academic positions, including positions at both Hampton University and City College of New York. Clark made history yet again while in his position at the City College of New York, as he became the first permanent black faculty member in the institution’s history (Selassie, 2007). While in New York, both Clark and Phipps-Clark believed the Harlem area needed mental health and social services for children. With that in their minds, the Clarks opened the Northside Center for Child Development in the Harlem area. With an increased interest in children, the “Doll Studies” were conducted by the Clarks. These studies played a crucial role in the civil rights movement and additionally act today as a symbolic representation for the role of psychologists in conducting peaceful and constructive social change (Freeman, 2008). Specifically, the Clarks would later be involved and provide their research as expert witnesses in several desegregation cases, including the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court case (Freeman, 2008).

Throughout Clark’s prosperous career, he was able to publish much of his work, which included books, articles, and journals that focused on social psychology. In addition to his career and achievements, Clark was a father to two children, Kate and Hilton Clark, as well as a grandfather to three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren (Jones & Pettigrew, 2005). However, after a life dedicated to the field of psychology, Clark passed away at the age of 90 on May 1, 2005, in New York City (Selassie, 2007). Clark was preceded in death by his wife, who died in 1983 (Jones & Pettigrew, 2005).

Important Achievements

Clark, together with his wife Phipps-Clark, could be considered the most important couple in the history of psychology. Phipps-Clark was a remarkable woman, certainly worthy of her own piece, and many of Clark’s great achievements were in collaboration with his wife. However, this piece is about the achievements of Clark, and therefore will focus on his part in the great achievements he accomplished, but it is worth noting that he did not do these things alone.

Clark was a pioneer for African Americans in psychology. He, along with his wife, was one of the first two African Americans to earn a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University in New York (Knight, 2018). Clark was also the first African American to be a tenured professor at the City College of New York, the first African American on the New York State Board of Regents, and the first African American president of the American Psychological association. Much of his work would go on to further the cause of African Americans.

In 1962, the Kennedy administration asked Clark to chair the Harlem Youth Opportunities project, an early stage of the war on poverty. As chair, Clark would quite literally write the book on poverty and the ghetto in a blueprint called Youth in the Ghetto: A Study of the Consequences of Powerlessness and a Blueprint for Change. The blueprint would receive great national attention for being unprecedented and would inspire Clark’s 1965 book Dark Ghetto. Clark described the book as the “cry of a social psychologist” (Knight, 2018). But Clark did not just write about the problems he saw in the world. He would open an agency alongside his wife called the Northside Center for Child Development. This was the first full-time child guidance center offering its services to the Harlem area, and his time there would inform much of his writings (Knight, 2018).

Clark also earned various awards throughout his career, including honorary degrees from nine universities, the APA Gold Medal Award, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedom Award, and the NAACP Spingarn Medal. Clark contributed greatly to the area of child psychology and wrote what is considered to be the manual on raising children free from the damages of racism in a book entitled Prejudice and Your Child.

Arguably, Clark’s greatest contribution to psychology was the Doll Test. This pioneering work was the combined achievement of the Clarks. To what degree the two contributed is disputed, with Phipps-Clark claiming Clark played a larger role, and Clark claiming Phipps-Clark played the larger role (Cramblet Alvarez et al., 2020). Certainly, both deserve credit for this experiment and the massive historical impact it has had. Through testing with dolls of different skin colors, the Clarks were able to show that African American children saw themselves as lesser because of their race. This evidence would be used in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. Specifically, Clark was called upon to give his expert testimony that segregation was harming Black children, teaching them that they were bad because of their race. His testimony moved Chief Justice Warren and was important in the decision to end school segregation (Weatherford, 2017). Clark’s achievements cement his legacy as one of the greats of psychology, and the world would be a much worse place without his incredible life.

Historical Context

Clark was an educator, social psychologist, and a prominent activist before, during, and after the civil rights movement. Clark’s main area of research was on the damaging effects of racism and how it impacts not only the community but society as a whole. He was born in 1914 and was surrounded by racism throughout his entire life, to include his educational and career years. He not only questioned the systemic racism around him but began to fight back early on. During this time America was still segregated and African Americans had a hard time finding employment opportunities and even educational ventures were removed. Clark favored integrity and as he became more prominent so did his influential pull.  He was an expert witness in the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which was the first time in American history when the Supreme Court allowed testimony from social scientists. After this feat the Kennedy administration made him the chief project consultant for the planning stage of the Harlem Youth Opportunities project which allowed him to inspire up and coming African Americans to follow in his footsteps. During the civil rights movement he helped Martin Luther King, Jr. speak at the annual meeting of the American Psychology Association (Encyclopedia.com, 2018). Clark spent his life pursuing social responsibility, social justice, and social morality.

Clark was an undergraduate at Howard University and while he was there, he met several people who inspired him, as well as he began leading demonstrations against segregation in Washington D.C. Howard University was seen as the “Black intellectual mecca” as many African American scholars made their names there (Encyclopedia.com, 2018). Clark was influenced by Professor Francis C. Sumner who was the first African American psychologist (Encyclopedia.com, 2018). Sumner became a role model as well as a standard for Clark as he provided insight into the nature of racism. Ralph Bunche was the first African American to win the Nobel Peace prize in the 1950s, and he was also an inspiration to Clark as Bunche was a Howard professor during his time as well (Encyclopedia.com, 2018).  Bunche pushed Clark to oppose Jim Crow laws as he said that segregation and democracy were incompatible. Clark served as the editor of the student newspaper during his time as Howard and wrote editorials against fascism, capitalism and militarism (Encyclopedia.com, 2018). He led students off-campus protests to decry segregation during this time as well. This allowed Clark to influence and inspire those around him who shared his same beliefs.

Prior to World War II, Clark and some of his peers studied the morale of African American civilians that were being actively discriminated upon. It was noted that the military discriminated against them, the Red Cross would not accept their blood, labor unions refused them, and lynchings were still commonplace. Clark took exception to the dropping of the atomic bombs during the war, noting the problems with justice in relation to human chaos (Encyclopedia.com, 2018). Clark’s influence on young African Americans began to subside when the Black nationalist movement became more popular during the 1960s (Encyclopedia.com, 2018). People were rightly angry, and many did not see integration as the way forward. Clark rejected this notion and sought to remain measured in his seeking of change, to use thought over emotion.

Historical Impact

Widely known for being both a scholar and civil rights activist, throughout Clark’s life, he often sought out political engagement while working in his field. While doing this, Clark gave voice to the democratic ideal of equality amidst times of segregation and racism with intentions of leveraging social change. Clark found himself turning toward social psychology in hopes of promoting change (Encyclopedia.com, 2018). His immense dedication to racial injustice throughout his lifetime changed the world for the better. Clark and Phipps-Clark had the privilege of making psychological advancements alongside having active roles in the Civil Rights movement. Many of the prominent advancements the Clarks made throughout their career influenced both the progression of the field and made a positive impact on the field of psychology. With the Doll Test, the Clarks were able to draw conclusions that showed African American children who faced widespread discrimination would eventually develop a sense of inferiority, thus damaging their self-esteem (Legal Defense Fund, 2022). Importantly, their findings served as confirmation that in the public school system, state mandated segregation was harmful to children of color (Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University, 2023) and led the Supreme Court to declare the doctrine of “separate but equal” (Butler, 2023).

Aside from this positive impact the Clark’s made, they also are responsible for the development and opening of the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem, which was one of the first institutions that was full-time for racial and ethnic minority children. It offered both casework and psychological services for the families of these children. By establishing the Northside Center for Child Development, not only did this allow Clark to help youth, but he was also able to conduct different types of experiments to better understand racial biases that could be found in the education system (Legal Defense Fund, 2022).

In addition to his involvement with the Brown vs. Board of Education case, Clark was the first African American to serve as the American Psychological Association president and to become a member of the New York State Board of Regents. Incredibly, Clark also took on a head role of the Board of Education commission as a way to advocate for improved learning facilities for schools who suffered financial problems. Class sizes of smaller numbers and a learning curriculum that was universally more rigorous was also sought after by Clark with the hopes of further integrating the city’s schools (Legal Defense Fund, 2022). These are just some of the notable personal achievements that set the bar high for both Clark and new emerging psychologists, which also had a strong positive impact on the psychological field itself. The incredible personal achievements made by both Clark and Phipps-Clark paved the way for racial and ethnic minorities in the field of psychology.

References

Cramblet Alvarez, L. D., Leach, J. L., Rodriguez, J. L., & Jones, K. N. (2020). Unsung psychology pioneers: A content analysis of who makes history (and who doesn’t). The American Journal of Psychology, 133(2), 241–262. https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.133.2.0241

American Psychological Association. (2012). Featured psychologists: Mamie Phipps Clark, PhD, and Kenneth Clark, PhD. American Psychological Association.

Butler, S. N. (2023, February 21). Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark (1917–1983). Encyclopedia of Arkansas. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/mamie-katherine-phipps-clark-2938/

Freeman, D. (2008). Kenneth B. Clark and the problem of power. Patterns of Prejudice, 42(4-5), 413–437. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313220802377362

Jones, J. M., & Pettigrew, T. F. (2005). Kenneth B Clark (1914-2005). American Psychologist, 60(6), 649–651. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.und.edu/10.1037/0003-066X.60.6.649

Knight, J. (2018, May 18). Psychologists and their theories for students. Encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/education-biographies/kenneth-bancroft-clark

Legal Defense Fund. (2022, December 7). Brown v. board: The significance of the “Doll test”. https://www.naacpldf.org/brown-vs-board/significance-doll-test/

Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. (2023). Kenneth Bancroft Clark: Who speaks for the Negro? https://whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu/interviewee/kenneth-bancroft-clark

Selassie I, W. (2007, January 19). Kenneth B. Clark (1914-2005). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/clark-kenneth-1914/

Weatherford. (2017). Hearts and Minds: How the Doll Test Opened Schoolhouse Doors. The Southern Quarterly, 54(3), 164–168.

Group 2: Michael Dorn, Makenna Hawthorne, Elizabeth Madera, Gailyn McEvoy, Citlally Medrano, and Sarah Ann Ness

General Biography

Kenneth Bancroft Clark was born on July 24, 1914 in the Panama Canal Zone to Arthur Bancroft Clark and Miriam Hanson Clark, and moved with his mother to Harlem, New York at a young age (Selassie, 2007). Growing up, Clark attended integrated elementary and junior high schools, but at the time, most African Americans, along with other minorities, went to special high schools that taught them a trade to use so that they were able to get a job after graduation. Clark’s mother, Miriam, was furious and refused to let her son attend one of those schools. Clark was then enrolled in George Washington High School and graduated in 1931 (Martin & Pendergast, n.d.).

Clark attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., and originally intended to study medicine, not psychology, but in his second year, he took a psychology class and was hooked (Martin & Pendergast, n.d.). During his time there, Clark met his wife, Mamie Phipps, who was studying self-perception in African American children (Columbia University, n.d.). He graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Howard University in 1935 and 1936 (Selassie, 2007). Clark then enrolled at Columbia University, where he graduated in 1940 and became the first African American to earn a doctorate in psychology at that university (Vanderbilt University, n.d.). From 1940 to 1941, he taught at the Hampton Institute, now known as Hampton University, but shortly after, in 1942, Clark left to teach at City College of New York. Once he started working there, he became the institution’s first permanent African American faculty member, retiring from teaching in 1975 (Selassie, 2007).

Important Achievements 

Kenneth Bancroft Clark had an incredibly influential impact on the psychology that we study today. Throughout his life, he sought to make a difference by pressuring American society to acknowledge segregation and racism in the United States. He was deeply invested in the psychology of racism. In the 1940s, he and his wife made it their mission to publish their research concerning the effects of segregating young children in schools (Martin & Pendergast, n.d.). He went on to write notable articles and became nationally known for his research in the field.

Kenneth B. Clark is also known for conducting the Doll Tests, which sought to determine the psychological effect that segregation had on African American children (African American Registry, n.d.). In his famous experiment, he asked African American children to choose between a Black doll and a White doll. He discovered that more times than not, the child chose the White doll. The results showed that the children who chose the White doll associated negative characteristics with being African American (Clark & Clark, 1950). Due to his outstanding work, Clark was enlisted by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP legal team to assist and provide testimony in the Brown v. Board of Education trials in 1954, and testified in three out of the four trials that led to the Supreme Court’s decision. The legal team argued that separating people in educational facilities by race was psychologically harmful to African Americans, which violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution (Selassie, 2007).

Kenneth B. Clark was not only involved in the psychology world but also deeply embedded in his community. In 1946, he and Mamie Phipps Clark founded the NorthSide Child Development Center in Harlem, which helped to serve the needs of racial and ethnic minority children (American Psychological Association, n.d.). Clark also played an important part in founding Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, a program designed to help with children’s extracurriculars, improving academic scores, and provide professional opportunities for those who resided in Harlem. This project would also go on to influence public policy, leading to the creation of Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” organization (African American Registry, n.d.). Kenneth B. Clark also wrote and published numerous books, including Prejudice and Your Child (1963), Crisis in Education (1971), The Dark Ghetto (1965), and Dilemmas of Social Power (1965). Because of all his accomplishments, Clark won numerous awards, served on multiple boards, and received several honorary degrees from respected universities, Columbia and Johns Hopkins University among them (Martin and Pendergast, n.d.). Sadly, following a battle with cancer, he died on May 1st, 2005.

Historical Context

Post-Civil War Jim Crow laws were passed to enforce racial segregation to prevent contact between Black people and White people. This period lasted from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to the beginning of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson established the “separate but equal” ruling (Urofsky, 2023). The facilities accessed by White people were also offered to Black people, but they did not have to be the same facilities, just equal. The term equal was loosely applied. This is shown in historical photos of the bathroom conditions, the water fountains, and especially the schools. This was the time period when Kenneth Bancroft Clark grew up as a child in New York.

After Pearl Harbor, all Americans were called on to do their part to help the efforts for the war. In 1942, Clark left the Hampton Institute to go to Washington to work for the Office of War Information as part of the staff of psychologists (Nyman, 2010). He ended up leaving the Office of War Information due to the lack of protection offered to Black employees by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He felt that he would rather risk the chance of being drafted, than to work for a government that “didn’t give [him] protection because [he] was black” (Nyman, 2010).

During the time of segregation, one of the prevalent problems was the Board of Education “putting minority children into classes for the disabled without adequate testing,” as Clark found some of these children were above normal intelligence (Nyman, 2010). His interdisciplinary study of social problems with race, as being affected within the space of social psychology and developmental psychology, was also cited in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended school segregation in 1954 (Nyman, 2010). This study began in 1950, with the Midcentury White House Conference on Children, and showed the effect of segregation on personality development. The effects were felt on Black and White students. It was determined later in the 1950s that segregation among White and Black children had negative effects on their personalities, and was considered inherently damaging (Meyer & Nidiry, 2004). Clark felt that this was the reasoning for the Supreme Court’s decision.

Kenneth B. Clark’s involvement was influential on many fronts that dealt with race in the United States and the Civil Rights movement. The establishment of the Committee on Equality of Opportunity in Psychology (CEOP) has had the most impact on the American Psychological Association’s (APA) racial justice policies over time (Pickren & Tomes, 2002). During John F. Kennedy’s presidency, Clark was also on the Committee on Juvenile Delinquency due to his study of the Harlem community with the Harlem Youth Project. He described it as “Camelot, the years of hope—we were going to remake our ghettos and make a better world for young people so they wouldn’t have to be delinquent” (Nyman, 2010). Both Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King Jr. also sought counsel from Clark, and he became the president of the APA in July of 1969. Many groups in the APA have continued over the past decades to work on the issues that led to Clark becoming a part of its leadership (Pickren & Tomes, 2002).

Historical Impact

Kenneth B. Clark’s achievements have had a significant impact on psychology. Even though the American Psychological Association ignored the impact of some of his work initially, his continued work over time has positively shaped psychology as we know it today (Benjamin & Crouse, 2002). Clark was recruited to be one of the primary psychologists working on the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case. He and other psychologists in the case presented psychological data which was ultimately used in the final legal decision (Benjamin & Crouse, 2002). Clark was a key contributor to psychology being validated as a science because of his work on the case. This case not only contributed to desegregation efforts in the community, but it also opened the doors for psychologists to participate in more legal proceedings (Benjamin & Crouse, 2002). Even with the recognition of psychology as a science and its triumph in this court case, the APA did not acknowledge the case in any of its subsequent publications. This lack of response was a clear indication that they still had a lot of work to do internally (Benjamin & Crouse, 2002).

Kenneth B. Clark was friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and a major advocate during the Civil Rights movement. He wrote papers on the need for an integrated society and led efforts such as Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Pickren & Tomes, 2002). In 1965, one of the major challenges that the American Psychological Association faced was making psychology more inclusive of underrepresented groups. His only involvement in APA governance at that time was with the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), but in 1967, Clark helped the SPSSI combat the racial issues in the APA by inviting Martin Luther King Jr. to give a speech during their annual convention (Pickren & Tomes, 2002). This was a big step in progressing the APA as there was a lot of controversy around this invitation.

Clark later became president of the American Psychological Association in 1969 (Pickren & Tomes, 2002). He was initially absent from some of the conventions where committees, such as the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi), presented their individual cases around ethical and racial issues they wanted resolution on (Pickren & Tomes, 2002). For some time, he played the middleman between the APA and the smaller committees, as he did not believe that they were thinking about inequality holistically. The Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) was formed to address social problems in psychology for all minority groups as opposed to addressing each one individually (Pickren & Tomes, 2002). Clark was a key contributor to this board and helped create the framework for diversity in American psychology, as well as working toward progress against injustices in society.

In conclusion, Kenneth B. Clark made extremely impactful contributions both in psychology and to society as a whole. Due to his views of inequalities and his willingness to continue to fight through many controversial situations, psychology is not only viewed as a “real” science today, but equality within psychology has improved substantially as well.

References

African American Registry. (2021, October 5). Kenneth B. Clark, educator and psychologist born. https://aaregistry.org/story/kenneth-b-clark-pioneering-educator-and-psychologist/

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Featured psychologists: Mamie Phipps Clark, Phd, and Kenneth Clark, Phd. https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/clark

Benjamin, Jr., L. T., & Crouse, E. M. (2002). The American Psychological Association’s response to Brown v Board of Education: The case of Kenneth B Clark. American Psychologist, 57(1), 38–50. https://doi-org.unr.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.1.38

Clark, K. B., & Clark, M. P. (1950). Emotional factors in racial identification and preference in negro children. The Journal of Negro Education, 19(3), 341–350. https://doi.org/10.2307/2966491

Columbia University. (2004). Kenneth B. Clark & Mamie Phipps Clark. https://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/kenneth_mamie_clark.html

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2023, January 2). Jim Crow law. https://www.britannica.com/event/Jim-Crow-law

Martin, J., and Pendergast., S. (n.d.). Kenneth B. Clark Biography. JRank Articles. https://biography.jrank.org/pages/2738/Clark-Kenneth-B.html

Meyers, M., & Nidiry, J. P. (2004). Kenneth Bancroft Clark: The uppity Negro integrationist. The Antioch Review, 62(2), 265–274. https://doi.org/10.2307/4614642

NPR. (2005, May 2). Recalling psychologist and civil rights activist Kenneth Clark. https://www.npr.org/2005/05/02/4627511/recalling-psychologist-and-civil-rights-activist-kenneth-clark

Nyman, L. (2010). Documenting history: An interview with Kenneth Bancroft Clark. History of Psychology, 13(1), 74–88. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018550

Pickren, W.E., & Tomes, H. (2002). The legacy of Kenneth B. Clark to the APA: The Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology. The American Psychologist, 57(1), 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.1.51

Robert Penn Warren’s Who Speaks for the Negro? (n.d.). Kenneth Bancroft Clark. Vanderbilt University. https://whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu/interviewee/kenneth-bancroft-clark

Selassie, I. W. (2007, January 19). Kenneth B. Clark (1914-2005). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/clark-kenneth-1914/