Kenneth Bancroft Clark (July 24, 1914 – May 1, 2005) and Mamie Phipps Clark (April 18, 1917 – August 11, 1983) were American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

s who as a married team conducted research among children and were active in the Civil Rights Movement. They founded the Northside Center for Child Development in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...

and the organization Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU).Freeman, Damon (2008). ''Kenneth B. Clark and the Problem of Power''. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis. Kenneth Clark was also an educator and professor at

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

, and first Black president of the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...

. They were known for their 1940s experiments using

doll A doll is a physical model, model typically of a human or humanoid character, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have also been used in traditional religious rituals throughout the world. Traditional dolls made of materials such as clay and ...

s to study children's attitudes about race. The Clarks testified as

expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...

es in ''

Briggs v. Elliott ''Briggs v. Elliott'', 342 U.S. 350 (1952), on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, challenged school segregation in Summerton, South Carolina. It was the first of the five cases combined into ''Brown ...

'' (1952), one of five cases combined into ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the ...

'' (1954). The Clarks' work contributed to the ruling of the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

in which it determined that ''

de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' (; ; ) describes practices that are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. The phrase is often used in contrast with '' de facto'' ('from fa ...

racial segregation Racial segregation is the separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, ...

public education A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in part by taxation and operated by the government of the state. State-f ...

was

unconstitutional In constitutional law, constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applic ...

. Chief Justice

Earl Warren Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 30th governor of California from 1943 to 1953 and as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presid ...

wrote in the ''Brown v. Board of Education''

opinion An opinion is a judgement, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, as opposed to facts, which are true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal ...

, "To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone."

Mamie Phipps Clark

Early life

The oldest of three children, two girls and one boy, Mamie Phipps was born in

Hot Springs, Arkansas Hot Springs is a resort city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Garland County, Arkansas, Garland County. The city is located in the Ouachita Mountains among the U.S. Interior Highlands, and is set among several natural hot springs ...

, to Harold and Katie Phipps. Her father was a

doctor Doctor, Doctors, The Doctor or The Doctors may refer to: Titles and occupations * Physician, a medical practitioner * Doctor (title), an academic title for the holder of a doctoral-level degree ** Doctorate ** List of doctoral degrees awarded b ...

, a native of the

British West Indies The British West Indies (BWI) were the territories in the West Indies under British Empire, British rule, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Antigua and Barb ...

. Her father also supplemented his income as a manager at a nearby vacation resort. Her mother helped him in his practice and encouraged both their children in education. Her brother became a

dentist A dentist, also known as a dental doctor, dental physician, dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry, the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. The dentist's supporting team aids in provi ...

. Even though Phipps Clark grew up during the Depression and a time of racism and segregation, she had a privileged childhood. Her father's occupation and income allowed them to live a middle-class lifestyle and even got them into some White-only parts of town. Phipps Clark, however, still attended segregated elementary and secondary schools, graduating from Pine Bluff's Langston High School in 1934 at only 16 years old. This upbringing gave her a unique perspective on how society treated White and Black people differently. This realization contributed to her future research of racial identity in Black children. Despite the small number of opportunities for Black students to pursue higher education, Phipps Clark was offered several scholarships for college. Phipps Clark received scholarship offers from two of the most prestigious Black universities at that time, Fisk University in Tennessee and Howard University in Washington D.C. Francis Sumner allowed her to work part-time in the psychology department where she expanded her knowledge about psychology. During her senior year in 1937 Kenneth, another mentee of Sumner's, and Mamie Clark got married; they had to elope because her mother did not want her to get married before she graduated. A year later, she earned her

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

'' in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

(1938). Both Kenneth and Mamie went on for additional study at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. They later had two children together, Katie Miriam and Hilton Bancroft. In the fall of 1938 Mamie Clark went to graduate school at Howard University to get a master's degree in psychology and while she was enrolled her father would send her an allowance of fifty dollars a month. The summer following her undergraduate graduation Mamie worked for Charles Houston as a secretary at his law office. At the time, Houston was a popular civil rights lawyer and Mamie was privileged to see lawyers such as Thurgood Marshall come into the office to work on important cases. She admits that she did not think anything could be done about segregation and racial oppression until after this experience. Believing in a tangible end to segregation inspired Phipps Clark's future studies, the results of which would help lawyers, such as Houston and Marshall, to win the ''

'' Supreme Court case in 1954. While working on her master's degree, Phipps Clark became increasingly interested in developmental psychology. The inspiration for her thesis came from working at an all Black nursery school. She contacted psychologists Ruth and Gene Horowitz for advice. At the time they were conducting psychological studies about self-identification in young children and suggested that she conduct similar research with her nursery school children. Her master's thesis was entitled "The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children." This thesis was the basis from what would later become the Clarks' famous doll study on racial preference. Her husband Kenneth was fascinated by her thesis research and after her graduation they worked together on the research. They developed new and improved versions of the color and doll tests used in her thesis for a proposal to further the research. In 1939 they received a three-year Rosenwald Fellowship for their research that allowed them to publish three articles on the subject and also permitted Phipps Clark to pursue a doctoral degree at Columbia University. During her time at Columbia, Mamie was the only black student pursuing a doctorate in psychology and she had a faculty adviser, Dr. Henry Garrett, who believed in segregation. Despite their differences in beliefs, Phipps Clark was able to complete her dissertation, "Changes in Primary Mental Abilities with Age." In 1943, Mamie Phipps Clark was the first

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

woman to earn a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in psychology from

. She was the second Black person to receive a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University, following her husband Kenneth.

Career

After Phipps Clark graduated, she struggled being a psychologist as an African-American woman living in New York. She found it difficult to get a job; she lost some opportunities to less qualified White men and women. In the summer of 1939, Mamie took one of her first jobs as a secretary in the legal office of African-American lawyer

Charles Hamilton Houston Charles Hamilton Houston (September 3, 1895 – April 22, 1950) This law firm involved the planning of legal action that would challenge the segregation laws. In 1944, she found a job through a family friend at the American Public Health Association analyzing research about nurses, which she hated. She stayed at that job for one year but was grossly overqualified for the position, which she found embarrassing. She then obtained a position at the United States Armed Forces Institute as a research psychologist but she still felt pigeonholed. In 1945 she was able to get a better job working for the United States Armed Forces Institute as a research psychologist; but, as World War II ended they did not feel the need to employ her anymore. She was fired in 1946. Later that year, Phipps Clark got a job in New York at the Riverdale Children's Association where she saw potential to perform meaningful work. Founded by Quakers in 1836 as the Colored Orphan Asylum, in 1944, just two years before Dr. Clark arrived, the then 108 year old institution had changed its name. At Riverdale, she conducted psychological tests and counseled young, homeless Black people. While there, she saw first hand how insufficient psychological services were for minority children. Many of the children were being called mentally retarded by the state but Clark tested them and found they had IQs above then accepted levels for such claims. She saw society's segregation as the cause for gang warfare, poverty, and low academic performance of minorities. This was a "kick start" to her life's work and led to her most significant contributions in the field of developmental psychology. Kenneth and Mamie Clark decided to try to improve social services for troubled youth in Harlem as there were virtually no mental-health services in the community. Kenneth Clark was then an

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

at the

and Phipps Clark was a psychological consultant doing testing at the Riverdale Children's Association. Kenneth Bancroft Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark approached social service agencies in New York City urging them to expand their programs to provide

social work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...

psychological evaluation Psychological evaluation is a method to assess an individual's behavior, personality, cognitive abilities, and several other domains. A common reason for a psychological evaluation is to identify psychological factors that may be inhibiting ''a p ...

, and remediation for youth in Harlem. None of the agencies took up their proposal. The Clarks "realized that we were not going to get a child guidance

clinic A clinic (or outpatient clinic or ambulatory care clinic) is a health facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary care needs ...

opened that way. So we decided to open it ourselves." Together in 1946 the Clarks created the Northside Center for Child Development, originally called the Northside Testing and Consultation Center. They started in a one-room basement apartment of the Dunbar Houses on 158th Street (Manhattan). Two years later in 1948, Northside moved to

110th Street 110th Street may refer to: Streets *110th Street (Manhattan), a major east–west street in Manhattan, New York City Stations * Cathedral Parkway–110th Street (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line), serving the train * Cathedral Parkway–110 ...

, across from

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

, on the sixth floor of what was then the

New Lincoln School The New Lincoln School was a private experimental coeducational school in New York City enrolling students from kindergarten through grade 12. History New Lincoln's predecessor was founded as Lincoln School in 1917 by the Rockefeller-funded Gene ...

. In 1974, Northside moved to Schomburg Plaza. As of 2023, Northside continues to serve Harlem children and their families from its center at the intersection of E. 108th Street and Park Avenue, New York. The Clark's goal was to match or surpass for poor African Americans, the mental health services then available for other children. Northside provided a homelike environment for poor Black children that provided pediatric and psychological help. It served as a location for initial experiments on racial biases in education and the intersection of education and varying theories and practices around social psychology. The psychological work they did led them to the conclusion that the problems of minority children are "neither purely psychiatric, purely social, nor purely environmental, but psychosocial." Northside was the first center that offered psychological services to minority families around Harlem. Mamie remained the director of the Northside Center for 33 years. Upon her retirement, Dora Johnson, a staff member at Northside, captured the importance of Mamie Clark to Northside. "Mamie Clark embodied the center. In a very real way, it was her views, philosophy, and her soul that held the center together". She went on to say that "when an unusual and unique person pursues a dream and realizes that dream and directs that dream, people are drawn not only to the idea of the dream, but to the uniqueness of the person themselves." Her vision of social, economic, and psychological advancement of African-American children resonates far beyond the era of integration. Phipps Clark did not limit her contributions to her Northside work. She was a very involved member of the community. She was on the boards of directors for several community organizations, along with being involved with the Youth Opportunities Unlimited Project and the initiation of the Head Start Program. She also volunteered in the psychiatric clinic of the Domestic Relations Court while she was completing her doctorate at Columbia and went on to teach at

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a Private university, private Modern Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City.

Published work

One of Phipps Clark's early, published studies was titled ''The Development of Consciousness of Self and the Emergence of Racial Identification in Negro Preschool Children.'' This research was an investigation of early level of conscious racial identity in Black preschool children. The study included 150 Black children from segregated, nursery schools in Washington, D.C. with 50% of the participants being girls and 50% boys. There were 50 three-year-old, 50 four-year-old, and 50 five-year-old children in the study. Each participant was shown a set of pictures that included a white boy, a black boy, a lion, a dog, a clown, and a hen. The participants were asked to point to the drawing that represented who or what they were asked about. An example of this procedure would be a Black boy being asked to point to his cousin or brother. The results showed that the group tended to choose the drawing with a black child over the white child but as age increased, there was still some increase in the ratio of those identifying with black over white. Their finding indicated that a great amount of self-conscious development and racial identity happens between ages three and fours years old. Once past four years old, this identification with the Black boy plateaus. This plateau may imply that the picture study is not sensitive enough for children over four. It also suggests that maybe five-year-old children have reached a self-awareness and now see themselves in an intrinsic way and are less capable of external representations.

Legacy

Phipps Clark's work provided key contributions to the fields of developmental psychology and the psychology of race by shedding light on the impact of racial discrimination. She made lasting contributions at the

United States Armed Forces Institute The United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) was an educational organization that was part of the United States Armed Forces. It was founded in April 1942, as the Army Institute. Between 1942 and 1974, the USAFI provided education opportunitie ...

and the Public Health Association. Her unrelenting research on the identity and self-esteem of Black people expanded work on identity development. Clark is not as famous as her husband. It has been noted that she adhered to feminine expectations of the time and often took care to "remain in the shadows of her husband's limelight". She often presented as shy. It should also be noted, that Phipps Clark's tendency to remain in her husband's shadow occurred in the backdrop of blatant sexism and racism in the psychological field and it is believed that the extent of her contributions was significantly downplayed. Together, the Clarks devoted their entire lives to improving the mental health of Black people. For her contributions, Phipps Clark received a Candace Award for Humanitarianism from the

National Coalition of 100 Black Women The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. (NCBW) is a non-profit volunteer organization for African American women. Its members address common issues in their communities, families and personal lives, promoting gender and racial equity. His ...

in 1983. Phipps Clark retired in 1979 and died of lung cancer on August 11, 1983, at 66 years old at her home in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. In addition to her husband, Phipps Clark was survived by her daughter, Kate Harris of Hastings-on-Hudson; her son, Hilton, of Manhattan, and her brother, Harold Phipps of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Kenneth Clark

Early life and education

Kenneth Clark was born in the

Panama Canal Zone The Panama Canal Zone (), also known as just the Canal Zone, was a International zone#Concessions, concession of the United States located in the Isthmus of Panama that existed from 1903 to 1979. It consisted of the Panama Canal and an area gene ...

to Arthur Bancroft Clark and Miriam Hanson Clark. His father worked as an agent for the

United Fruit Company The United Fruit Company (later the United Brands Company) was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas) grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was ...

. When he was five, his parents separated and his mother took him and his younger sister Beulah to the US to live in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Miriam Clark worked as a

seamstress A dressmaker, also known as a seamstress, is a person who makes clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Dressmakers were historically known as mantua-makers, and are also known as a modiste or fabrician. Notable d ...

in a

sweatshop A sweatshop or sweat factory is a cramped workplace with very poor and/or illegal working conditions, including little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting and ventilation, or uncomfortably or dangerously high or low temperat ...

, where she later organized a union and became a

shop steward A union representative, union steward, or shop steward is an employee of an organization or company who represents and defends the interests of their fellow employees as a trades/labour union member and official. Rank-and-file members of the un ...

for the

International Ladies Garment Workers Union The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) was a labor union for employees in the women's clothing industry in the United States. It was one of the largest unions in the country, one of the first to have a primarily female membersh ...

. Kenneth Clark arrived in

as ethnic diversity of

was disappearing such that his elementary school was predominantly black. Clark noted that he first "became aware of color" when he was taught by a black teacher, who happened to be Hubert Thomas Delaney. Clark was to be trained to learn a trade, as were most black students at the time. Miriam wanted more for her son and transferred him to George Washington High School in

Upper Manhattan Upper Manhattan is the northern section of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its southern boundary has been variously defined, but some of the most common usages are 96th Street, 110th Street (the northern boundary of Central Park), 1 ...

. Clark graduated from high school in 1931 (Jones & Pettigrew, 2005).Richard Severo, "Kenneth Clark, Who Fought Segregation, Dies"
''The New York Times,'' 2 May 2005, accessed 20 Jan 2009 Clark attended

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

, a

historically black university Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of serving African Americans. Most are in the Southern U ...

, where he first studied political science with professors including

Ralph Johnson Bunche Ralph Johnson Bunche ( ; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize ...

. During his years at Howard University, he worked under the influence of mentor

Francis Cecil Sumner Francis Cecil Sumner (December 7, 1895 – January 11, 1954) was an American leader in education reform. He is commonly referred to as the "Father of Black Psychology." He is primarily known for being the first African American to receive a Ph. ...

, the first African American to receive a doctorate in psychology. He returned in 1935 for a master's in psychology. Clark was a distinguished member of

Kappa Alpha Psi Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. () is a List of African-American fraternities, historically African American Fraternities and sororities, fraternity. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911, at Indiana University Bloomington, it has n ...

fraternity. After earning his master's degree, Sumner directed Clark to

to work with another influential mentor, Otto Klineberg (Jones & Pettigrew, 2005). While studying psychology for his doctorate at Columbia, Clark did research in support of the study of race relations by

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

Gunnar Myrdal Karl Gunnar Myrdal ( ; ; 6 December 1898 – 17 May 1987) was a Swedish economist and sociologist. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money an ...

, who wrote ''

An American Dilemma ''An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy'' is a 1944 study of race relations authored by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York. The foundation chose Myrdal because it thought that as ...

''. In 1940, Clark was the first African American to earn a

in psychology from Columbia University.

Career

During the summer of 1941, after Clark was already asked to teach a summer session at City College of New York, the Dean of Hampton Institute in Virginia asked Clark to start a department of psychology there. In 1942 Kenneth Clark would become the first African-American tenured, full professor at the

. Clark also managed to start a psychology department at Hampton Institute in 1942 and taught a few courses within the department. In 1966 he was the first African American appointed to the

New York State Board of Regents The Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York is responsible for the general supervision of all educational activities within New York State, presiding over the University of the State of New York and the New York State Educatio ...

and the first African American to be president of the

. Much of Clark's work came as a response to his involvement in the 1954

US Supreme Court desegregation decision. Lawyers

Jack Greenberg Jack Greenberg (December 22, 1924 – October 12, 2016) was an American attorney and legal scholar. He was the Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 1961 to 1984, succeeding Thurgood Marshall. He was involved in numerous crucial ...

and Robert L. Carter, with resources and funding from the

American Jewish Committee The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights group and Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the wi ...

(AJC) and Topeka Jewish Community Relations Bureau, hired Clark to present his work on the effects of segregation on children. After the Brown v. Board of Education case, Clark was still dissatisfied by the lack of progress in school desegregation in New York City. In a 1964 interview with

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, literary critic and professor at Yale University. He was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern ...

for the book ''

Who Speaks for the Negro? ''Who Speaks for the Negro?'' is a 1965 book of interviews by Robert Penn Warren conducted with Civil Rights Movement activists. The Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University also created a ''Who Speaks for the Negro? ...

'', Clark expressed his doubts about the efficacy of certain busing programs in desegregating the public schools. Clark also felt very discouraged by the lack of social welfare organizations to address race and poverty issues. Clark argued that a new approach had to be developed to involve poor blacks, in order to gain the political and economic power needed to solve their problems. Clark called his new approach "internal colonialism", with hope that the Kennedy-Johnson administration's War on Poverty would address problems of increasing social isolation, economic dependence and declining municipal services for many African Americans (Freeman, 2008). Clark in 1962 was among the founders of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU), an organization devoted to developing educational and job opportunities. With HARYOU, Clark conducted an extensive sociological study of Harlem. He measured IQ scores, crime frequency, age frequency of the population, drop-out rates, church and school locations, quality of housing, family incomes, drugs, STD rates, homicides, and a number of other areas. It recruited educational experts to help to reorganize Harlem schools, create preschool classes, tutor older students after school, and job opportunities for youth who dropped out. The Johnson administration earmarked more than $100 million for the organization. When it was placed under the administration of a pet project of

Congressman A member of congress (MOC), also known as a congressman or congresswoman, is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The t ...

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was t ...

in 1964, the two men clashed over appointment of a director and its direction. Clark used HARYOU to press for changes to the educational system to help improve black children's performance. While he at first supported decentralization of city schools, after a decade of experience, Clark believed that this option had not been able to make an appreciable difference and described the experiment as a "disaster". Following race riots in the summer of 1967,

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of John F. Ken ...

appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (

Kerner Commission The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chair, Governor of Illinois, Governor Otto Kerner Jr. of Illinois, was an 11-member Presidential Commission (United States), Presidential Commission es ...

). The Commission called Clark among the first experts to testify on urban issues. In 1973, Clark testified in the trial of

Ruchell Magee Ruchell Cinque Magee (born Ruchell Lewis; 17 March 1939 – October 17, 2023) was an American man who spent most of his life in prison. He pled guilty to aggravated kidnapping in the August 7, 1970 Marin County Civic Center courthouse attacks in ...

for his role in the

Marin County Civic Center attacks The Marin County Civic Center attacks were two related attacks in 1970 at the Marin County Superior Court, located in the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California, United States, tied to escalating racial tensions in the state's crimi ...

. Clark retired from City College in 1975, but remained an active advocate for integration throughout his life, serving on the board of th
New York Civil Rights Coalition
of which he was Chairman Emeritus until his death. He opposed separatists and argued for high standards in education, continuing to work for children's benefit. He consulted to city school systems across the country, and argued that all children should learn to use Standard English in school. Clark died in

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York Hastings-on-Hudson is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in Westchester County located in the southwestern part of the administrative divisions of New York#Town, town of Greenburgh, New York, Greenburgh in the state of New Yo ...

in May 2005. He was 90.

Books

* ''Prejudice and Your Child'' (1955) * ''Dark Ghetto'' (1965) * ''The Negro and the American Promise'' (1963) * ''A Relevant War Against Poverty'' (1968) * ''A Possible Reality'' (1972) * ''Pathos of Power'' (1975) * ''King, Malcolm, Baldwin: Three Interviews'' (1985)

The Coloring Test

The coloring test was another experiment that was involved in the ''Brown v. Board of Education'' decision. Mamie and Kenneth did this experiment in order to investigate the development of racial identity in African American children and examine how a negro child’s color and "their sense of their own race and status" influenced "their judgment about themselves" and their "self esteem." The coloring test was administered to 160 African American children between the ages of five and seven years old. The children were given a piece of coloring paper with a leaf, an apple, an orange, a mouse, a boy and a girl on it. They were all given a box of crayons and asked to first color the mouse to make sure they had a basic understanding of the relationship between color and object. If they pass, they were then asked to color a boy if they were a boy and a girl if they were a girl. They were told to color the boy or girl the color that they are. They were then told to color the opposite sex the color that they want that sex to be. The Clarks categorized the responses into reality responses (accurately colored their skin color), fantasy responses (very different from their skin color), and irrelevant responses (used bizarre colors like purple or green). The Clarks examined the reality and fantasy responses to conclude that children typically color themselves noticeably lighter than their actual color, while the phantasy responses reflect children trying through wishful thinking to escape their situation. Although 88% of the children did draw themselves brown or black, they oftentimes drew themselves a lighter shade than the mouse. Children that were older generally were more accurate at determining how dark they should be. When asked to color the picture of the child that was the opposite sex, 52% put either white or an irrelevant color.

Doll experiments

The Clarks' doll experiments grew out of Mamie Clark's

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

. They published three major papers between 1939 and 1940 on children's self-perception related to race. Their studies found contrasts among African-American children attending

segregated schools Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

versus those in integrated schools in New York. The doll experiment involved a child being presented with two dolls. Both of these dolls were completely identical except for the skin and hair color. One doll was white with yellow hair, while the other was brown with black hair. The child was then asked questions inquiring as to which one is the doll they would play with, which one is the nice doll, which one looks bad, which one has the nicer color, etc. The experiment showed a clear preference for the white doll among all children in the study. One of the conclusions from the study is that a Black child by the age of five is aware that to be "colored in American society is a mark of inferior status." This study was titled, "Emotional Factors in Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children," and was not created with public policy or the Supreme Court in mind, lending credibility to its objectiveness. The study was published only in the ''

Journal of Negro Education ''The Journal of Negro Education'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Howard University, established in 1932 by Charles Henry Thompson, who was its editor-in-chief for more than 30 years. These findings exposed internalized racism in African-American children, self-hatred that was more acute among children attending segregated schools. This research also paved the way for an increase in psychological research into areas of self-esteem and self-concept. This work suggests that by its very nature, segregation harms children and, by extension, society at large, a suggestion that was exploited in several legal battles. The Clarks testified as expert witnesses in several school desegregation cases, including ''

'', which was later combined into the famous ''

'' (1954). In 1954, Clark and Isidor Chein wrote a brief whose purpose was to supply evidence in the ''Brown v. Board of Education'' case underlining the damaging effects

had on African-American children. ''Brown v. Board'' was a test case supported by the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

to end the precedent of legal segregation when conditions are "

separate but equal Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protectio ...

," established by the case ''

Plessy v. Ferguson ''Plessy v. Ferguson'', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that ...

'' in 1896. In a 9–0 decision for Brown, the Court decided that segregation based on race in public schools violates the

equal protection clause The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pr ...

of the

14th Amendment The Fourteenth Amendment may refer to: * Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which grants citizenship to everyone born in the U.S. and subject to its jurisdiction and protects civil and political liberties * Fourteenth Amendment ...

. The Supreme Court declared that separate but equal in education was unconstitutional because it resulted in African American children having "a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community." The Doll Study is cited in the 11th footnote of the Brown decision to provide updated and "ample" psychological support to the Kansas case. The Brown decision quotes that, "segregation of white and colored children in public schools has detrimental effect upon the colored children" and this sense of inferiority "affects the motivation of a child to learn." The evidence provided by Clark helped end segregation in the public school systems. Regarding Brown, this question of psychological and psychic harm fit into a very particular historical window that allowed it to have formal traction in the first place. It was not until a few decades prior (with the coming of Boas and other cultural anthropologists) that cultural and social-science research—and the questions that they invoked—would even be consulted by the courts and therefore able to influence decisions.

Response to Doll tests

Not everyone accepted the Doll tests as valid scientific studies. Henry E. Garrett, Mamie Clark’s former professor and advisor at Columbia, was an avid supporter of segregation and a witness in '' Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, VA (''one of the five court cases that combined to form ''Brown v. Board).'' Garrett argued that no tests could adequately gauge a student’s attitudes toward segregation, and that the Clarks’ tests in Virginia were biased and had too small of a sample size. Garrett advocated in his Virginia school board testimony that if a negro child had access to equal facilities surrounded by his own teachers and friends, "he would be more likely to develop pride in himself as a Negro, which I think we would all like to see him do – to develop his own potential, his sense of duty…" and Garrett even claimed that they would "prefer to remain as a Negro group" instead of mixing and facing hostility, animosity, and inferiority. Garrett and his colleague Wesley C. George’s 1964 letter to the ''Science'' journal further questioned the Brown decision, claiming the only reference to science in the entire decision is in footnote 11. Garrett and George argue that the Court overlooked the "mental difference" between races, and that Clark’s evidence was invalid and misleading because "integration, not segregation, injured the Negro child’s self-image." In an alternative interpretation of the Clark doll experiments, Robin Bernstein has recently argued that the children's rejection of the black dolls could be understood not as victimization or an expression of internalized racism but instead as resistance against violent play involving black dolls, which was a common practice when the Clarks conducted their tests. Historian Daryl Scott also critiqued the logic of the Doll Study, because contemporary studies suggest that black children with greater contact with whites experience more psychological distress. The Clark Doll Study was influential scientific evidence for the Brown v. Board decision, but a few academics questioned the study. In 2005, filmmaker Kiri Davis recreated the doll study and documented it in a film entitled '' A Girl Like Me''. Despite the many changes in some parts of society, Davis found the same results as did the Drs. Clark in their study of the late 1930s and early 1940s. In the original experiments, the majority of the children chose the white dolls. When Davis repeated the experiment 15 out of 21 children also chose the white dolls over the black doll.

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

recreated the doll study in 2010 with cartoons of five children, each with different shades of skin color. The experiment was designed by Margaret Beale Spencer, a child psychologist and University of Chicago professor. Children were asked to answer the same doll test questions, such as "who is the nice child" or "who has the skin color most adults like" and choose between the cartoon people arranged in order of lightest to darkest skin. The results were interpreted as indicating "white bias," meaning that children (mostly white, but also "black children as a whole have some bias") continue to associate positive attributes with lighter skin tones, and negative attributes with darker skin tones.

Family

The Clarks had two children: a son Hilton and daughter Kate. During the

Columbia University protests of 1968 In 1968, a series of protests at Columbia University in New York City were one among the various student demonstrations that Protests of 1968, occurred around the globe in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year aft ...

, Hilton was a leader of the Society of Afro-American Students; his father negotiated between them and the

university administration Academic administration is a branch of university or college employees responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the institution and separate from the Faculty (academic staff), faculty or Academic staff, academics, although some personn ...

. The Clarks were happily married for forty-five years, until Mamie's death. Kate Clark Harris directed the Northside Center for Child Development for four years after her mother's death. A ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style o ...

'' report in the 1970s noted that the Clarks, who supported integration and

desegregation busing Desegregation busing (also known as integrated busing, forced busing, or simply busing) was an attempt to diversify the racial make-up of schools in the United States by transporting students to more distant schools with less diverse student pop ...

, moved to

Westchester County Westchester County is a county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The county is the seventh most populous cou ...

in 1950 because of concerns about failing public schools in the city. Kenneth Clark said: "My children have only one life and I could not risk that."

Legacy and honors

* 1961 – Kenneth Clark received the

Spingarn Medal The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for an outstanding achievement by an African Americans, African American. The award was created in 1914 by Joel Elias Spingarn, ...

of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

(NAACP) for his contributions to promoting integration and better race relations. * 1966 – Columbia University awarded

each Each may refer to: *''each'', a determiner and indefinite pronoun An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific, familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns can represent ...

Clark the

Nicholas Murray Butler Nicholas Murray Butler (April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947) was an American philosopher, diplomat, and educator. Butler was president of Columbia University, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a recipient of the Nobel ...

Silver Medal, for the significance of their work. * 1970 – Kenneth B. Clark was awarded an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

(

LL.D. A Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) is a doctoral degree in legal studies. The abbreviation LL.D. stands for ''Legum Doctor'', with the double “L” in the abbreviation referring to the early practice in the University of Cambridge to teach both canon law ...

) by Columbia University. * 1975 – Kenneth B. Clarks was awarded the William L. Dawson Award,

Congressional Black Caucus The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is made up of Black members of the United States Congress. Representative Yvette Clarke from New York, the current chairperson, succeeded Steven Horsford from Nevada in 2025. Although most members belong ...

* 1983 – Mamie Phipps Clark receives a Candace Award for Humanitarianism from the

* 1985 –

Four Freedoms Award The Four Freedoms Award is an annual award presented to "those men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to those principles which US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed in his ''Four Freedoms speech'' to the Un ...

in the category ''Freedom of Speech'' * 1986 – Presidential

Medal of Liberty The Medal of Liberty was awarded in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan as part of the festivities commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''). The awarding of this medal took place only once, as i ...

* 1994 – 102nd annual meeting of APA, 40 years after ''Brown v. Board of Education'', Clark was presented with the APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology. He was only one of six psychologists to receive that prestigious award. * 2002 –

Molefi Kete Asante Molefi Kete Asante ( ; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American philosopher who is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently a professor in the Dep ...

named Kenneth Clark on his list of

100 Greatest African Americans ''100 Greatest African Americans'' is a biographical dictionary of one hundred historically great Black Americans (in alphabetical order; that is, they are not ranked), as assessed by Temple University professor Molefi Kete Asante in 2002. A ...

. * 2003 – American Psychological Foundation establishes the Kenneth B. and Mamie P. Clark Fund, to support "research and demonstration activities that promote the understanding of the relationship between self-identity and academic achievement with an emphasis on children in grade levels K-8". * 2017 – Columbia University Department of Psychology established the Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth B. Clark Distinguished Lecture Award, which recognizes "extraordinary contributions of a senior scholar in the area of race and justice".

References

External links

Notable New Yorkers – Kenneth Clark

Oral History Research Office at Columbia University Located within Butler Library, the Columbia University Center for Oral History Research is the oldest oral history program. Pulitzer Prize winner Allan Nevins founded the program in 1948. There is an extensive list of projects belonging to the cent ...

.
Notable New Yorkers – Mamie Clark
Oral History Research Office at Columbia University.
Dr. Kenneth Clark
(archived 2014-04-29) interviewed on the

WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS List of PBS member stations, member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Affiliated stations and facilities WGBH-TV is the Flagship (broadcasting), ...

series The Ten O'Clock News in 1988 *
Mamie Phipps Clark
at LC Authorities with 2 records (see 'Clark, Mamie Katherine (Phipps)', previous page of browse report) * *"

Eyes on the Prize ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement'' is an American television series documentary about the civil rights movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network, and it also aired in the United Kin ...

Interview with Dr. Kenneth Clark; Interview with Kenneth Clark
, 1985-11-04,

American Archive of Public Broadcasting The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH Educational Foundation, founded through the efforts of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The AAPB is a national effort to di ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Kenneth and Mamie African-American psychologists Activists for African-American civil rights American women civil rights activists Forensic psychologists Howard University alumni Teachers College, Columbia University alumni Married couples People from Hot Springs, Arkansas People from Harlem Zonians City College of New York faculty Presidents of the American Psychological Association 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American psychologists 20th-century African-American scientists

Mamie Phipps Clark

Early life

Career

Published work

Legacy

Kenneth Clark

Early life and education

Career

Books

The Coloring Test

Doll experiments

Response to Doll tests

Family

Legacy and honors

References

Further reading

External links