Kenneth Bancroft Clark (1914-2005) was an influential psychologist and professor, perhaps best known for his “doll” experiments with his wife Mamie Clark on the impacts of racial segregation on attitudes towards race in America.
Their work played an important role in the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision to desegregate the nation. Clark was the first Black president of the American Psychological Association and one of the first experts to testify on urban issues to the Kerner Commission.
Clark studied political science during his undergraduate career at Howard University, where he later returned for a master in psychology. In 1940, Clark was the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University.
In addition to his achievements in the field of psychology, Clark founded Data Black Public Opinion Polls in 1979 — the first polling project focused on Black public opinion. Data Black addressed key problems Clark perceived with national polling organizations, including contacting too few Black respondents in a typi
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"This is probably one of the most dangerous things facing mankind today: A use and training of intelligence excluding moral sensitivity."
Kenneth B. Clark (1914–2005) Educational Psychologist PhD 1940 LLD 1970 (hon.)
Mamie Phipps Clark (1917–83) Educational Psychologist PhD 1943
The research of Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark challenged the notion of differences in the mental abilities of black and white children and so played an important role in the desegregation of American schools. In 1946, the Clarks founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem, where they conducted experiments on racial biases in education. Their findings were presented at school desegregation trials in Virginia, South Carolina, and Delaware. In 1954, in a famous footnote, those findings were cited in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled public-school segregation unconstitutional.
Kenneth Clark was the first African American to earn a doctorate in psychology at Colum
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Kenneth and Mamie Clark
African-American married psychologist duo
Kenneth Bancroft Clark (July 24, 1914 – May 1, 2005)[1] and Mamie Phipps Clark (April 18, 1917 – August 11, 1983)[2] were American psychologists 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 and the organization Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU).[3] Kenneth Clark was also an educator and professor at City College of New York, and first Black president of the American Psychological Association.
They were known for their 1940s experiments using dolls to study children's attitudes about race. The Clarks testified as expert witnesses in Briggs v. Elliott (1952), one of five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education (1954).[4] The Clarks' work contributed to the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in which it determined that de jureracial segregation in public education was unconstitutional. Chief JusticeEarl Warren wrote in the B