Kenneth Clark
American social psychologist and civil rights researcher
American psychologist who, with Mamie Phipps Clark, ran the doll studies on Black children's racial self-image, worked on school desegregation cases, and is described as the first African American president of the APA.
Why this person matters
Kenneth and Mamie Clark brought psychological research on racial identity into the school segregation cases decided together as Brown v. Board of Education. He studied at Howard under Francis Cecil Sumner and taught at City College of New York. The doll studies have been criticised and reread since.
Main contributions
Doll studies
With Mamie Clark he used dolls identical except for skin and hair colour to study how Black children saw themselves and race. Their 1947 report covered over 250 children; by age 7, 67 per cent wanted to play with the white doll. Mamie Clark's master's thesis began the work.
Expert evidence in school cases
He interviewed children in Clarendon County, South Carolina, for Briggs v. Elliott, one of four cases consolidated into Brown. Thurgood Marshall cited the research in argument, and the doll study appears in footnote 11 of the 1954 decision.
Community institutions
With Mamie Clark he founded the Northside Center in Harlem in 1946. He was among the founders of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU) in 1962.
Context and limits
Henry Garrett, Mamie Clark's doctoral sponsor and an open racist, argued that the tests were biased and the sample too small, and in a 1964 letter to Science claimed that integration, not segregation, injured the Black child's self-image. Robin Bernstein argued that children rejecting Black dolls may have been resisting violent play with them rather than expressing internalised racism. Daryl Scott argued that the study's logic was flawed.
In your introductory course
Culture and diversity.He appears in social and development chapters for the doll studies and for the role of psychological evidence in Brown v. Board of Education.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 1.2. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1940
He earned his PhD in psychology at Columbia University, described as the first African American to do so there.
- 1942
He became the first African American tenured full professor at City College of New York.
- 1946
He and Mamie Clark founded the Northside Center in Harlem.
- 1954
The Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, citing the doll study in footnote 11.
Sources
- Education Week, Kenneth B. Clark, scholar on race, dies at 90 (2005)Publisher. Text passages inspected.
- Psychology's Feminist Voices, Mamie Phipps ClarkArchive or museum. Institutional biography inspected.
- Canadian Psychological Association, Dr. Francis Cecil SumnerSociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- Wikipedia, Kenneth Bancroft ClarkReference work. Reference article inspected.