User:Hfhogue/sandbox

User:Hogue90/sandbox I plan on adding to the Wikipedia page that covers Kenneth Clark Life and career achievements. Information such as where he gathered his ideas from, the influence it had on the world of education as well information concerning the process of replicating his research in the south, and how that was vital for it to be used in Brown vs the Board of education, as well the wide spread impact that racial tensions had on young children.

Kenneth Clark
Kenneth Clark was born in the Panama Canal Zone to Arthur Bancroft Clark and Miriam Hanson Clark. His father worked as an agent for the United Fruit Company.Arthur refused to move with them to the United States claiming that he would not receive the same job title or job at all due to his color in the United States. When he was five, his parents separated and his mother took him and his younger sister Beulah to the U.S. to live in Harlem in New York City. She worked as a seamstress in a sweatshop, where she later organized a union and became a shop steward for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Clark attended Howard University, a historically black university (HBCU), where he first studied political science with professors including Ralph J. Bunche. He returned in 1935 for a master's in psychology. Dr. Clark was a distinguished member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.Dr. Clark met his wife while at Howard and married her in 1938(Henderson, 2005). Mamie then became his lifelong partner and helped him study the effects of racism on the identity and self-esteem of school children.Mamie’s thesis for her masters also helped spark the ideas for the doll research. Not only was Mamie an inspiration in Dr. Clark’s work, together they created the North side Center for Child Development.

While studying psychology for his doctorate at Columbia University, Clark did research in support of the study of race relations by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal, who wrote An American Dilemma.What made the book so unique and caught Clark’s attention was that the research conducted by a Swedish economist who allowed for less biased compared to other books covering the black community at that time. In 1940, Clark was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University.

In 1942 Kenneth Clark became the first African-American tenured full professor at the City College of New York. In 1966 he was the first African American appointed to the New York State Board of Regents and the first African American to be president of the American Psychological Association.

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 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. in 1964, the two men clashed over appointment of a director and its direction. Dr. Clark’s research and findings in the field of psychology has greatly impacted equality and the effect that racial oppression can have on an individual or group. Dr. Clark created what is known today as the Clark Doll Experiment (Clark, 1950). In this experiment, dolls one which was black and one which was white were shown to children between the ages of six and nine. The children in the study were then asked questions first starting with “show me the doll that you like best or that you’d like to play with”. The children were also asked to “show me the doll that looks bad” or “give me the doll that looks like a Negro child”. Lastly, the children in the study were asked to “give me the doll that looks like you”. Results from this study were astonishing. In most cases, the black children had picked the black doll as the bad one. Adding to this, in a study done in 1950 forty four percent of the African American children taking part in the study said that the white doll looked like them. To test for reliability and check for environmental effects,  the Clark Doll study took three hundred children from different parts of the country. After completing the study the results showed that the African American students who went to segregated schools ended up picking the white doll when asked to “show me the doll that is the nice doll”. This study is still being used today(Clark, 1950). Recently in 2009, Good Morning America ran this experiment. 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 Lyndon Johnson appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission). The Commission called Clark among the first experts to testify on urban issues. In 1973, Clark testified in the trial of Ruchell Magee.

Clark retired from City College in 1975, but remained an active advocate for integration throughout his life, serving on the board of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, of which he is now Chairman Emeritus. 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 in May 2005, over twenty years after his beloved partner Mamie.

Books
Clark, K. B. & Clark, M. K. (1950). Emotional factors in racial identification and 	preference in 	Negro children. Journal of Negro Education, 19, 341-350.
 * Prejudice and Your Child (1955)
 * Dark Ghetto (1965)
 * A Relevant War Against Poverty (1968)
 * A Possible Reality (1972)
 * Pathos of Power (1975)