Clark, Mamie Phipps

By: Jaime McLean

Source:

 Black Women in America, Second Edition

Clark, Mamie Phipps

(b. 18 April 1917; d. 11 August 1983),
psychologist.

Mamie Phipps Clark's life and career demonstrate that academic pursuits and a commitment to social justice can be tied together in a meaningful way. She is best known for her psychological research on self-esteem and self-concept in African American children, which was used in 1954 in the groundbreaking civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas.

Clark was born to Kate Florence Phipps and Dr. Harold Phipps in Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a member of one of the few black middle-class families in the town, Clark experienced a somewhat privileged upbringing. In addition to owning his own private practice, Harold Phipps also managed one of only a few hotels and spas catering to black people in this tourist mecca. Despite her family's position, Mamie Clark suffered the inconveniences and humiliation of segregation common in many areas of the South at the time. Still, her father's position in the town did afford her some mobility.

Clark graduated from high school at sixteen and entered Howard University as a math and physics major in the fall of 1934. Early in her college career Clark met her future husband, Kenneth Clark. A graduate student and teaching assistant in the Psychology Department, Kenneth encouraged Clark to switch her major to psychology after she expressed a dissatisfaction with the gender bias and the detached and impersonal approach taken by faculty within the Mathematics Department. By her sophomore year Clark had distinguished herself in the otherwise all-male Psychology Department. In the summer of 1937, Kenneth left Howard to pursue his graduate studies at Columbia University. Although he moved to New York, his relationship with Clark remained strong, and the two were engaged the following fall. Despite her parents' concerns about and disapproval of their engagement, the two eloped in the spring of 1938, a few months before Clark's graduation. In May, Clark received a bachelor of science degree, graduating magna cum laude.

Upon graduation, Clark also was awarded a fellowship to pursue graduate studies at Howard the following fall. In the meantime, she began working for the law office of William Houston, a firm that specialized in civil rights cases. This experience would have a major impact on her academic career. As a graduate student at Howard, Clark combined a burgeoning interest in child psychology with her concern for civil rights and the effects of segregation on the black community. Her master's thesis was entitled “The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children” and focused on the development of racial identity in young children. With the help of her husband, Clark was able to publish her discovery that African American children had a sense of their “blackness” by age three and developed a negative self-image because of this. Between 1939 and 1940, the pair published three articles, updated the coloring and doll tests used in Clark's initial research, and developed a proposal for further research on black children's self-identification.

The Clarks' proposal was awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship in 1939, which was renewed in the next two years. This fellowship enabled Clark to pursue her doctorate at Columbia in 1940, and in 1944, after dealing with an openly racist adviser, Clark completed her dissertation entitled “The Development of Primary Mental Abilities with Age.” With this accomplishment, she became the second African American to graduate from the program. Still, even after conducting extensive studies, publishing papers, and receiving her degree, Clark had trouble finding employment as a psychologist. She held several research jobs before landing a more fulfilling position as a testing psychologist at the Riverdale Home for Children, a refuge for homeless black girls in Harlem. Here Clark realized the great lack in psychological services for poor minority children. Despite her best efforts to raise funds to correct the situation, Clark found little support from all but her husband.

With the financial help of her family, the Clarks started their own agency, the Northside Center for Child Development, which opened its doors in March 1946 under the initial title Northside Testing and Consultation Center. In the eyes of the black community, the center's IQ testing services were most appreciated. These tests proved that children who had been deemed mentally challenged and placed in special-educational programs were in fact of average intelligence. The tests, not the children, were to blame for initially low scores. The Clarks requested that the children be re-placed and exposed the school system's illegal practices.

The Clarks' influence on the educational lives of African American children went beyond the work they conducted within the Harlem community; they are most well known for their role in school desegregation cases, such as the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. Their research was used to show the negative impact segregation was having on the self-esteem and self-image of African American children. In addition to being cited by the Supreme Court in this landmark case, the Clarks testified in similar cases in Virginia, South Carolina, and Delaware.

As part of her commitment to civil rights and the educational rights of young African Americans, Clark served as adviser to Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited and the National Head Start Planning Committee. In addition to these activities, Clark also served on the board of directors for the American Broadcast Company, Mount Sinai Medical Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New York Public Library.

At the age of sixty-five, Mamie Phipps Clark died in New York, just three years after retiring from her position as executive director of the Northside Center. Because her husband was often the one to testify in court about their research, she has usually been ignored or given insufficient credit for her groundbreaking work and its impact on the destruction of the “separate but equal” defense of segregation.

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