book review
University of Georgia Press
Chapter Title: Dr. Mamie Katharine Phipps Clark (1917–1983) American Psychologist and Arkansas Native Chapter Author(s): LORETTA N. MCGREGOR
Book Title: Arkansas Women Book Subtitle: Their Lives and Times Book Editor(s): Cherisse Jones-Branch, Gary T. Edwards Published by: University of Georgia Press. (2018) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1vhtrh3.18
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Dr. Mamie Katharine Phipps Clark
(1917-1983)
American Psychologist and Arkansas Native
LORETTA N. M C G R E G O R
Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark was one of the earliest prominent black psychologists in the United States. She was the second black person to graduate with a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University; her husband, Kenneth Clark, was the first.1 Mamie and Kenneth Clark's research contributed to the end of American apartheid when it was used in the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Su- preme Court decision that ended segregation in public schools.2 Although Mamie Clark is relatively unknown by many Arkansans, her activism and her training as a psychologist was informed by her experiences in Arkansas and beyond.
Mamie Katherine Phipps was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in Garland County on October 18,1917. Her father, Harold Hilton Phipps, a physician, was born in Saint Kitts, British West Indies, on April 20, i882.3 He migrated in 1904 to the United States where he later became corresponding secretary of the Ar- kansas State National Medical Association and involved in the Arkansas Re- publican Party.4 Harold Phipps's medical practice was located at 417 Malvern Avenue in Hot Springs.5 He was quite likely the only black physician available to African Americans for miles around. In 1920, approximately 1.5 percent of African Americans nationwide held professional positions. The majority of these were educators and clergy members. Black physicians were extremely rare in the early twentieth century.6 Phipps thus occupied a very important role in Hot Springs's black community. It was not uncommon for black doctors to have an additional source of income, however. They were often underpaid be- cause they served the poorest members of society. Many African American pa- tients simply could not afford to pay for medical care. Thus Phipps operated the Pythian Hotel, the only resort and spa in Hot Springs open to African Americans.7
262
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Dr. Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark 263
Mamie's mother, Katherine Florence Smith Phipps, a native Arkansan, was born in Hot Springs on April 20,1892. She and Harold were married on May 4, 1915. Katie Phipps was a housewife and helped her husband manage the Py- thian Hotel.8 She was an active member of the Arkansas Association of Colored Women, founded in 1905, and was the organization s treasurer in the 19308. Mamie Phipps was also involved in the association and served as president of its junior clubs.9
Mamie's older brother, Harold Hilton Phipps II, was born on February 18, 1916.10 Their childhood was rather atypical for black children in the South dur- ing the early twentieth century. She recalled that she had enjoyed growing up in the small town of Hot Springs. The Phippses were very comfortable compared to most people who lived through the difficult years of the Depression. In fact, Mamie believed the Depression had helped strengthen her family ties. She re- membered: "How can I tell you I had a happy childhood. I really did. I enjoyed everything. I enjoyed school. I loved school. I enjoyed recreation. I enjoyed the little traveling we did. I was very happy. I can't say it was impoverished; for me it was privileged.... it was a very privileged childhood."11 The Phippses exposed their two children to art and culture. In 1934, for instance, the family traveled to Little Rock to see The Green Pastures, a play written in 1930 by Marc Con- nelly, which portrayed parts of the New Testament through the eyes of a young African American. The play was later adapted into a movie in 1936.12 They also impressed on their children the benefits of obtaining an education, particu- larly for African Americans. Mamie attended public school in Hot Springs. She graduated from Langston High School on June 8, 1934, at the age of sixteen and then was strongly encouraged to attend college. Mamie later realized how limited her early education had been because she was legally required to attend segregated schools and its impact on her experiences in college. As she recalled, "I liked everything, and I was very good in math, and I decided to major in math when I went to college.... I loved it. The school was poor, and later I realized how much we didn't learn. For example, there was one point when I realized I had learned no English grammar—none. And I had learned no history. But those gaps, you weren't aware of when you were coming through high school. But you could look back and see that the school was very poor. There was hardly anything you really learned."13
In the 19308, African Americans had limited options when it came to higher education. Two of the premier universities for African Americans during that time were Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Howard University in Washington, D.C. According to Mamie, "Both schools offered [me a] scholar- ship on merit, but there was more excitement about attending college in the
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264 L O R E T T A N. M C G R E G O R
nation's capital and traveling over one thousand miles to study!"14 In the fall of 1934, Mamie Katherine Phipps left Hot Springs for Washington, D.C. This was not an easy trip for a young black woman at that time. Yet, Mamie was fortunate; her parents could afford to pay the fare for her to take the train to Washington, D.C. However, Dr. Phipps was afraid his young daughter might encounter dif- ficulties traveling alone. He knew the terrors that could befall an unescorted young black woman, especially in the Jim Crow South. Unprotected and unsus- pecting women could be abused, raped, exploited, or killed by white men with little or no interference from others.15 So, he arranged for her to be escorted by a companion, and he purchased a sleeping compartment on the train for them. He instructed Mamie to stay in the room until she arrived at her destination. Mamie and her companion were not even allowed to open the window shades.16
Phipps arranged for the porters on the train, whom he knew, to protect the pair and to ensure they were fed.17
Mamie arrived at Howard University on September 18, 1934.18 She initially planned to major in mathematics and minor in physics. Her goal was to become a math teacher, but she soon became disenchanted. Clark recalled, "I had made A's in math, but [the head of the mathematics department] consistent [ly] gave me a C, for two semesters, and I just got depressed and discouraged, you know, and so my husband persuaded me, and it didn't take much work, to go into psychology."19 Women, regardless of their race, were often discouraged from studying mathematics in college. As a result, few female students majored in the subject, and those who did received little or no support from their male peers and professors.
In her junior year, Mamie enrolled in an abnormal psychology course taught by Kenneth Bancroft Clark, an instructor of psychology at Howard. Kenneth had recently received a bachelor of science degree from the institution. He wanted to obtain a Ph.D. in psychology and was currently pursuing a master's degree.20
Kenneth was a graduate student under the supervision of Dr. Francis Sumner, a Pine Bluff, Arkansas, native and the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in psychology from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts (1920).21
Kenneth Clark was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1914 to Arthur and Miriam Hanson Clark. Clark's father had been born in Jamaica and worked as a supervisor for the United Fruit Company. When Kenneth was four, his parents divorced, and he moved with his mother and his two-year-old sister, Beulah, to New York City, where they grew up.22 Miriam Clark supported Kenneth and his sister by working as a seamstress.
Mamie and Kenneth developed an almost immediate attraction to each other. Mamie also grew fond of the study of psychology. According to her, "my entrance
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Dr. Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark 265
into the professional discipline of psychology came through a close association with my future husband I listened when he said one day 'Why don't you take up psychology?'"23 Kenneth introduced Mamie to Sumner, head of the psychol- ogy department, and Dr. Max Meenes, with whom she would later conduct re- search. Mamie noted, "They were warm, friendly, and eager to have me in their courses.... Kenneth Clark was delighted.... At that time neither one of us real- ized that in entering the field of psychology we would enjoy a lifetime of close, challenging, and professionally satisfying experiences."24 Mamie and Kenneth's relationship grew as they exchanged many letters. Finally, on April 14,1938, during her senior year in college, Mamie and Kenneth married.25 That same year, Mamie was crowned queen of Howard University's annual May Day festival.26 She also graduated magna cum laude from the university with a degree in psychology.27
Employment opportunities for educated black women were extremely lim- ited in the 19308 and 19408. Although Mamie Clark lived in the North, there were virtually no jobs in the field of psychology or in academia for black women. Even after completing her Ph.D., she found it difficult to gain adequate employment: "In the security of the almost completely segregated student body at Howard University, it did not occur to me to ask such questions as 'How will a Negro woman fare in the nearly all white male field of psychology?' 'How will a female psychologist manage to satisfy an interest in working with children in a northern society mainly offering services to white children?'"28
In the summer of 1938, Clark accepted employment as a secretary in the law office of Charles Hamilton Houston, a prominent D.C. attorney, a placement arranged by Howard University.29 Houston's law office was frequented by in- dividuals, such as Thurgood Marshall, who were involved in the civil rights movement. Clark described the office as a "hub" for the early planning stages of the civil rights cases that challenged the laws requiring or permitting racial segregation in the United States: "This opportunity to learn, not only about the plans for the eventual repeal of the Plessy v. Ferguson case but also to observe firsthand the giants' who were preparing these cases, made a deep impression on me."30 Later, her graduate research would be influenced by the work of these civil rights giants and then used by them to challenge and eventually end legal segregation in the United States.
In the fall of 1938, Mamie Clark enrolled in Howard University's graduate pro- gram in psychology.31 Kenneth had been accepted into Columbia University and was working on his doctorate in psychology and teaching at Queens College in New York.32 At some point during this time, Kenneth met and befriended Gene and Ruth Hartley. The Hartleys were social psychologists at the City College of New York who conducted research on social issues, such as peace, prejudice,
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266 L O R E T T A N. M C G R E G O R
and other minority-related topics. Kenneth suggested to Mamie that she go to New York and talk to the Hartleys about their research because of her interest in child development. The Hartleys conducted developmental research and stud- ied self-identification in nursery school children, using line drawings of black and white children. They were aware that they needed to expand their studies to include more black children in their samples. Therefore, they encouraged Mamie to pursue this line of research because she could help them with access to black nursery school children.
Before meeting the Hartleys, Mamie Clark had visited a predominantly African American nursery school in Washington, D.C., and conducted research with the children. She adapted the Hartleys' approach for her study, which ulti- mately became her master's thesis, "The Development or Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children."33 In 1939, Mamie received her master of arts in psychology from Howard University.34 Later that year, she and her husband published a revised version of her findings in the Journal of Social Psychology?5
In 1940, Mamie and Kenneth Clark received a fellowship from the Rosenwald Fund to continue their research.36 The fund was established in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald, a successful Jewish businessman and a co-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company. Rosenwald was interested in social issues, particularly those re- lated to the education of African Americans. He created his fund to "advance the lives of Black Americans and to improve race relations."37 The fund initially focused on building schools in southern black communities. However, in 1928, its focus expanded to granting fellowships to promising black graduate students pursuing professional careers.38
Based on her work with the Hartleys, the Clarks' proposal to the Rosenwald Fund outlined a plan to expand her previous research on black school-age chil- dren. They developed newer versions of a coloring test and a doll test to use with black children. The Hartleys had originally developed both of these re- search tools, and the Clarks used the dolls to explore the subject of racial self- consciousness in black children. They were awarded a $1,500 fellowship, which allowed Mamie to enter Columbia University's Ph.D. program in psychology, where her husband was already a student. As Mamie Clark recalled, "My hus- band, Kenneth Clark, shared my interest and excitement in this research.. . . While my husband gathered research data in selected northern and southern states, I completed the first year toward the doctoral degree at Columbia Uni- versity and took care of our first child Katherine Miriam Clark, who was born in 1940."39 Kenneth completed his studies and graduated with his doctorate in the same year.40 Their extraordinary, groundbreaking work was supported by the Rosenwald Fund for an additional two years.
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Dr. Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark 267
Mamie Clark was the only woman of color in her classes at Columbia Univer- sity However, the adventurous young woman from Arkansas noted, "This did not pose a problem for me, in retrospect I never anticipated that it would."41 Yet, she encountered racism and sexism while at the university Clark's dissertation advisor, Dr. Henry Garrett, supported her research, but he could not imagine a black woman being successful in a white, male-dominated field. In her final year of study, he commented to Clark, "You are, of course, going back home to teach?" This professor had clearly underestimated her drive and determina- tion. As she recalled, "It always amused me that he saw my advanced training in psychology as preparation for a career of teaching black high school students in the south."42 Clark graduated from Columbia University with a Ph.D. in psy- chology in 1943, and in that same year gave birth to their second child, Hilton Bancroft Clark.43
After completing her doctorate, Mamie Clark sought full-time employment. In 1942, Kenneth had obtained a university appointment at City College in New York. However, employment opportunities were not readily available for edu- cated black women. In light of this, Mamie sought work as a researcher. She was first hired by the American Public Health Association, where she analyzed data gathered on nurses throughout the country. According to Clark, "I was the only black person there. It was a humiliating and distasteful first employ- ment experience, but I stayed for one year to gain the benefit of experience in this type of psychological research."44 In 1944, she taught psychology and a class called Health for the Citizens at the George Washington Carver School in Harlem.45 Clark then worked as a research psychologist for the U.S. Armed Forces Institute and the New York Examination Center in the Teachers College at Columbia University. However, in 1946 she secured a position at the River- dale Home for Children, where she conducted psychological testing on home- less black girls. While working at Riverdale, Clark realized that black children in New York City desperately needed psychological services. The city provided psychological and psychiatric services for white children through a network of "well established sectarian agencies." However, minority children did not have access to such services.46 After more than a year of lobbying the state of New York for psychological services for children in Harlem, with no success, Mamie and Kenneth decided to establish their own agency. Mamie noted: "The need for such services was so great that my husband and I decided to try to persuade some social service in Harlem to include psychological services for minority children.... [The] reaction on the part of the existing agencies [was] so frus- trating that my husband and I finally made the decision to establish the services ourselves."47
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268 L O R E T T A N. M C G R E G O R
The Clarks were encouraged by friends and family to start their own business but needed financial assistance to make their dream a reality Mamie's father, Harold Phipps, loaned them $936, which allowed them to rent office space in the basement of the Paul Dunbar apartment complex in the northern section of Harlem in February 1946. They initially named their business the Northside Testing and Consultation Center but in 1947 renamed the facility the Northside Center for Child Development (NCCD).48 This was the first center to offer full psychiatric, psychological, and casework services to black children and families in Harlem.49 The NCCD established a board of directors that included public figures in the black community, representatives from the Rosenwald Fund, and philanthropic Jewish leaders.50
The NCCD'S primary objective was to provide psychological and educational services to minority children and to help their parents cope with the pressures of racism, discrimination, and economic privation. Its goals were informed by the Clarks' research on the negative effects of racial discrimination and social inequities on personality development.51 Mamie Clark, the NCCD'S executive director, envisioned an empowering environment: "Unhappy children and children burdened with emotional problems are deprived of an opportunity to develop their maximum abilities no matter how high their intelligence, and in spite of the good intentions of the parents. Our basic operational principle is that there are no innately bad children: only children who are afraid, or starved for genuine affection and understanding. The center aims to give children in the Harlem area a better than chance opportunity to grow and develop to their fullest capacities for an integrated personality."52
Initially, Clark faced resistance from parents who feared that such services would stigmatize their children in the community. However, in time, the par- ents began to come to the center for services. Many of them were frustrated with the public schools, which often placed minority children in classes for "children of retarded mental development" (CRMD). Black parents argued that their chil- dren were often put in these classes without being cognitively assessed, which stigmatized them and eroded their self-esteem.53
The Clarks and their staff at the NCCD retested many children and found that the majority of the students had IQS above 70, the cutoff score used for the placement of students into the CRMD classes.54 After they effectively helped many children and their parents in the New York schools, the NCCD'S psycho- logical and psychiatric services became well known and respected. Mamie Clark recalled, "As a result of word-of-mouth promotion and considerable newspaper publicity, a large number of parents brought their children to the Northside Center for psychological testing; and most of these children were subsequently
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Dr. Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark 269
able to return to normal class[es]."55 The NCCD also received a $10,000 federal grant under the National Mental Health Act (passed in 1946), which aided their work among Harlem's children.56
In the 19508 African Americans intensified their demands for equality through- out the United States.57 The Clarks became involved in a lawsuit that would forever change U.S. history. In 1951, the Clarks again encountered Mamie's for- mer advisor, Henry Garrett, this time in a federal courtroom where a Virginia school desegregation case was being tried. The Clarks testified against Garrett in Davis v. School Board of Prince Edward County (1952); he opposed school desegregation on the grounds that black children and white children had dif- ferent talents and abilities and thus needed to be trained in different environ- ments. In other words, Garrett supported "separate but equal" environments for blacks and whites. Mamie Clark battled her former advisor using data she had collected under his supervision. The major findings of her research were that "Negro children became aware of their racial identity about the age of three years; simultaneously, they acquire a negative self-image. Our findings estab- lished the fact that self-identification in these children was determined by the larger society's negative and rejecting definition of them."58
In September 1952, Kenneth Clark, Isidor Chein, and Stuart Cook wrote "The Effects of Segregation and the Consequences of Desegregation: A Social Science Statement."59 The study had been commissioned by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Robert Carter for use in court to challenge segregation. "The docu- ment reviewed the body of social psychological research on the effects of segrega- tion and its role in maintaining prejudice as well as work on the potential effects of desegregation."60 The final document, signed by thirty-two prominent social psychologists, including Mamie and Kenneth Clark, highlighted the significance of their research and that of other social psychologists on the self-identification of black children, and was used in desegregation cases in Washington, D.C., Dela- ware, Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia. These cases laid the groundwork for the Brown v. Board of Education ofTopeka Supreme Court case, where Thurgood Marshall successfully used the document in his arguments against segregation in schools, ultimately resulting in the dismantling of legally sanctioned segregation in America on May 17,1954, when the Court's decision was announced. It was the evolution of the Clarks' early research that led to victory in this case.61
For many years, Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark was considered Dr. Kenneth Clark's research assistant. In each of their coauthored articles, Kenneth's name appears first. However, this was thought to be necessary given the academic world's view of female researchers. Higher education and science were considered a man's world. Many professional, educated women were marginalized and their accomplishments
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ignored because of their gender. Kenneth Clark, however, insisted that he always informed people that his wife was the driving force behind their research.62
Mamie and Kenneth Clark built a life for themselves first in Washington, D.C., and then in New York. They lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, a predominantly white community in New York's Westchester County where they were one of two black families. The house was a large fieldstone and wood building with a library and a greenhouse because Mamie loved to garden.63 They maintained strong ties with family and friends in the South, visited Arkansas often, and had a tangential involvement with school desegregation in Little Rock. Although the Clarks helped strike down the concept of "separate but equal" schools for black and white children in 1952, the battle for desegregation continued to rage in the southern states well after the 1954 Brown decision declared segregated schools unconstitutional.
Arkansas became a battleground in the fight against segregation, and the Clarks became involved in 1957 when the Little Rock school board decided to implement the Supreme Court's ruling. Nine black students were selected to integrate Central High School, but the Little Rock Nine were harassed daily by white students. Among the nine students was a sixteen-year-old named Min- nijean Brown. Minnijean was outgoing, outspoken, lively, and in her own words "didn't fit anybody's stereotype of who a young black woman was supposed to be."64 After nearly three months of constant harassment, Minnijean became exasperated. One afternoon, when several white students attempted to block her way in the cafeteria, she "accidentally" dropped her tray, allowing chili to splatter on a white boy standing nearby. She was expelled for the incident. This was the same year that Mamie was chosen Mother of the Year by the Q-Ives, a group of wives of members of Omega Psi Phi fraternity in Brooklyn, New York.65 Receiving such an honor was surely prescient.
After Minnijean's expulsion from Central High School, she received death threats and her family feared for her life. Kenneth Clark traveled to Little Rock and spoke with the teenager and her family. As Minnijean recalled, "When I got expelled from Central, Kenneth came to Little Rock and said 'New Lincoln [School] says she can come there.'"66 Although the Clarks had two children of their own and a very busy life as community activists and professionals, they took her in. Minnijean Brown moved to New York and became a part of Ken- neth and Mamie Clark's family. She graduated from New Lincoln in 1959.67
Although Mamie Clark was busy with her family, her work at the Northside Center, and her research, she found time for civic engagement at the national and local levels. In the 19608, Clark was appointed to serve on the Office of Eco- nomic Opportunity's National Headstart Planning Committee and was among
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Dr. Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark 271
those who protested when Mississippi was disproportionately impacted by cuts to its programs.68 In 1967, she chaired Liaison, a group of black women volun- teers in New York who raised money to help African Americans in Sunflower County Mississippi, in their first campaigns for political office.69 Clark was a Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited board member and also served on the governing boards of the American Broadcasting Company, the Museum of Modern Art, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Columbia University's Teachers Col- lege, Haverford College, and the New York Public Library.70 This was all in addi- tion to heading the NCCD and continuing to speak out about racism's impact on children's development as her own particular form of activism. Indeed, in 1968, she asserted, "The healthier the home, the easier it is to combat race preju- dice when it does come up. It's a day to day job. If the parents' attitude is frank and open and without race prejudice, this is what the child is going to learn."71
Clark's activism netted her important awards, recognition, and new opportu- nities. She received the American Association of University Women's achieve- ment award for "her admirable service to the field of mental health" in 1973. News of this honor made its way back home to Arkansas newspapers.72 In 1974, the NCCD relocated to Schomburg Tower in Harlem. The new multilevel facil- ity provided much-needed additional space and allowed the Clarks to serve even more families and children with psychological needs.73 Mamie remained its executive director until 1979.74
In 1976, Mamie, Kenneth, and their son Hilton established a consulting firm, Clark, Phipps, Clark, and Harris, Incorporated, to assist businesses, government agencies, and educational institutions in need of counseling on human and race relations and on affirmative action programs.75 And the awards continued to come. In 1981, Mamie Clark and television anchor Mike Wallace received hon- orary doctorates from Mercy College and Long Island University. Clark's doctor of science degree was for her services to the "mental wellbeing of America."76
Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark died of lung cancer in her home in Hastings-on- Hudson, New York, on August 11,1983.77 She was sixty-five years old. In October of that year, she was posthumously recognized by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women with the Candace Award for extraordinary achievement.78 Ken- neth died on May i, 2005, at the age of ninety. The Clarks are both buried in Hastings-on-Hudson.79
Although she grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, during the height of south- ern segregation, Mamie Phipps Clark's family's middle-class status insulated her from the worst of the racial indignities many southern black people suffered. Yet, she was keenly aware of the inequalities in black and white lives in the South and in Arkansas in particular. These observations impacted her research and
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compelled her to document the psychological effects of segregation on African American children. Her contributions ultimately proved critical to challenging legal segregation in American public education and society A trained psycholo- gist, Clark's research served her well as a community and civil rights activist. This native of Arkansas, who attended segregated schools in her youth, well understood the significance of her work as a means to provide equal and fair services to all children regardless of their location, race, or economic status.
NOTES
1. Alexandra Rutherford, "Mamie Phipps Clark, Developmental Psychologist: Starting from Strengths," in Portraits of Pioneers in Developmental Psychology, ed. D. A. Dewsbury, W. E. Pickren, and M. Wertheimer (New York: Psychology Press, 2012), 266.
2. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 3. "Negro Physicians Elect," Daily Arkansas Gazette, May 31,1913, 2. 4. U.S. Census, 1920, Population Schedule, Hot Springs Township, Garland County, Ark.; "Negro
Physicians Elect," 2. 5. Shirley Abbott, "Mamie Phipps Clark, a Hot Springs Woman who 'Overcame the Odds,'"
Record 2006: Garland County Historical Society 47 (May 4, 2015): 15. 6. Shafali Lai, "Giving Children Security: Mamie Phipps Clark and the Racialization of Child
Psychology," American Psychologist 57, no. i (January 2002): 20-28. 7. Thomas J. Ward Jr., Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas
Press. 2003), 136; "Health Your Best Asset," Pittsburgh Courier, July i, 1939,15. 8. Abbott, "Mamie Phipps Clark," 15; "Health Your Best Asset," 15. 9. "New Negro Federation Organized," Daily Arkansas Gazette, December 30,1905, 7; "Arkansas
Clubs Re-Elect Officers at Annual Meeting," Pittsburgh Courier, June 30,1934, 8. 10. Harold Phipps II is listed as Harold Phipps Jr. in Census records. He became a well-known
dentist in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. 11. Abbott, "Mamie Phipps Clark," 16. 12. "Hot Springs, Ark." Plaindealer (Kansas City, Kans.), January 19, 1934, 3; "Green Pastures
Travels on to New Triumphs," Courier News (Blytheville, Ark.), October 6, 1934, 3; "Hollywood," Hope Star (Hope, Ark.), March 18,1936, 3.
13. Abbott, "Mamie Phipps Clark," 18. 14. Mamie Phipps Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, ed. A. N. O'Connell and N. F. Russo (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1983), 267. 15. Kim Lacy Rogers, Life and Death in the Delta: African American Narratives of Violence, Re-
silience, and Social Change (Gordonsville, Va.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 41; Danielle McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance: A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (New York: Vintage, 2011).
16. Abbott, "Mamie Phipps Clark," 18. 17. It is likely that Phipps hired Pullman porters to watch over Mamie and her companion. Pull-
man porters were African American men worked who worked as valets for the Pullman Company in sleeping cars on passenger trains all over the country from 1860 to 1969. They attended to the various needs of passengers.
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Dr. Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark 273
18. Stephen N. Butler, "Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark," in Encyclopedia of Arkansas History
and Culture, http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=i&
entryID=2938.
19. Ed Edwin, interview of Dr. Mamie Clark, May 25,1976, Columbia University Libraries Oral His-
tory Research Office, http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/nny/clarkm/index.html.
20. Abbott, "Mamie Phipps Clark," 19.
21. Information about Francis Sumner can be found in Robert V. Guthrie, Even the Rat Was
White (1976; repr., New York: Harper and Row, 2004).
22. "Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark," in Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, www
.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=i8centryID=2938.
23. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 268.
24. Ibid.
25. Butler, "Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark," and others have speculated that Mamie and Ken-
neth actually eloped and were married before April 14,1938, and that the second wedding occurred
on this date.
26. "Howard U Queen Crowned before 500 Admirers," Washington Tribune, May 21,1938, i.
27. "Socially Speaking," Pittsburgh Courier, June 25,1938, 6.
28. Ibid.
29. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 268.
30. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896); Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 268.
31. Guthrie, Even the Rat, 205.
32. Ibid., 190.
33. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 269.
34. Rutherford, "Mamie Phipps Clark, Developmental Psychologist," 265.
35. Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie P. Clark, "The Development of Consciousness of Self and the
Emergence of Racial Identification in Negro Preschool Children," Journal of Social Psychology 10
(1939): 591-99-
36. "Survey Shows 24 Have Received Masters in Psychology at H.U," New York Age, March 8,
1941, 2; "68 Given Rosenwald Fund Scholarships," New York Age, May 4,1940, i.
37. Rutherford, "Mamie Phipps Clark, Developmental Psychologist," 269.
38. Alfred Perkins, "Welcome Consequences and Fulfilled Promise: Julius Rosenwald Fellows
and Brown v. Board of Education," Journal of Negro Education 72, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 344-56.
39. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 269.
40. Ibid., 269.
41. Ibid., 270.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid., 271.
45. "Carver School Offers New, Practical Courses,"Peoples Voice (New York), January 29,1944,15.
46. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 272.
47. Ibid., 272.
48. Rutherford, "Mamie Phipps Clark, Developmental Psychologist," 274.
49. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 273.
50. Butler, "Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark."
51. Rutherford, "Mamie Phipps Clark, Developmental Psychologist," 274.
52. "Kids Get a Break at North Side Center," People's Voice (New York), February 22,1947,14.
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274 L O R E T T A N. M C G R E G O R
53. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 273. 54. Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark, "Report on Scientific Testing of Mentally Slow
Children," People's Voice (New York), June 29,1946, 21. 55. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 273. 56. "Northside in Opening," New York Age, December 14,1948,12. 57. Thomas Brooks, Walls, Come Tumbling Down: A History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1940-
1970 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1974), 73. 58. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 271. 59. Kenneth Clark, Isidor Chein, and Stuart Cook, "The Effects of Segregation and the Conse-
quences of Desegregation: A Social Science Statement in the Brown v. Board of Education of To- peka Supreme Court Case," American Psychologist 59, no. 6 (September 1952): 495-501. This article was the first time that social science research was used in a Supreme Court decision.
60. Rutherford, "Mamie Phipps Clark, Developmental Psychologist," 272. 61. Mamie and Kenneth Clark's groundbreaking research has been cited and replicated in mul-
tiple sources. 62. Kenneth B. Clark, telephone communication with author, April 1992. 63. Bryant Rollins, "The Clarks," Essence, June i, 1976, 3. 64. Elizabeth Jacoway, "Not Anger but Sorrow: Minnijean Brown Trickey Remembers the Little
Rock Crisis," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 64, no. i (Spring 2005): 4. 65. "Dr. Mamie Clark to Be Honored by Q-Ives," New York Age, May 4,1957,18. 66. Jacoway, "Not Anger," 12. The New Lincoln School, founded in 1917 by the Rockefeller Fund,
was a private, coeducational school in New York City. 67. "Minnijean Brown Trickey: Civil Rights Activist Who Integrated Central High School in
1957," National Women's History Project, http://www.nwhp.org/whm/trickey_bio.php (accessed August, 8, 2013).
68. "Must Mississippi's Children Abandon Hope?" Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), March 28, 1968,15.
69. "Toki Types," Pittsburgh Courier, March 4,1967,11. 70. "Dr. Mamie Clark Recipient of A A U W Achievement Award," Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
(Fairbanks, Alaska), September 19, 1973, 7; "First Black Woman Nominated by ABC," Los Angeles Times, April 24,1973, 75.
71. "Race Prejudice Fight Parents' Steady Job," Troy Record (Troy, N.Y.), July 26,1968, 4. 72. "Dr. Mamie Clark Recipient," 7; "Achievement Award Presented by AAUW," Northwest Ar-
kansas Times, June 20,1973, 3. 73. Rutherford, "Mamie Phipps Clark, Developmental Psychologist," 275. 74. Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, 72. 75. "New Consulting Firm Set Up in New York," Pittsburgh Courier, March 13,1976, 2. 76. "Wallace Gives Grads Encouraging Words," Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.), May 18,1981,10. 77. "Ex-Leader of Children's Center Dr. Mamie P. Clark Dies at 65," Poughkeepsie Journal, Au-
gust 13,1983, 8. 78. "Awards Honor 11 Black Women," Town Talk (Alexandria, La.), October 16,1983, 65. 79. Abbott, "Mamie Phipps Clark," 20.
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