Mamie Phipps Clark

Mamie Phipps Clark
Born 18 April 1917
Hot Springs
Died 11 August 1983
New York City
Alma mater Columbia University, Howard University
Occupation psychologist
Employer American Public Health Association
Spouse(s) Kenneth Clark[*]

Mamie Phipps Clark was an American social psychologist that focused on the development of self-consciousness of pre-schooled black children, along with her husband Kenneth Clark. Clark was born and raised Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1917.[1] Clark received her post-secondary school, schooling at Howard University and earned a bachelor's and master's degrees there. Work with all black children in a nursing school, allowed her to come up with her master's thesis, known as " The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children."[2] This included doll experiments regarding race and segregation. Two groups of students were used in this experiment, black students from a segregated school in Washington DC and desegregated school in New York. The students from each school was presented a doll, the doll was identical except for hair and skin color, one was black, one was white. They were then asked which doll they rather play with and which one looks nicer? It was found that the kids would rather play with white doll than the black doll. The case was highly influential to the Brown vs. Board of Education court case.[3] It brought light to racial segregation in schools. Mamie Clark Phipps died in 1983 at the age of 63. She goes down in history in making big contributions to social psychology as well as racial inequality.

Early life and early education

Having been born on April 18, 1917 Arkansas, Mamie Phipps Clark attended highly segregated schools. Phipps's father, Harold H. Phipps, born in he British West Indies, was a well-respected physician and a manager of a resort.[4] Katy Florence Phipps, Phipps' mother worked as a homemaker, she was often involved in Harold H. Phipps work as a physician. Harold H. Phipps job allowed Mamie Phipps Clark to live what she considered a privileged childhood. Black physicians were rare during that time. Most Americans did not hold professional positions. The fact that her mother did not need to work to supplement the family income indicates that her father’s income was sufficient. Clark herself stated, “I had a very happy childhood. I really did. We were comfortable. How can I tell you I had a happy childhood? I enjoyed everything. I enjoyed school. I loved school. I enjoyed recreation. I enjoyed the little travelling we did. I was very happy. I can’t say it was impoverished, or—for me, it was privileged. For me. Now, by objective standards, I would guess you would say it was just an average family. But it was a very privileged childhood.” (as cited in Lal, 2002, p. 1)

Clark graduated Langston High School, even though it was very uncommon for a black student to do so. She received two offers and scholarships from top colleges, Fisk University and Howard University. She chose to attend Howard. She attended Howard during the depression, but her father was still able to send her $50 per month. She has been cited that her father was one of the few Blacks who were permitted to cross certain lines of segregation. This is not to say that she didn’t carry the weight of her skin color and being keenly aware of limitations

She began Howard in 1934, majoring in math and minoring in physics. It was very uncommon for a black women to receive an education in those departments at the time. Mamie Clark Phipps would meet her future husband Kenneth Bancroft, who was a master student in psychology. It was Kenneth Clark who urged her to pursue psychology, because would allow her to explore her interests. Mamie Clark Phipps always was interested in working with children, "I'd always had an interest in children. "Psychology seemed a good field." In 1938 Mamie Clark Phipps graduated magna cum laude or master's degree from Howard University. The summer after her graduation Phipps worked as a secretary in the law office of William Houston. She was about to witness the work of William Hastie, Thurgood Marshall, and others in preparation of the Brown vs. Board of Education of 1954. This was influential of her master thesis, "The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children."[5]

Mamie Clark earned her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology in 1943 from Columbia University. She was the first Black woman to do so and the second Black person to do so. Her husband was the first. Mamie’s dissertation advisor was Henry E. Garrett. He is noted as an exceptional statistician but also an open racist. Later on in her career she was asked to testify in the Prince Edward County, Virginia, desegregation case in order to rebut his testimony offered in that court in support of inherent racial differences. He is also a former president of the American Psychological Association.

After graduation, she experienced a lot of frustration career wise. She attributed this to the “unwanted anomaly” of a Black woman in a field dominated by white males. One instrumental role was a job in 1945 conducting psychological testing for homeless black girls for the Riverdale Home for Children. This spurred her desire to open the Northside Child Development Center.

Love and relationship

Mamie Phipps and Kenneth Clark met at Howard University while she was a freshman and he was Masters student and a teaching assistant at Howard. They got married in 1938. They worked together the rest of her life in researching the effects of racism on the identity and self-esteem of schoolchildren. Dr. Mamie Clark has stated that the collaboration between her and Dr. Kenneth Clark resulted in “a lifetime of close, challenging and professionally satisfying experiences”. They designed and administered the famed “doll tests”, the results of which were used in the Brown v. Board of Education case. They founded the Northside Center for Child Development in 1946 – a guidance center for African American children. The Clarks were married for forty-five years until Dr. Mamie Clark’s death on August 11, 1983 and had two children, Kate Harris and Hilton Clark.

Doll study

the Doll Study was a continuation of the work Mamie Clark did for her Master's thesis. It was inspired by Ruth and Gene Horowitz’s work on “self-identification” in nursery school children. Her Master’s thesis spurred her husband's interests in the area and served as the basis of their later collaborative work on the racial preferences of Black Children. She opted not to publish her thesis because she thought it was exploitive to publish with a professor. She reportedly told her husband that they would do it together.

The experiment played a key role in the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1951, in proving that segregation caused psychological harm to children. Mamie Phipps Clark conducted the experiment with her husband, Kenneth Clark. 14 years earlier. Findings from this study were the first social science research to be submitted as hard evidence in the Court’s history. The study used four dolls identical in all ways except color. It was administered to children ages 3–7, asking questions to identify racial perception and preference.[6]

The following questions were asked:

"Show me the doll that you like the best or that you'd like to play with."

"Show me the doll that is the 'nice' doll?."

"Show me the doll that looks 'bad'."

"Give me the doll that looks like a white child."

"Give me the doll that looks like a colored child."

"Give me the doll that looks like a Negro child."

"Give me the doll that looks like you."

The experiment revealed a preference for the white doll for all of the questions and attributed positive attributes to the white dolls. The Clarks concluded, "prejudice, discrimination and segregation" caused black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred. Clark concluded, “If society says it is better to be White not only White people but Negroes come to believe it. And a child may try to escape the trap of inferiority by denying the fact of his own race.” The original experiment led the way to other experiments conducted by Mamie Phipps Clark and her husband. Phipps took three hundred children from different parts of the county that schools were segregated, and found the same results.

Within the doll experiment, Clark also gave the kids outlines of a boy and a girl and told them to color the outlines the same color as themselves. It was found that the black kids colored themselves white or yellow.

The conclusion of the doll tests and the segregation tests were that segregation in schools had a negative effect on children. The tests went on to impact the decision in the Brown vs. Board of Education court case. The case ruled that segregating schools based on race was unconstitutional.

The Northside Center for Child Development

In February 1946, Mamie Phipps Clark founded the Northside Center for Child Development in the basement of the Paul Lawrence Dunbar apartments, where her family lived. It was funded by a loan of $946 from Mamie's father, Harold Phipps. It was first called the Northside Testing and Consultation Center. It became the Northside Center for Child Development in 1948. The Northside Center for Child Development was the first center to provide therapy for children in Harlem. As well as helping children who needed therapy, the center provided support to families who needed housing assistance. The prevailing therapeutic approach at the time was psychoanalysis. However, they dismissed the effectiveness of psychoanalysis with the population served by the center. The Clarks felt the center had to provide what was identified as missing for their clients. They preferred a more comprehensive holistic approach. The center later expanded services to include psychological consultations for behavior problems due to emotional disturbances, vocational guidance for adolescents, education in child training for Black parents, and various psychological testing. Today services include remedial reading and math tutoring services, nutritional workshops, and parental training. Dr. Mamie Clark remained active as the director of Northside until her retirement in 1979.

Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited project (HARYOU)

She continued to collaborate with her husband on numerous projects including the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited project (HARYOU), to provide education and employment opportunities for the youth in Harlem, NY. It was established in 1962 with the help of Kenneth Clark and other community leaders. HARYOU provided corrective/remedial education for impoverished youth who were falling behind in school, provided job opportunities for Black youth, and taught residents how to work with government agencies to obtain funds and services. Kenneth Clark proposed busing to integrate schools, but protests from parents on both sides prevented fruition. HARYOU later merged with Associated Community Teams as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty initiative. It was renamed HARYOU-ACT. The Clark's involvement with the agency was short-lived due to political conflicts. Dr. Kenneth Clark published conclusions from work with HARYOU in book called Dark Ghetto (1965)

Legacy

Mamie Clark goes down in history as one of the most influential and popular black female psychologists to have every practiced. She is the first African-American women to receive her Ph.D in psychology from Columbia University. (Also the second African American, her husband being the first.) The work of the Clarks on the impact of racial discrimination and stereotypes have provided important contributions to the field of developmental psychology and the psychology of race. Her work on identity and self-esteem of blacks expanded the work on identity development.

Dr. Clark was very active in her community. She served as chairman of a housing company that built apartments in NYC. She also served on the board of the American Broadcasting Companies, the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Public Library, New York Mission Society, The Phelps Stoke Funds, and Teachers College at Columba University. Additionally, she served with advisory groups including the National Headstart Planning Committee.

Mamie Clark is not as famous as her husband. It has been noted that she adhered to feminine expectations of the time and often took care to “remain in the shadows of her husband’s limelight” She often presented as shy and retired. She has been praised for achieving success professionally while maintaining the satisfaction of a fulfilling home life. However, there is no denying her influence and contributions to her husband’s work, child development, racial psychology. She received a Candace Award for Humanitarianism from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1983.[7]

Dr. Mamie Clark died of cancer on August 11, 1983 at 65 years of age.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Featured Psychologists: Mamie Phipps Clark, PhD, and Kenneth Clark, PhD". http://www.apa.org. Retrieved 2016-06-07. External link in |website= (help)
  2. ↑ Karera, Axelle. "Mamie Phipps Clark - Psychology's Feminist Voices". www.feministvoices.com. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  3. ↑ "Mamie Katherine Phipps Clark (1917–1983) - Encyclopedia of Arkansas". www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  4. ↑ "Notable New Yorkers". www.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  5. ↑ "Mamie Phipps Clark". faculty.webster.edu. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  6. ↑ "Brown at 60: The Doll Test | NAACP LDF". www.naacpldf.org. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  7. ↑ "CANDACE AWARD RECIPIENTS 1982-1990, Page 1". National Coalition of 100 Black Women. Archived from the original on March 14, 2003.
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