1914-

AMERICAN EDUCATOR, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIST, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST

HOWARD UNIVERSITY, B.A. 1935, M.S. 1936; COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, Ph.D. 1940

Brief Overview

Kenneth Bancroft Clark (1914– ), an eminent American social psychologist, educator, and human rights activist, is well known for his expert testimony in the consolidated school desegregation cases known as Brown v. Board of Education. The landmark case, argued by the NAACP legal team before the Supreme Court in 1954, declared school segregation a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The social science testimony of Kenneth Clark was a significant factor in the Court's decision, and secured his place in the historical record among social psychologists whose research has influenced significant social change in the twentieth century.

Kenneth Clark was born in the Panama Canal Zone on July 24, 1914, and lived there until he was five years of age. His Jamaican-born mother, Miriam Hanson...