Mamie Phipps Clark

Mamie Phipps Clark (b. 1917–d. 1983) was a psychologist who focused on identity development, racial self-consciousness, education, and counselling psychology. She was the second Black person (her husband being the first) and the first Black woman to earn a psychology doctorate at Columbia University in New York City, an impressive feat at a time when many schools and colleges in the United States were racially segregated. Black women, in particular, encountered numerous barriers to success. Born and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Clark attended a segregated school and became aware of the separation of Blacks and Whites early. Her father, Harold H. Phipps, was a well-respected physician, and this afforded them some privileges and access to spaces usually restricted to Whites. Nevertheless, in a 1976 oral history interview, she recalled being aware of lynching at age six; there was always an awareness of what lines not to cross. After high school, Clark attended Howard University in Washington, DC, on a scholarship. There, she met her future husband, Kenneth Clark, who was studying psychology. Her interest in abnormal and educational psychology, and persuasion from Kenneth, led her to switch from math to psychology in her third year of studies. Clark pursued her master’s at Howard University. Her thesis investigated Black children’s awareness of themselves and their racial belonging, and found that this awareness developed quite early. This research catalysed subsequent controversial studies, co-authored with her husband and famously known as the doll studies. These became instrumental in the 1954 unanimous US Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which overturned the 1896 “separate but equal” doctrine, making racial segregation unconstitutional in American public schools. Mamie was called as a rebuttal witness to the testimony of her former doctoral advisor who had testified to the inferiority of Black students. Subsequent to her PhD, Mamie was unable to find a university-based research position, noting the difficulty of securing such a position given the double jeopardy of being Black and female. Thus, she conceived of, founded, and directed the Northside Center for Child Development for the rest of her career. There, she oversaw a multiracial staff who provided comprehensive and innovative psychosocial services to disadvantaged children in the Harlem area. She retired as its director in 1979 and died in 1983. Despite some recovery efforts, Mamie Clark’s contributions to psychology, social change, and the well-being of children, families, and communities continue to be overlooked by history and overshadowed by her husband’s status as a prominent social scientist and public intellectual.