Clark, Kenneth Bancroft

Clark, Kenneth Bancroft, 1914–2005, American psychologist and educator, b. Panama Canal Zone, grad. Howard (B.A., 1935) and Columbia (Ph.D., 1940). Clark taught psychology at Howard (1937–38) and at Hampton Institute (1940–41). He was the first African American to be a full tenured professor (1960) at the City College of New York, where he taught from 1942 to 1975, and to be a member of the New York State Board of Regents (1966–86). Clark was the author of a 1950 report on racial discrimination that was cited in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. An early leader in the civil-rights movement, he founded the Northside Center for Child Development (1946) and Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Haryou, 1962). His works include Prejudice and Your Child (1955), Dark Ghetto (1965), A Possible Reality (1972), and Pathos of Power (1974).