Scope and Content Note
The papers of Kenneth Bancroft Clark (1914-2005) span the years 1897-2003, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1935-1990. The collection is sizable and covers the full range of Clark's career. The material is arranged broadly into Family Papers ; Professional Files ; records of the Metropolitan Applied Research Center (MARC) , a research group headed by Clark and organized to advocate for the urban poor and disadvantaged; a small group of records of a local New York City division of the Universal Negro Improvement Association ; an Addition series ; and Oversize . Included are correspondence, memoranda, subject files, speeches and writings, project files, transcripts of interviews and testimony, book drafts, minutes, reports, administrative records, financial records, printed matter, and secondary background material.
The Clark Papers provide a comprehensive account of the numerous and significant contributions Clark made to the African-American community's struggle for equal civil rights and improved educational opportunities. As a social psychologist, Clark recognized racial segregation's effects on those who were discriminated against as well as on the morality of those who imposed segregation. Sometimes referred to as an "incorrigible integrationist," Clark opposed all forms of racial discrimination in his writings, talks, and activities with a wide array of civil rights and community service organizations, antipoverty programs, educational institutions, social action groups, government agencies, and consultantships.
The Family Papers are clustered chiefly in the 1930s and 1980s and include correspondence , school and university files , memorabilia , and sundry material relating primarily to immediate family members . Prominent in his correspondence file are numerous letters between Clark and his wife, Mamie Phipps Clark, from the late 1930s. A separate file pertaining to Mamie Clark includes a small group of her academic and professional papers. A recognized psychologist in her own right, she cofounded with Clark in 1946 the Northside Center for Child Development and served as its director until her retirement in 1980. The School and University File includes a small assortment of their commingled memorabilia from Howard University.
The Professional File in the collection reflects the breadth and depth of Clark's public career, except the period of his presidency of Metropolitan Applied Research Center , which is treated separately in the records pertaining to that organization. The General Correspondence and Subject files contained in the Professional File series document the first half of Clark's career from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s. The files are rich in material relating to Clark's emergence as an authority in the African-American civil rights movement. In 1942 he was appointed an instructor of psychology at City College, City University of New York, the first full-time black faculty member of that institution. He continued at City College, City University of New York until his retirement in 1975. Files for City College, City University of New York include material relating to his courses, riots in Harlem in 1943, and students complaints of racial discrimination. Also in the Subject File is material concerning the Northside Center for Child Development established to provide mental health services for black and other minority children of Harlem.
Significant material in the Subject File and General Correspondence records Clark's early activities with numerous religious and community service organizations, including his 1950 report on the "Effect of Prejudice and Discrimination on Personality Development" presented to the White House Mid-Century Conference on Children and Youth and later published in revised form as Prejudice and Your Child. On the strength of this report and other recommendations, the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund engaged Clark to provide expert social science testimony in its school segregation cases which culminated in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. The NAACP files in the Subject File offer an important account of this major civil rights victory and consist of reports, legal briefs, drafts, and correspondence, including letters from Robert L. Carter, Thurgood Marshall, and other NAACP officials. Other files closely related to this topic include those pertaining to desegregation and the noted "dolls test."
Following the legal victory over segregation, Clark focused on the de facto segregation prevalent in the New York City public school system. Numerous files in the Subject File pertain to New York state and city government agencies. Other files relate to Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU), Intergroup Committee on New York's Public Schools, Little Rock, Arkansas, National Child Labor Committee, National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and psychologist Otto Klineberg. Many of the subject files in the records of the Metropolitan Applied Research Center complement the Subject File .
The General Correspondence includes correspondence with community organizations, educational institutions, and individuals such as Gordon W. Allport, Hubert T. Delany, Alfred Lee McClung, Gardner Murphy, A. Philip Randolph, Louis L. Redding, and Elizabeth Waring.
The Professional File also includes files of the Social Dynamics Research Institute, a research group at City College, City University of New York whose primary function was “to study the processes of social change as they manifest themselves in actual community problems.” The papers principally reflect research conducted for three major projects. The Edward W. Hazen Foundation funded a study of the relationship between urban poverty and psychological and educational factors, the results of which were published as The Educationally Disadvantaged: The Potential for Change (New York: Metropolitan Applied Research Corporation, Inc., 1972. 208 pp.) A second project, financed by the Stern Family Fund, focused on community social action programs. The findings of this project were reported by Clark and Jeannette Hopkins in A Relevant War Against Poverty: a Study of Community Action Programs and Observable Change. The Institute also conducted research for the State Department analyzing factors associated with selection and evaluation of foreign service officers. The general correspondence in this file includes several exchanges with Daniel P. Moynihan, 1965-1966.
The firm of Clark, Phipps, Clark & Harris was formed by Clark in 1975 shortly after his resignation from MARC. Its principal officers included Clark, Mamie Phipps Clark, and their son and daughter, Hilton B. Clark and Kate Clark Harris, and brought together a group of executive consultants in human relations, race relations, affirmative action, desegregation plans, and urban and community relations who provided expert advice to private corporations, government agencies, and educational institutions. Files related to this organization in the Professional File include correspondence, memoranda, and various other files arranged by topic. The material pertains to Clark's career from 1975 through the early 1990s and includes oral histories by staff of the Northside Center for Child Development. This file also contains the records of the successor organization, Kenneth B. Clark and Associates.
The Speeches and Writings File reflects Clark's prolific output as an author and speaker. The speeches, essays, papers, articles, drafts of books, interviews, oral history interviews, testimony, statements, and other material span his entire career, including the period of his presidency of MARC. Clark's early academic papers, including his master's thesis and doctoral dissertation, are filed chronologically in the Articles file along with other published and unpublished essays, papers, and articles. In some instances, correspondence and ancillary material is appended to the text of writings. Notable items include an interview in 1964 by Robert Penn Warren and a New York Times interview in 1973 which elicited letters of comment from Joseph Alsop, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, McGeorge Bundy, B. F. Skinner, and Andrew Young.
Grouped under Miscellany in the Professional File series is printed matter containing extensive clippings on Clark and the issue of decentralization of the administration of the New York City public school system. Also included with the printed matter are awards, certificates, programs, and scrapbooks.
Records of the Metropolitan Applied Research Center comprise the largest series in the Clark Papers. The material, concentrated chiefly in the period 1967-1975, reflects Clark's tenure as president of MARC. Chartered in January 1967 and initially funded by the Field Foundation, MARC described itself as an experiment to determine “whether trained intelligence can be mobilized as an effective form of power for positive social change.” Clark assembled a group experienced in social science, law, and municipal and public affairs referred to as an action-oriented research group whose mission was to alleviate the plight of the urban poor through applied research programs. Its primary focus eventually turned to education, particularly providing plans for quality public school systems.
The Personal File includes a small group of correspondence, biographical material, summary reports, speaking engagement files, and a file related to Clark's resignation. General Correspondence contains routine correspondence and responses from Clark and other staff. Staff memoranda provide a record of internal communications between various departments and with the center's offices in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.
The more important records of MARC are in the Projects File, Subject File, and President's Assistants' File. Many topics are treated concurrently in each of these files. The Projects File includes material related to Clark's Academic Achievement Project prepared for the public school system in Washington, D.C.; seminars and a proposed writing project with Gunnar Myrdal referred to as "An American Dilemma Revisited;" the Commission of Inquiry into the Black Panthers and the Police; the assembly of prominent black educators and professionals known as the Hastie Group and its "Haverford Discussions” (alternatively known as the Haverford Group) on black separatism; and the Joint Center for Political Studies.
The MARC Subject File is an extension of the Subject File in the Professional File. Prominent topics include the American Psychological Association and Clark's service as president from 1970 to 1971, his activities as a member of the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, and his service on the board of directors of the New York State Urban Development Corporation. The President's Assistants' File is composed of material maintained by Clark's assistants George Dalley and Dixie Moon and includes administrative records relating to MARC projects and activities. Important files include those concerning the decentralization of control of the public school system in New York City and the research and reports generated by MARC's Fellowship and Internship Program. The Urban Affairs Publication Program directed by Jeannette Hopkins is documented by her papers included in this series and by a publication file of MARC reports and publications. The Grants File is a record of MARC's financial resources and includes numerous reports on the organization's activities.
The Clark Papers also contain a small group of records of the Central Division, Brooklyn, New York, of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. This material, dating from the 1920s and 1930s, is composed of ledger books, membership cards, minutes, and musical scores.
The Addition supplements similar material and subjects found in the main body of the papers and includes correspondence, subject files, speeches and writings, clippings, and photographs. Oversize contains research note cards, membership cards, photographs, and a scrapbook.