This first collection of black psychologist Dr. Kenneth B. Clark's body of work over a half-century reveals his insight into the fields of social science, education, politics, and the law. He tells the inside story of the groundbreaking studies he made of black public school children-showing they lacked self-esteem because they were treated separately and differently than their white counterparts. His social science papers were the basis for the United States Supreme Court's landmark decision of May 17, 1954, that state-sponsored segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Dr. John Hope Franklin, the nation's most prestigious black historian, provides a Foreword. A number of prominent individuals in academics and politics offer brief commentaries about Dr. Clark, including Nobel Prize-winner Gunnar Myrdal , Dr. Cornel West, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Marian Wright Edelman, Roger Wilkins, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, and many others. There are also brief quotes about Dr. Clark by Congressmen Charles Rangel and John Lewis, and former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach. In addition, the book contains Dr. Clark's views of his contemporaries, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter. This is an essential collection from a key figure often overlooked in studies of the Civil Rights Movement.