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RECONSIDERING KENNETH B. CLARK AND THE IDEA OF BLACK PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE, 1931–19451

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2011

Damon Freeman
Damon Freeman*
Affiliation:
School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania
*
Damon Freeman, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania, 3701 Locust Walk, Caster Building, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6214. E-mail: dfreeman@sp2.upenn.edu
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Abstract

One of the most controversial figures in Black intellectual history is psychologist Kenneth B. Clark. Prominently identified as the main proponent of the idea that racial segregation led to psychological damage in Black children, Clark's work heavily influenced the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1954Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Almost immediately afterwards, his research methods and conclusions were challenged as incomplete and biased. Scholars now argue that Clark and other racial liberals became solely wedded to the idea of racial psychological damage in order to secure victory in Brown. Yet a closer analysis of his thought reveals a more complex picture. During the early 1940s, he developed a new psychological concept which he called the “zoot effect.” He defined the zoot effect as the attempt by a person to gain psychological security in a society which mandated that individual's inferiority. The zoot effect or zoot personality reflected the larger society's pathology, which manifested itself internally in individuals. This concept was heavily shaped by ideas about race, class, and in particular the work of Alfred Adler, which he first learned as a student at Howard University. Using archival and secondary sources, I argue for a reconceptualization of Clark within the broader context of his social thought, suggesting that the zoot-effect concept grounded his research on Black children and set the stage for his later views on desegregation, civil rights, and American society.

Keywords

SegregationBrown v. Board of EducationPsychological DamageDoll TestRacial Self-EsteemBlack Children
Type
Learning Lessons from the Past
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 8 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Racial Inequality and Health , Spring 2011 , pp. 271 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2011

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Footnotes

1

I wish to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers of the Du Bois Review for their helpful criticism. I also presented this paper and received valuable feedback in April 2010 at the Harvard University Public Intellectuals Conference and at a University of Pennsylvania Race and Empire Group meeting. I especially thank my colleagues, Joan Davitt, Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, Andrea Doyle, and Toorjo Ghose for their suggestions. I am also thankful to my former students, Amy Bastianelli, Pita Lacenski, and Lauren Willner for research assistance.

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