Purpose
Black women’s contributions to the struggle for educational equality and to the USA Civil Rights Movement have been deplorably under-examined and scarcely evident in educational literature. This historical, biographical account documents the life and challenges of one brilliant woman, Mamie Phipps Clark, PhD. The purpose of this paper is to consider how Mamie Phipps Clark encountered and connected with Thurgood Marshall to advance social justice and the historical outcomes in the Brown v. Board (1954) decision. More importantly, the ways in which young Black children perceived racial awareness and self-identity are examined, and the perniciously damaging effects frequently stated by children’s and their negatively held attitudes about skin color were revealed in her work (Clark and Clark, 1950).
Design/methodology/approach
This historiography examines Dr Mamie Phipps Clark’s scholarship. Central to Brown v. Board of Education was Dr Mamie Phipps Clark’s research agenda. She contributed to the USA’s history in the pursuit of justice and equity for children. To adequately prepare social studies and civics educators and students, the unknown has to be realized. To embrace Clark’s accomplishments within the educational literature is to forge a vast path of knowledge about children’s identity, racial awareness and psychological well-being. She worked determinedly for just ideals for generations of children and women preparing the way for just educational integration.
Findings
Nevertheless, until women, and essentially Black women’s scholarship and civic contributions are valued as imperative to foundational educational, civic, social studies, history canons the entirety of history remains veiled. When women’s scholarship by which our country achieved civic ideals is fully accepted, multicultural educators for social justice and action will claim Mamie P. Clark’s merited inclusion in the social studies and educational canon. Without the position, knowledge and expertise of Judge Thurgood Marshall, the momentous 1954 movement toward educational equity and civic righteousness would not have occurred. It took his skill, but mostly his powerful Black maleness to bring about just passage of Brown v. Board. Further, without the influential testimony of Dr Kenneth Clark at Brown v. Board the crucial argument of the “pernicious effects of segregation” would have not influenced the court in the same fashion as that of a Black woman. In fact, in one account (Pohlman, 2005), Mamie, P. Clark’s work is not mentioned when referencing a court cases’ detailed circumstances of the doll studies. Interestingly, Dr Henry Garrett, Mamie’s racist doctoral advisor is mentioned in the preliminary Virginia segregation court case as a prominent witness in this integration case without note of Dr Mamie Phipps Clark.
Practical implications
Howard University’s motto, Veritas et Utilitas, Truth and Service was key to Charles Houston, Thurgood Marshall, Mamie P. Clark and Kenneth Clark’s moral code. They lived the possibility to intensify equitable, equal, and accessible education by enacting legal civil rights agency and action. Nevertheless, pending any woman scholar, essentially women civic scholars, Black women’s foundational social studies scholarship and contributions are wholly vital to our educational history and canons. It is only when women’s precedents are included into the literature by which our country achieved civic justice, then social studies educators and educational researchers may begin to achieve gender inclusive practice while transforming social studies scholarship to better all students’ worlds.
Social implications
Dr Mamie Phipps Clark’s work endures, as does her history and advocacy for generations of children, especially children of color, as well as women scholars. Her equitable, historical place will be actualized as long as scholars continue to herald her scholarship and contributions to the civic and social studies canon of literature.
Originality/value
Dr Mamie Phipps Clark. Central to Brown v. Board of Education was Dr Mamie Phipps Clark’s scholarship. She contributed to the USA’s history in the pursuit of justice and equity for children. To adequately prepare social studies and civics educators and students, the unknown has to be realized. To embrace Clark’s accomplishments within the educational literature is to forge a vast path of knowledge about children’s identity, racial awareness and psychological well-being. She worked determinedly for ideals for generations of children and women preparing the way for educational integration.
Inquiries that matter: How social studies teachers employ historical inquiry practices to support social justice civic goals
