John Henrik Clarke
Encyclopedia
John Henrik Clarke born John Henry Clark, was a Pan-Africanist American writer, historian, professor, and a pioneer in the creation of Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.
He was Professor of African World History and in 1969 founding chairman of the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College
of the City University of New York
. He also was the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University
’s Africana Studies and Research Center
. In 1968 along with the Black Caucus of the African Studies Association
, Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association.
An autodidact, Clarke documented the histories and contributions of African peoples in Africa and the diaspora
using an Afrocentric perspective.
to sharecroppers John (Doctor) and Willie Ella (Mays) Clark. He renamed himself John Henrik (after rebel playwright Henrik Ibsen
) and adding an "e" to his surname Clarke, as a symbol. Counter to his father's wishes for him to be a farmer, Clarke left Alabama in 1933 by freight train and went to Harlem, New York, where he pursued scholarship and activism.
, a concentration of African Americans, many of whom figured in the Harlem Renaissance
. Clarke developed as a writer and lecturer during the Great Depression
years. He joined study circles like the Harlem History Club and the Harlem Writers' Workshop. He studied history and world literature at New York University
, at Columbia University
and at the League for Professional Writers. He was an autodidact whose mentors included the scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg
. At the age of 78 Clarke obtained a doctorate from the then non-accredited Pacific Western University
(now California Miramar University) in Los Angeles
. The New York Times noted that Clarke's ascension to professor emeritus at Hunters College was "unusual...without benefit of a high school diploma." The Times also acknowledged that "nobody said Professor Clarke wasn't an academic original", but nonetheless referred to him using the honorific prefix "Mr." rather than "Dr.".
Prominent during the Black Power
movement, Clarke advocated for studies on the African-American experience and the place of Africans in world history. He challenged academic historians and helped shift the way African history was studied and taught. Clarke was "a scholar devoted to redressing what he saw as a systematic and racist suppression and distortion of African history by traditional scholars." When some of the scholarship he championed was dismissed by many historians, Clarke imparted to them the biases of Eurocentric views.
He was memorialized for devoting "himself to placing people of African ancestry 'on the map of human geography'." Clarke said "History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be."
Besides teaching at Hunter College
and Cornell University
, Clarke was active in creating professional associations to support the study of black culture. He was a founder and first president of the African Heritage Studies Association, which supported scholars in areas of history, culture, literature and the arts. He was a founding member of other organizations to recognize and support work in black culture: the Black Academy of Arts and Letters and the African-American Scholars' Council.
His writing included six scholarly books and many scholarly articles. He edited anthologies of black writing, as well as his own short stories, and more general interest articles. He was co-founder of the Harlem Quarterly (1949–51), book review editor of the Negro History Bulletin (1948–52), associate editor of the magazine Freedomways, and a feature writer for the Pittsburgh Courier and the Ghana Evening News.
He is buried in Green Acres Cemetery, Columbus, Georgia.
He was Professor of African World History and in 1969 founding chairman of the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
. He also was the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
’s Africana Studies and Research Center
Cornell Africana Studies and Research Center
The Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University is an academic unit devoted to the study of the global migrations and reconstruction of African peoples, as well as patterns of linkages to the African continent . ASRC offers around 23 graduate and undergraduate courses each semester...
. In 1968 along with the Black Caucus of the African Studies Association
African Studies Association
The African Studies Association is an association of scholars and professionals in the United States and Canada with an interest in the continent of Africa. Started in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North America. The associations headquarters are Rutgers...
, Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association.
An autodidact, Clarke documented the histories and contributions of African peoples in Africa and the diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
using an Afrocentric perspective.
Early life and education
Born as the eldest child 1 January 1915 in Union Springs, AlabamaUnion Springs, Alabama
Union Springs is a town in Bullock County, Alabama, United States. The population was 3,670 at the 2000 census.-History:The area that became Union Springs was first settled by white men after the Creek Indian removal of the 1830s. Twenty-seven springs watered the land, giving rise to the name of...
to sharecroppers John (Doctor) and Willie Ella (Mays) Clark. He renamed himself John Henrik (after rebel playwright Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
) and adding an "e" to his surname Clarke, as a symbol. Counter to his father's wishes for him to be a farmer, Clarke left Alabama in 1933 by freight train and went to Harlem, New York, where he pursued scholarship and activism.
Career
In 1933 Harlem had drawn, through the Great MigrationGreat Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
, a concentration of African Americans, many of whom figured in the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
. Clarke developed as a writer and lecturer during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
years. He joined study circles like the Harlem History Club and the Harlem Writers' Workshop. He studied history and world literature at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and at the League for Professional Writers. He was an autodidact whose mentors included the scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, a.k.a. as Arthur Schomburg, , was a Puerto Rican historian, writer, and activist in the United States who researched and raised awareness of the great contributions that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Americans have made to society. He was an important intellectual figure...
. At the age of 78 Clarke obtained a doctorate from the then non-accredited Pacific Western University
Pacific Western University
California Miramar University , is a nationally accredited private proprietary institution of higher learning and is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the United States Department of Education...
(now California Miramar University) in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. The New York Times noted that Clarke's ascension to professor emeritus at Hunters College was "unusual...without benefit of a high school diploma." The Times also acknowledged that "nobody said Professor Clarke wasn't an academic original", but nonetheless referred to him using the honorific prefix "Mr." rather than "Dr.".
Prominent during the Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
movement, Clarke advocated for studies on the African-American experience and the place of Africans in world history. He challenged academic historians and helped shift the way African history was studied and taught. Clarke was "a scholar devoted to redressing what he saw as a systematic and racist suppression and distortion of African history by traditional scholars." When some of the scholarship he championed was dismissed by many historians, Clarke imparted to them the biases of Eurocentric views.
He was memorialized for devoting "himself to placing people of African ancestry 'on the map of human geography'." Clarke said "History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be."
Besides teaching at Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
and Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Clarke was active in creating professional associations to support the study of black culture. He was a founder and first president of the African Heritage Studies Association, which supported scholars in areas of history, culture, literature and the arts. He was a founding member of other organizations to recognize and support work in black culture: the Black Academy of Arts and Letters and the African-American Scholars' Council.
His writing included six scholarly books and many scholarly articles. He edited anthologies of black writing, as well as his own short stories, and more general interest articles. He was co-founder of the Harlem Quarterly (1949–51), book review editor of the Negro History Bulletin (1948–52), associate editor of the magazine Freedomways, and a feature writer for the Pittsburgh Courier and the Ghana Evening News.
Marriage and family
Clarke had three children with his first wife, Eugenia Evans Clarke. At his death he was survived by his second wife, Sybille Williams Clarke, and his two children Nzingha Marie and Sonni Kojo. A third child (Lillie) preceded him in death.He is buried in Green Acres Cemetery, Columbus, Georgia.
Legacy and honors
- 1985 - Faculty of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University named the John Henrik Clarke Library after him.
- 1995 - Carter G. Woodson Medallion, Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History
- 2002 - Molefi Kete AsanteMolefi Kete AsanteMolefi Kete Asante is an African-American scholar, historian, and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African American studies, African Studies and Communication Studies...
listed Dr. John Henrik Clarke on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans100 Greatest African Americans100 Greatest African Americans is a biographical dictionary of the one hundred historically greatest African Americans , as assessed by Molefi Kete Asante in 2002.-Criteria:...
.
- 2011 - Immortal TechniqueImmortal TechniqueFelipe Andres Coronel , better known by the stage name Immortal Technique, is an American rapper of Afro-Peruvian descent as well as an urban activist. He was born in Lima, Peru and raised in Harlem, New York. Most of his lyrics focus on controversial issues in global politics...
includes a short speech by Dr. Clarke on his LP, The MartyrThe MartyrThe Martyr is an Compilation album by Immortal Technique released on October 27, 2011 through free digital download on ViperRecords.com. It is a collection of previously unreleased and never before heard music from the artist. This album contains a never before heard song, called "Toast to the...
. It is Track 13, entitled "The Conquerors".
External links
- "The John Henrik Clarke Virtual Museum", National Black United Front Web Site
- "In Memory of John Henrik Clarke", Hunter College, City University of New York
- John Henrik Clarke bibliographies from Cornell University
- IMDB.com entry on the film John Henrik Clarke: A Great & Mighty Walk
Additional reading
- "John Henrik Clarke: His People’s Historian", Black Collegian
- "From SBA to SIA: A Great And Mighty Walk", AfricaWithin.com
See also
- Ivan van SertimaIvan van SertimaIvan Gladstone Van Sertima was an associate professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University in the United States....