Mamie Phipps Clark (October 18, 1917 – August 11, 1983) was an African-American social psychologist who, along with her husband Kenneth Clark, focused on the development of self-consciousness in black preschool children. Clark was born and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Clark received her post-secondary education at Howard University, and she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees there.
For her master's thesis, known as "The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children," Clark worked with black Arkansas preschool children. This work included doll experiments that investigated the way African American children's attitudes toward race and racial self-identification were affected by segregation. According to the study, children who attended segregated schools preferred playing with white dolls over black dolls. The study was highly influential in the Brown v. Board of Education court case. It shed light on the effects of racial segregation on school-age children. Clark's experiences with segregation led her to become a civil rights activist in her community and provide for the youth.
Early life
Born on October 18, 1917, in Hot Spring, Arkansas, Mamie Phipps Clark attended highly segregated schools, including a Catholic elementary school. Phipps's father, Harold H. Phipps, born in the British West Indies, was a well-respected physician and a manager of a resort. Though Katy Florence Phipps, Phipps's mother, was a homemaker, she was often involved in her husband's work as a physician. Her younger brother became a dentist.
Mamie Phipps Clark described her elementary and secondary education as deficient in substantive areas. However, although her school was racially segregated, she retrospectively commented that the combined experience of segregation and a supportive, extended family shaped her career satisfaction later in life. Her mother did not need to work to supplement the family income. Clark stated:
Clark graduated from Langston High School, even though it was very uncommon for a black student to do so. She received two offers and scholarships from black prestigious universities, Fisk University and Howard University. She enrolled at Howard in 1934. Despite her attending college during the Great Depression, her father was able to send her $50 per month. She majored in math and minored in physics. It was highly unusual for black women to receive an education in those departments at the time.