Psychologist

Concerns about healthcare have represented some of the most pressing issues facing black communities, and the pioneering efforts of the psychologist Nancy Boyd-Franklin have been an important contribution to the search for new solutions to meet these needs. Boyd-Franklin is an internationally renowned psychologist specializing in issues affecting black families and communities. She has been instrumental in developing new therapeutic ap- proaches that expand the range of treatment options available to address the mental health of black Americans.

Nancy Boyd-Franklin was born in Harlem, New York, to Regina and Rudolph Boyd Regina a teacher and Rudolph a police officer had moved to Harlem from the island of Jamaica and North Carolina respectively When Nancy was very young her parents impressed on her the value of education In the Boyd home education was seen as a tool that one should use to better the community This philosophy led Nancy ...

was born in Panama on 14 July 1914 to parents of British Caribbean ancestry. Their families, like so many others, had been drawn to the isthmus by the economic dynamism surrounding the construction of the Panama Canal (1904–1914). Clark’s mother, Miriam Hanson, was born in Jamaica and reached Panama around 1904 at the age of 6; her mother sold baked goods there, while her father labored on the Canal. Clark’s father, Arthur Bancroft Clark, was born in Costa Rica to Jamaican immigrant parents and moved to Panama as an adult. They married when Miriam was only 16. Kenneth’s birth in 1914 was followed by that of his sister Beulah in 1917.

The difference between the racial formation Clark experienced in Panama and that he would later encounter in Harlem was prominent in his recollections of early childhood In British West Indian Panama blackness was the norm so ...

Born in the Panama Canal Zone, Kenneth Bancroft Clark grew up with his mother in Harlem, New York. His childhood heroes included poet Countee Cullen, who taught at his junior high school, and book collector Arthur Schomburg, who served as curator at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library. After attending integrated elementary and junior high schools, Clark graduated from New York's George Washington High School in 1931.

Clark distinguished himself as an undergraduate at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he led demonstrations against segregation. While at Howard he met Mamie Phipps, who became his wife and closest intellectual collaborator. The Clarks then went to Columbia University in New York City to study psychology, and in 1940 Kenneth Clark became Columbia s first black recipient of a Ph D degree in psychology Clark joined the faculty of City College ...

Mamie Phipps Clark’s life and career demonstrate that academic pursuits and a commitment to social justice can be tied together in a meaningful way. She is best known for her psychological research on self-esteem and self-concept in African American children, which was used in 1954 in the groundbreaking civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas.

Clark was born to Kate Florence Phipps and Dr. Harold Phipps in Hot Springs Arkansas As a member of one of the few black middle class families in the town Clark experienced a somewhat privileged upbringing In addition to owning his own private practice Harold Phipps also managed one of only a few hotels and spas catering to black people in this tourist mecca Despite her family s position Mamie Clark suffered the inconveniences and humiliation of segregation common in many areas of the South at the time Still ...

As the longtime director of psychophysiological research at NASA, Ames Research Center (ARC), in Mountain View, California, Patricia Cowings’s career as a research psychologist at NASA has spanned well over three decades. Beginning with a focus on training astronauts to use biofeedback to overcome the motion sickness that plagues them during their flights, she developed the Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise (AFTE). Using this system, an astronaut learns to control functions previously considered to be involuntary, such as heart rate, the temperature of the extremities, and the muscles of the digestive system. Such a technique is invaluable to astronauts and pilots who are placed in extreme conditions and emergency flight situations and need to control their own “fight or flight” responses to think clearly and act effectively.

Cowings was born in New York City and spent her childhood in the Fort Apache area of the Bronx where her parents Albert ...

William Allison Davis was born October 14, 1902, in Washington, D.C., to John Abraham Davis, a government employee, and Gabrielle Dorothy Beale Davis, a homemaker. As a child, Davis was exposed to an array of intellectual and cultural interests, including the works of Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and other writers. Davis attended M-Street High School (later renamed Dunbar High School), which was known for its talented faculty and rigorous curriculum.

Davis received his B.A. degree in 1924 from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He was named class valedictorian, graduated summa cum laude, and earned membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. After graduation he applied for a teaching assistantship at Williams, but he was denied the position. Undaunted, Davis applied for admittance to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard accepted him, and in 1925 he received his M.A. degree in English.

Davis then ...

psychologist, was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, daughter of Samuel D. and Anita J. Hooker, one of five children. Samuel Hooker owned a prominent clothing store in the prosperous Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is one of the survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, in which hundreds of African Americans were killed. During two days of rioting the vibrant, self-sufficient African American community of Greenwood in Tulsa was significantly damaged. An estimated ten thousand African American citizens were left homeless. After a judge dismissed her father's lawsuit against the insurance company that had refused to compensate him for the loss of his business, her father declared bankruptcy, and the family moved to Columbus, Ohio. In 1997 one hundred four survivors of the race riot including Hooker initiated a class action lawsuit for redress but the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case Hooker helped found the ...

psychologist, educator, government official, and university president, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the eldest son of William and Margaret Evelyn (Ferguson) Wright. Howard Emery Wright was among the first African Americans to receive a doctorate in psychology. His research interests were social psychology and attitudinal testing.

Wright attended elementary school in Washington, DC, where his father worked as a hotel waiter and his mother as a cook in a private home. In Washington Wright and his parents lived with his maternal grandparents Robert Ferguson, an insurance salesman, and Eleanor Ferguson, a laundry worker. Following the birth of Wright's sister Lydia, the family moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where his father worked as a railroad watchman. The Wrights purchased a home in Atlantic City, supplementing their income by taking in boarders.

Following graduation from Atlantic City High School, Wright enrolled at Pennsylvania's Lincoln University in 1929 ...