 | Children, Race, and Power: Kenneth and Mamie Clark's Northside Center Subjects: Humanities; Social Sciences; History; Sociology & Social Policy; American History; Contemporary History 1945-; Social & Cultural History; Race & Ethnic Studies; In 1946, Northside Testing and Consultation Center was founded to provide mental health care to minority children in upper Manhattan. Under the Clarks, best known for their tests in which black children routinely chose white dolls over black ones (tests cited in Earl Warren's Brown v. Board of Education decision), Northside battled a social service system "whose primary function... had come to be to rationalize its failure to help Harlem's children." By the mid-1960s, the Northside mission had changed to include providing its clients and their families with "an individualized anti-poverty program," which increasingly translated into advocacy and aid in negotiating the education and social welfare bureaucracy. While this is an institutional history, complete with details of power struggles and policy disputes, it is more significantly a history of racism, with the Center as a window on racial inequality in the mental health profession, education, housing and social welfare systems. The authors make good use of oral histories, papers and interviews from the Clarks and the Center's staff and board members, thereby animating the book with a sense of personal commitment. This important, informative tribute on the Center's 50th anniversary powerfully reminds us that opportunities for America's inner-city youth have changed little. Photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved College and CUNY Graduate Center. David Rosner is Professor of History and Public Health at Columbia University and Co-Director of the Program in the History of Public Health and Medicine. Their earlier publications include Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the Politics of Occupational Disease in Twentieth-Century America (1994); Slaves of the Depression: Workers' Letters about Life on the Job (1987); and Dying for Work: Workers' Safety and Health in Twentieth Century America (1989). |
