John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke (born John Henry Clark, January 1, 1915 – July 16, 1998), 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.

Early life and education

Born on January 1, 1915, in Union Springs, Alabama, as the eldest child to sharecroppers John (Doctor) and Willie Ella (Mays) Clark, he renamed himself John Henrik (after rebel playwright Henrik Ibsen) and added an "e" to his surname Clarke. 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 Migration (African American) Great Migration, a concentration of African Americans, many of who figured in the Harlem Renaissance. Clarke developed as a writer and lecturer during the Great Depression years. He joined study circles such as 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. John Henrik Clarke">http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/WEBEXHIB/legacy/imgins15.htm "John Henrik Clarke", Legacy Exhibit online, New York Public Library Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture, accessed 20 Jan 2009.</ref> He was an autodidact whose mentors included the scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. At the age of 78, Clarke obtained a doctorate from the non-accredited Pacific Western University (now California Miramar University) in Los Angeles. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/20/arts/john-henrik-clarke-black-studies-advocate-dies-at-83.html 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.

Marriage and family

Clarke had three children with his first wife, Eugenia Evans Clarke. At his death, he 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 Asante listed Dr. John Henrik Clarke as one of his 100 Greatest African Americans.
• 2011 – Immortal Technique includes a short speech by Dr. Clarke on his album The Martyr. It is Track 13, which is titled "The Conquerors."

Published books

• Malcolm X: Man and His Times [Paperback]

See also

• Ivan van Sertima
• Hubert Harrison
• Arturo Alfonso Schomburg
• Marcus Garvey
• John G. Jackson
• Afrocentrism
• African diaspora
• Yosef Ben-Jochannan
• Chancellor Williams
• Cheikh Anta Diop

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
• Photographs of John Henrik Clarke from the EBR African American Cultural Life digital collection, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
• "John Henrik Clarke: His People’s Historian", Black Collegian
• "From SBA to SIA: A Great And Mighty Walk", AfricaWithin.com