Racial Identity in Context ― The Legacy of Kenneth B. Clark

Racial Identity in Context: The Legacy of Kenneth B. Clark is both a tribute to and an evaluation of the work and legacy of Kenneth B. Clark, the psychologist whose groundbreaking studies on racial identity helped shape the momentous Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Clark's seminal work serves as the springboard for the contributors' discussion of the role of racial identity in the on-going struggle for equality for African Americans. The progress toward racial equality notwithstanding, race continues to define the culture of the United States, keeping its citizens from developing the just society envisioned by Clark and his contemporaries. This volume provides a dialogue among prominent African American as well as non-African American psychologists on this sensitive and polemical issue. Contributors first discuss Clark's life and work and then explore the creation of racial identity and the current need to transform that identity in the face of enduring discrimination and the barrage of negative racial images in our culture. This book examines the barriers, both psychological and social, that need to be removed before fulfilling the hopeful vision of Clark's work.