John Henrik Clarke (bornJohn Henry Clark; January 1, 1915 – July 16, 1998)[1] was anAfrican-American historian, professor, prominentAfrocentrist,[2] and pioneer ofPan-African andAfricana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.[3]
He was bornJohn Henry Clark on January 1, 1915, inUnion Springs, Alabama,[4] the youngest child of John Clark, asharecropper, and Willie Ella Clark, a washer woman, who died in 1922.[5] With the hopes of earning enough money to buy land rather than sharecrop, his family moved to the closestmill town inColumbus, Georgia.
Counter to his mother's wishes for him to become a farmer, Clarke left Georgia in 1933 by freight train and went toHarlem, New York, as part of theGreat Migration of rural blacks out of the South to northern cities. There he pursued scholarship and activism. He renamed himself as John Henrik (after rebel NorwegianplaywrightHenrik Ibsen) and added an "e" to his surname, spelling it as "Clarke".[6] He also joined the U.S. Army during World War II.
Clarke was heavily influenced byCheikh Anta Diop, who inspired his piece "The Historical Legacy of Cheikh Anta Diop: His Contributions to a New Concept of African History". Clarke believed that the credited Greek philosophers gained much of their theories and thoughts from contact with Africans, who influenced the early Western world.
In its obituary of Clarke,The New York Times noted that the activist's ascension to professor emeritus at Hunter College was "unusual... without benefit of a high school diploma, let alone a Ph.D." It acknowledged that "nobody said Professor Clarke wasn't an academic original."[1]
By the 1920s, theGreat Migration and demographic changes had led to a concentration of African Americans living in Harlem. A synergy developed among the artists, writers, and musicians and many figured in theHarlem Renaissance. They began to implement supporting structures of study groups and informal workshops to develop newcomers and young people.
In the post-World War II era, there was new artistic development, with small presses and magazines being founded and surviving for brief times. Writers and publishers continued to start new enterprises: Clarke was co-founder of theHarlem Quarterly (1949–51), book review editor of theNegro History Bulletin (1948–52), associate editor of the magazineFreedomways, and a feature writer for the black-ownedPittsburgh Courier.[9]
Clarke taught at the New School for Social Research from 1956 to 1958.[11] Traveling inWest Africa in 1958–59, he metKwame Nkrumah, whom he had mentored as a student in the U.S.,[12] and was offered a job working as a journalist for theGhana Evening News. He also lectured at theUniversity of Ghana and elsewhere in Africa, including inNigeria at theUniversity of Ibadan.[citation needed]
Becoming prominent during theBlack Power movement in the 1960s, which began to advocate a kind of black nationalism, Clarke advocated for studies of the African-American experience and the place of Africans in world history. He challenged the views of 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".[1] He accused his detractors of havingEurocentric views.
His writing included six scholarly books and many scholarly articles. He also edited anthologies of writing by African-Americans, as well as collections of his own short stories. In addition, Clarke published general interest articles.[1] In one especially heated controversy, he edited and contributed to an anthology of essays by African-Americans attacking the white writerWilliam Styron, and his novelThe Confessions of Nat Turner, for his fictional portrayal of the African-American slave known for leading a rebellion in Virginia.
Besides teaching at Hunter College and Cornell University, Clarke founded professional associations to support the study of black culture. He was a founder withLeonard Jeffries 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 support work in black culture: theBlack Academy of Arts and Letters and the African-American Scholars' Council.[9]
Clarke's first marriage was to the mother of his daughter Lillie (who died before her father).[citation needed] They divorced.
In 1961, Clarke married Eugenia Evans in New York, and together they had a daughter and son: Nzingha Marie and Sonni Kojo.[citation needed] The marriage ended in divorce.
Who Betrayed the African World Revolution? And other Speeches[25]
Critical Lessons in Slavery and the Slave Trade: Essential Studies and Commentaries on Slavery, in General, and the African Slave Trade, in Particular[26]
^Adams, Barbara E. (2011).John Henrik Clarke: Master Teacher (Rev. and expanded ed., including selected lectures ed.). Buffalo, N.Y.: Eworld.ISBN9781617590122.OCLC778418838.
^abc"John Henrik Clarke"Archived 2006-06-24 at theWayback Machine, Legacy Exhibit online, New Jersey Public Library - Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture; accessed January 20, 2009.
^Sieving, Christopher (2011).Soul Searching: Black-Themed Cinema from the March on Washington to the Rise of Blaxploitation. Wesleyan University Press. p. 129.
^Isaac, Rochell,"Clarke, John Henrik", in Paul Finkelman (ed.),Encyclopedia of African American History: Volume 1, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 424.
^Clarke, John Henrik (2017).Africans at the crossroads: notes for an African world revolution. Africa World Press.ISBN978-0-86543-270-3.OCLC1030335852.
^Clarke, John Henrik (1991).Rebellion in rhyme: the early poetry of John Henrik Clarke. Trenton, N.J: Africa World Press.ISBN978-0-86543-230-7.OCLC226662479.
^Ben-Jochannan, Yosef; Clarke, John Henrik (2017).New dimensions in African history: the London lectures of Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan and Dr. John Henrik Clarke. Brawtley Press.ISBN978-1-943138-13-5.OCLC1004962632.
^Clarke, John Henrik (2014).Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan holocaust slavery and the rise of European capitalism. Bensenville, Ill: Lushena Books.ISBN978-1-61759-030-6.OCLC1075601511.
^Clarke, John Henrik (1995).Who betrayed the African world revolution? and other speeches. Chicago, IL: Third World Press.ISBN978-0-88378-136-4.OCLC34068139.
^Clarke, John Henrik (1996).Critical lessons in slavery and the slavetrade: essential studies and commentaries on slavery, in general, and the African slavetrade, in particular. Richmond: Native Sun Publishers.ISBN978-1-879289-07-9.OCLC36548023.
^Clarke, John Henrik (1983).Ahmed Baba, a scholar of old Africa. Washington, D.C.: Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History.OCLC18539052.
^Clarke, John Henrik (1973).The image of Africa in the mind of the Afro-American: African identity in the literature of struggle /by John Henrik Clarke. New York: Phleps-Stokes Fund.OCLC22081342.
^Clarke, John Henrik (1967).A new approach to African history. Place of publication not identified: publisher not identified.OCLC61481798.
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