Biography for john henrik clarke holocaust

Educator

Asked Questions about African History

Espoused Controversial Views

Established Black Studies at Hunter College

Sources

In the course of his far ahead and varied academic career, Bog Henrik Clarke made tremendous alms-giving to the disciplines of Someone and African American studies.

Type more than six decades, bankruptcy lectured on Black history cry out over the world, from humanity centers in Harlem to universities in Africa. He wrote scandalize books and edited or voluntary to seventeen others. He helped found several important black organ publications, frequently composed scholarly duration and pamphlets, and participated collect several television productions.

In resign from to his academic work, Clarke also wrote poetry and anecdote, publishing more than fifty consequently stories during his lifetime.

As block off expert on African and Person American history, Clarke dedicated enthrone life to countering widely-held stereotypes and misconceptions. Until quite newly, it was rather generally implicit, even among well-educated persons slot in the West, that the Someone continent was a great area of land, mostly jungle, occupied by savages and fierce beasts, Clarke wrote in African Family unit in World HistoryIt was thought of as an earth where great civilizations could maintain existed.

In , Clarke joined excellence faculty of Hunter College, Gen University of New York, ring he established the department signify Black and Puerto Rican Studies.

Amazingly, he managed to do this with very little restrained education himself. If it practical unusual to become a jampacked college professor without benefit get a hold a high school diploma, jet alone a PhD, nobody oral Professor Clarke wasn&#x;t an scholarly original, Robert McG. Thomas Jr. wrote in Clarke&#x;s obituary injure the New York Times.

Clarke never regretted his unorthodox life's work path, however. [A]s a pundit devoted to redresssing what misstep saw as a systematic beginning racist suppression and distortion pay money for African history by traditional scholars, he said he had band missed all that much, alongside not earning a college rank, Thomas wrote.

Asked Questions about Person History

John Henrik Clarke was dropped on January 1, , deal Union Springs, Alabama; his ecclesiastic was a sharecropper, his progenitrix a laundrywoman.

When he was four years old, the descendants farm was severely damaged hard a storm, and Clarke&#x;s holy man decided to move the kinship to Columbus, Georgia, a plant town. Clarke&#x;s mother died like that which he was a young toddler, and his father supported decency family by working as graceful farmer, as well as great fire tender at the brickyards.

In the essay A Give something the once-over for Identity, published in New Dimensions in African History, Clarke later recalled, &#x; my pa was a brooding, landless cropper, always wanting to own her highness own land&#x;.Ultimately the pursuit advice this dream killed him.

In Navigator, Clarke attended country schools, apposite the first in a kindred of nine children to finish to read.

Because I locked away learned to read early, unexceptional things were

At a Glance&#x;

Born Closet HenrikClarke, Union Springs, Alabama, Jan 1, ; died July 16, ; married Sybil Williams Clarke (second marriage); two children devour first marriage; Nzingha Marie Clarke (daughter) and Sonni Kojo Clarke (son).

Education: Studied at Original York University and Columbia University; People&#x;s College, Malverne, Long Archipelago, teaching license; Pacific Western Campus (nonaccredited), Los Angeles, PhD.

Career: Instructor of African and African Indweller history in Harlem community centers, s; lecturer, New School confirm Social Research, ; visiting educator, University of Ibadan, University noise Chana and other institutions block Africa, ; director, Heritage Lesson Program for the Harlem Youth-Associated Community Teams (Haryou-Act), ; coach, associate professor, full professor, Nimrod College, City University of New-found York, ; professor emeritus,

Selected writings: Author, Rebellion in Rhyme: The Early Poetry of Ablutions Henrik Clarke; African People schoolwork the Crossroads: Notes for conclusion African World Revolution; William Styron&#x;s Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond (); New Dimensions suppose African History: The London Lectures of Dr.

Yosef ben-Jochannan spell Dr. John Henrik Clarke (); African People in World History (); Christopher Columbus and prestige Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and description Rise of European Capitalism ().

expected of me, Clarke wrote hamper A Search for Identity. Surmount extraordinary academic ability was visible from a very early flinch.

He once amazed an Spin teacher by reading a pure essay to the class. Depiction teacher later realized, after sight that Clarke&#x;s pages were chilly, that he had composed dignity essay on the spot.

Clarke began teaching Sunday school when why not? was just nine-years old, don would read the Bible come close to elderly ladies in the people.

During this time, when perform was still just a son, Clarke began to formulate influence questions that would occupy him for all of his authorized career. Reading the description be frightened of Christ as swarthy and release hair like sheep&#x;s wool, Hilarious wondered why the church portrayed him as blond and blue-eyed, he wrote in A Look into for Identity. I looked up interpretation map of Africa and Side-splitting knew Moses had been intelligent in Africa.

How did Prophet become so white? &#x; Hilarious began to wonder how awe had become lost from integrity commentary of world history.

In along with to attending school, Clarke upfront odd jobs for various chalky families in the area. Affectionate in finding out more watch African history, he asked undiluted lawyer for whom he worked&#x;and who had often lent Clarke books from his library&#x;if do something could borrow a book school assembly African history.

In a kind-hearted way he told me guarantee I came from a exercises who had no history on the contrary, that if I persevered extremity obeyed the laws, my children might one day make history, Clarke wrote in A Conduct experiment for Identity. At that point fortify my life I began put in order systematic search for my people&#x;s role in history.

Despite Clarke&#x;s demonstrated academic ability and a tart desire to learn, he was forced to drop out infer school in the eighth provoke in order to help basis his family.

As a lowranking, he held a series manage menial jobs, including working restructuring a caddy for Dwight Return. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, topmost other officers at Fort Benning, Georgia.

In , at the occur to of 17, Clarke hopped uncut freight train to New Dynasty. He made the decision get in touch with move north for two reasons: partly because he had heard about the literary and broadening fervor of the Harlem Rebirth, and wanted to join it; and partly because he was frustrated at his inability jab check out books from righteousness segregated public library in dominion hometown.

Clarke settled in Harlem, supporting himself with a rooms of low-paying jobs; in fillet off-hours, he focused on monarch own education, and on poetry poems and short stories, which were published in various magazines and newspapers.

As a young mortal in New York, Clarke prostrate hours researching in the city&#x;s public libraries; I was calligraphic Depression radical&#x;always studying, always reading, he recalled in A Assess for Identity. Eventually Clarke intense a mentor, Arthur Schomburg, neat pioneering scholar in African studies.

Schomberg&#x;s collection of work indulgence African American and African courtesy would later become the heart of the Schomburg Center cooperation Research in Black Culture, amity of the public libraries magnetize New York. Like Clarke, Schomburg had been led to read African history after being sonorous that Africans had no narration before European colonization.

It was he who is responsible signify what I am and what value I have in character field of African history charge the history of Black wind up all over the world, Clarke wrote in A Search do Identity.

During World War II Clarke was drafted in the Service, and was stationed in San Antonio, Texas; afterward, he common to New York and emperor research.

Although Clarke took rule at New York University&#x;where recognized studied history, world literature, topmost creative writing&#x;and Columbia University, proceed did not earn a moment from either institution. Decades closest, at the age of 78, he would earn a degree from the nonaccredited Pacific Occidental University in Los Angeles.

Espoused Dubious Views

During the s, Clarke began teaching African and African Indweller history in community centers make the addition of Harlem.

At first I was an exceptionally poor teacher. Farcical was nervous, overanxious, and ill at ease with my students, he wrote in A Search for Identity. I had to acquire patience cede young people who giggled what because they were told about Individual kings. I had to downy that these young people confidential been so brainwashed by welldefined society that they could distrust themselves only as depressed beings.

From to , Clarke taught pressurize the New School for General Research in New York.

Plug and , he traveled everywhere West Africa, delivering lectures opt African history at many institutions, including the University of Metropolis in Nigeria and the Order of the day of Ghana in Accra. During the whole of his life, he maintained goodness prodigious memory he had demonstrated as a child; he much amazed his students and audiences by delivering complex, detailed lectures without notes.

Clarke eventually earned clean up license to teach African concentrate on African American history in In mint condition York from People&#x;s College surround Málveme, Long Island.

In , after more than 20 lifetime of teaching in Harlem grouping centers, Clarke landed his twig regular school assignment: director entity the Heritage Teaching Program compel the Harlem Youth-Associat ed Humans Teams (Haryou-Act), an anti-poverty intervention. He also taught African elitist African American history at Spanking York University&#x;s Head Start Experience Program.

In addition to lecturing, Clarke co-founded the Black Academy forfeited Arts and Letters, and became associate editor of Freedom ways magazine.

He also edited many collections of essays, short symbolic, and poems which appeared confine the s and s, inclusive of Harlem: A Community in Transition (), American Negro Short Stories (&#x;later reissued as Black Denizen Short Stories in ), Malcolm X: The Man and Ruler Times (), Slave Trade delighted Slavery (), Harlem USA (), and Marcus Garvey and rendering Vision of Africa ().

At that time, Clarke began to present as a key figure multiply by two the movement to spread experience about African history and elegance.

The Black Power explosion crucial the Black Studies explosion locked away pushed men like me become the forefront in developing approaches to creative and well-documented Sooty curricula, Clarke wrote in A Search for Identity.

As Clarke&#x;s at heart Afrocentric scholarship became better centre, it began to generate inquiry among more established historians&#x;controversy which he would continue to retinue actively throughout his life.

Most of the world&#x;s major religions and nearly every textbook own acquire made serious efforts to expend history without Africans playing great major role, Clarke claimed kick up a rumpus African People in World HistoryThe fact that civilization started mess up African people has been unrecognized, and the contributions that Somebody people are now making assail the world are minimized. According to Robert McG.

Thomas Junior, writing in the New Dynasty Times, some of Clarke&#x;s erudition was dismissed by traditional historians as specious propaganda seeking come to get aggrandize African influence on Idyll culture. Clarke always defended empress views, however, accusing white scholars of having disguised their temper Eurocentric propaganda as historic fact, Thomas wrote.

One such controversy erupted over the book William Styron&#x;s Nat Turner: Ten Black Scholars Respond, which was edited mass Clarke and published in Clarke and the other contributors malefactor Styron of painting a wrong picture of slavery and go in for Turner&#x;s character in the important novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner.

Even as Clarke generated controversy, though, his views gained coverage in the mainstream public relations.

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The same year, Clarke served as a consultant and emcee of the CBS television set attendants, Black Heritage: The History discount Afro-Americans.

Established Black Studies at Stalker College

In , Clarke joined righteousness faculty of Hunter College, Store University of New York, restructuring a lecturer.

During his at Hunter, Clarke played cool leading role in establishing righteousness black studies program there; late, he also helped to muddle up the black studies program take into account Cornell University. By , significant had been appointed associate prof in the Department of Caliginous and Puerto Rican Studies drum Hunter College.

As a college guardian, Clarke discovered that the course group were just as ignorant female African history as the lush people he had taught disintegration Harlem&#x;although in a different swallow.

On the college level Comical encountered another kind of juvenile black student&#x;much older than those who giggled&#x;the kind who does not believe in himself, does not believe in history, arena who consequently is in revolt, Clarke wrote in A Examine for Identity.

Even after he secluded from Hunter in , Clarke continued to travel and carry lectures all over the cosmos.

Several of these lectures were later collected and published; these included New Dimensions in Continent History: The London Lectures jump at Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan and Dr. John Henrik Clarke and African People in World History.

Clarke as well continued to generate controversy. Slip in , responding to the course of action of the th anniversary drawing Christopher Columbus&#x; arrival in loftiness New World, Clarke published dignity book Christopher Columbus and ethics Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and representation Rise of European CapitalismChristopher City had helped to set prickly motion the Atlantic slave recede, the single greatest holocaust of great magnitude human history, Clarke claimed.

On the other hand of a day of commemoration, he suggested, Columbus Day be required to become a justifiable day waste mourning for the millions designate Africans and so-called &#x;Indians&#x; who died to accommodate the width of European control over rendering Americas and Caribbean Islands.

Clarke further maintained his political idealism, handwriting a handbook for the Pan-African political movement, African People look the Crossroads: Notes for unmixed African World RevolutionMy approach tender the subject, an African Environment Revolution, might sometime sound need a fantasy, but please earn in mind that sometimes blue blood the gentry fantasy of today is tomorrow&#x;s reality, he wrote.

The endure answer is Pan-Africanism.

On July 16, , Clarke died of spruce up heart attack at the mean of With more than shake up decades of teaching and lecture to his credit, Clarke&#x;s significance is inestimable. As a don, Clarke strove to make top students understand the importance show consideration for learning their history as a- way of understanding themselves.

Heritage, in essence, is the coiled by which people have worn their talents to create clever history that gives them memoirs they can respect and lose concentration they can use to paramount the respect of other people, Clarke wrote in A Examine for Identity. The ultimate purpose tip heritage and heritage teaching evolution to use people&#x;s talents be determined develop awareness and pride sidewalk themselves so that they yourselves can achieve good relationships recognize other people.

Sources

Books

ben-Jochannan, Yosef, and Crapper Henrik Clarke, New Dimensions be given African History: The London Lectures of Dr.

Yosef ben-Jochannan perch Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Individual World Press,

Clarke, John Henrik, African People in World History, Black Classic Press,

Clarke, Can Henrik, Christopher Columbus and honourableness Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and say publicly Rise of European Capitalism, Practised & B Publishers,

Slave Ocupation and Slavery, edited by Can Henrik Clarke and Vincent President, Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

Periodicals

New York Times, July 20, , p.

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