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I'd always had an interest in children. Always, from the time I was very small. I'd always thought I wanted to work with children, and psychology seemed a good field.

Biography

Mamie Phipps Clark was born on April 18, 1917 in Hot Spring, Arkansas. Despite the extremely meager opportunities available to black students, she was offered several scholarships to pursue higher education, including an offer from Howard University. She began her university career in 1934 as a math major minoring in physics. At Howard University, Clark met her future husband, Kenneth Bancroft Clark, a master's student in psychology who later became famous for his involvement in the pivotal Supreme Court Case: Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka.It was Kenneth who eventually convinced Mamie to pursue psychology. In 1938, Mamie Clark graduated magna cum laude from Howard University and immediately enrolled in the psychology graduate program. In her master's thesis, she investigated when black children became aware of themselves as having a distinct "self," and when they became aware of belonging to a particular racial group. Her thesis, "The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children," was the beginning of a line of research that became historic when it was used to make racial segregation unconstitutional in American public schools. Her research provided social scientific evidence that was influential in the Supreme Court's decision in the 1954 Brown case.