John Henrik Clarke Explained

Birth Name:John Henry Clark
Birth Date:1 January 1915
Birth Place:Union Springs, Alabama
Death Place:Manhattan, New York City
Nationality:American
Occupation:Writer, historian, professor

John Henrik Clarke (born John Henry Clark; January 1, 1915July 16, 1998) was an African-American historian, professor, prominent Afrocentrist,[1] and pioneer in the creation of Pan-African and Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.[2]

Early life and education

He was born John Henry Clark on January 1, 1915, in Union Springs, Alabama,[3] the youngest child of John Clark, a sharecropper, and Willie Ella Clark, a washer woman, who died in 1922.[4]). With the hopes of earning enough money to buy land rather than sharecrop, his family moved to the closest mill town in Columbus, Georgia.

Counter to his mother's wishes for him to become a farmer, Clarke left Georgia in 1933 by freight train and went to Harlem, New York, as part of the Great 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 Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen) and added an "e" to his surname, spelling it as "Clarke".[5] He also joined the U.S. Army during World War II.

Clarke was heavily influenced by Cheikh Anta Diop, which 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.

Positions in academia

Clarke was a professor of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York from 1969 to 1986, where he served as founding chairman of the department. He also was the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University's Africana Studies and Research Center.[6] Additionally, in 1968 he founded the African Heritage Studies Association and the Black Caucus of the African Studies Association.

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."[7] In 1994, Clarke earned a doctorate from the non-accredited Pacific Western University (now California Miramar University) in Los Angeles, having earned a bachelor's degree there in 1992.[8]

Career

By the 1920s, the Great 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 the Harlem Renaissance. They began to implement supporting structures of study groups and informal workshops to develop newcomers and young people.

Arriving in Harlem at the age of 18 in 1933, 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 intermittently at New York University, Columbia University, Hunter College, the New School of Social Research and the League for Professional Writers.[9] He was an autodidact whose mentors included the scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.[10] From 1941 to 1945, Clarke served as a non-commissioned officer in the United States Army Air Forces, ultimately attaining the rank of master sergeant.

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 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 black-owned Pittsburgh Courier.[9]

Clarke taught at the New School for Social Research from 1956 to 1958.[11] Traveling in West Africa in 1958–59, he met Kwame Nkrumah, whom he had mentored as a student in the U.S.,[12] and was offered a job working as a journalist for the Ghana Evening News. He also lectured at the University of Ghana and elsewhere in Africa, including in Nigeria at the University of Ibadan.

Becoming prominent during the Black 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". He accused his detractors of having Eurocentric 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. In one especially heated controversy, he edited and contributed to an anthology of essays by African-Americans attacking the white writer William Styron, and his novel The 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 with Leonard 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: the Black Academy of Arts and Letters and the African-American Scholars' Council.

Personal life

Clarke's first marriage was to the mother of his daughter Lillie (who died before her father). They divorced.

In 1961, Clarke married Eugenia Evans in New York, and together they had a son and daughter: Nzingha Marie and Sonni Kojo. The marriage ended in divorce.

In 1997, John Henrik Clarke married his longtime companion, Sybil Williams.[13] [14] He died of a heart attack on July 16, 1998, at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City.[7] He was buried in Green Acres Cemetery, Columbus, Georgia.[15]

Legacy and honors

Selected bibliography

Short stories by John Henrik Clarke

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Howe, Stephen . Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes . 1999 . Verso . 978-1-85984-228-7 . v . en.
  2. Web site: THE LIVES THEY LIVED: John Henrik Clarke; Self-Made Angry Man . Kelley, Robin D.G. . . 3 January 1999.
  3. Web site: Dr. John Henrik Clarke. www.raceandhistory.com. 2019-02-09.
  4. Web site: John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998). 2007-01-23. BlackPast. en-US. 2019-02-09.
  5. Book: Adams, Barbara E.. John Henrik Clarke: Master Teacher. 2011. Eworld. 9781617590122. Rev. and expanded ed., including selected lectures. Buffalo, N.Y.. 778418838.
  6. Eric Kofi Acree, "John Henrik Clarke: Historian, Scholar, and Teacher", Cornell University Library.
  7. News: John Henrik Clarke, Black Studies Advocate, Dies at 83 . Robert McG. . Thomas, Jr. . Robert McG. Thomas. New York Times . July 20, 1998 . January 21, 2009.
  8. Andy Wallace, "John H. Clarke, 83, Leading African American Historian", Philly.com (The Inquirer), July 18, 1998.
  9. http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/WEBEXHIB/legacy/imgins15.htm "John Henrik Clarke"
  10. Jacob H. Carruthers, "John Henrik Clarke: the Harlem connection to the founding of Africana Studies", in Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier, Inc., 2006; accessed May 25, 2009.
  11. Golus, Carrie, "Clarke, John Henrik 1915–1998", Contemporary Black Biography. 1999. Encyclopedia.com.
  12. http://www.sankofaworldpublishers.com/sankofawp-JHClarke-historypage.htm "Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Hunter College, CUNY"
  13. Christopher Williams, "Clarke, John Henrik", in Henry Louis Gates, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (eds), Harlem Renaissance Lives from the African American National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 118.
  14. Rochell Isaac, "Clarke, John Henrik", in Encyclopedia of African American History: Volume 1, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 424.
  15. http://www.greenacrescem.com/map.aspx "Historical People"
  16. https://africana.library.cornell.edu/about/history "History of the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library"
  17. Molefi Kete Asante (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. .
  18. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. Africans at the crossroads: notes for an African world revolution. 2017. Africa World Press . 978-0-86543-270-3. en. 1030335852.
  19. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. Rebellion in rhyme: the early poetry of John Henrik Clarke.. 1991. Africa World Press. 978-0-86543-230-7. Trenton, N.J. en. 226662479.
  20. Book: Ben-Jochannan. Yosef. New dimensions in African history: the London lectures of Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan and Dr. John Henrik Clarke. Clarke. John Henrik. 2017. Brawtley Press . 978-1-943138-13-5. en. 1004962632.
  21. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan holocaust slavery and the rise of European capitalism. 2014. Lushena Books. 978-1-61759-030-6. Bensenville, Ill. en. 1075601511.
  22. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. African people in world history. 1993. Black Classic Press . 978-0-933121-77-5. en. 1041373444.
  23. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. My life in search of Africa. 1999. Third World Press. 978-0-88378-158-6. Chicago. en. 38081841.
  24. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. Who betrayed the African world revolution? and other speeches. 1995. Third World Press. 978-0-88378-136-4. Chicago, IL. en. 34068139.
  25. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. Critical lessons in slavery and the slavetrade: essential studies and commentaries on slavery, in general, and the African slavetrade, in particular. 1996. Native Sun Publishers. 978-1-879289-07-9. Richmond. en. 36548023.
  26. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. Ahmed Baba, a scholar of old Africa. 1983. Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. Washington, D.C.. en. 18539052.
  27. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. The image of Africa in the mind of the Afro-American: African identity in the literature of struggle /by John Henrik Clarke.. 1973. Phleps-Stokes Fund. New York. en. 22081342.
  28. Book: Clarke, John Henrik. A new approach to African history.. 1967. publisher not identified. Place of publication not identified. en. 61481798.

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