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Children, Race, and Power: Kenneth and Mamie Clark's Northside Center
Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996. 304pp.
Children, Race, and Power narrates the history of the Northside Center for Child Development, a pioneering multi-racial mental health agency which opened in 1946 on the edge of Harlem in New York City. The book is unusual for at least two reasons. First, there are few, if any, analytical case studies of social service agencies. More importantly, this volume places race at the center of discussion. Drawing on newly discovered archival resources, personal interviews, and private papers, Markowitz and Rosner offer a fascinating study of an agency headed by black professionals; at the same time, they describe aspects of New York City's social service community that more standard studies leave untreated. One is saddened and enraged to learn how the social structure of race-prejudicial attitudes of individuals, discrimination by white-led organizations, and institutionalized racismlimited Northside's capacity to thrive. While Northside overcame enormous odds to become an innovative mental health agency, the authors make it clear that white society's control of agendas, resources, and institutions blocked Northside from maximizing its potential. Detailing the struggles of just one agency in one city, there is little doubt that the racial dynamics documented by Markowitz and Rosner were probably generalizable throughout post-war America. Children, Race, and Power grounds the origins of Northside in the history of race relations, the social conditions of Harlem, and the politics of New York City's social service community during the 1930s and 1940s. This underlying structural analysis enhances the book's descriptive power. Race relations also shaped the personal histories of Northside founders Mamie and Kenneth Clark.
The Clarks are best known as civil rights leaders, but this book focuses especially on their role in the creation and maintenance of Northside, headed by Mamie Clark from its founding until her retirement in 1978. Kenneth and Mamie Clark were among the first blacks to receive doctorates in psychology from Columbia University. Their early research established that societal rejection often resulted in a negative selfimage in very young African-American children. These studies influenced the outcomes of several school desegregation cases, including the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Their research was one of many...