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John Henrik Clarke (January 1, 1915 — July 16, 1998), born John Henry Clark, was a Pan-Africanist American writer, historian, professor, and a pioneer in the creation of Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.

He was Professor of African World History and in 1969 founding chairman of the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He also was the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center. In 1968 along with the Black Caucus of the African Studies Association, Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association.

Early life and education[link]

Born as the eldest child 1 January 1915 in Union Springs, Alabama to sharecroppers John (Doctor) and Willie Ella (Mays) Clark. He renamed himself John Henrik (after rebel playwright Henrik Ibsen) and adding an "e" to his surname Clarke, as a symbol. Counter to his father's wishes for him to be a farmer, Clarke left Alabama in 1933 by freight train and went to Harlem, New York, where he pursued scholarship and activism.

Career[link]

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In 1933 Harlem had drawn, through the Great Migration, a concentration of African Americans, many of whom figured in the Harlem Renaissance. Clarke developed as a writer and lecturer during the Great Depression years. He joined study circles like the Harlem History Club and the Harlem Writers' Workshop. He studied history and world literature at New York University, at Columbia University and at the League for Professional Writers.^[1] He was an autodidact whose mentors included the scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.^[2] At the age of 78 Clarke obtained a doctorate from the then non-accredited Pacific Western University (now California Miramar University) in Los Angeles. The New York Times noted that Clarke's ascension to professor emeritus at Hunters College was "unusual...without benefit of a high school diploma." The Times also acknowledged that "nobody said Professor Clarke wasn't an academic original", but nonetheless referred to him using the honorific prefix "Mr." rather than "Dr.".^[3]

Prominent during the Black Power movement, Clarke advocated for studies on the African-American experience and the place of Africans in world history. He challenged 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." When some of the scholarship he championed was dismissed by many historians, Clarke imparted to them the biases of Eurocentric views.

He was memorialized for devoting "himself to placing people of African ancestry 'on the map of human geography'."^[4] Clarke said "History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be."^[5]

Besides teaching at Hunter College and Cornell University, Clarke was active in creating professional associations to support the study of black culture. He was a founder 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 recognize and support work in black culture: the Black Academy of Arts and Letters and the African-American Scholars' Council.^[1]

His writing included six scholarly books and many scholarly articles. He edited anthologies of black writing, as well as his own short stories, and more general interest articles.^[3] He 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 Pittsburgh Courier and the Ghana Evening News.^[1]

Marriage and family[link]

Clarke had three children with his first wife, Eugenia Evans Clarke. At his death he was survived by his second wife, Sybille Williams Clarke, and his two children Nzingha Marie and Sonni Kojo. A third child (Lillie) preceded him in death.

He is buried in Green Acres Cemetery, Columbus, Georgia.^[6]

Legacy and honors[link]

• 1985 – Faculty of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University named the John Henrik Clarke Library after him.^[7]
• 1995 – Carter G. Woodson Medallion, Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History
• 2002 – Molefi Kete Asante listed Dr. John Henrik Clarke on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.^[8]
• 2011 – Immortal Technique includes a short speech by Dr. Clarke on his LP, The Martyr. It is Track 13, entitled "The Conquerors".

Published Books[link]

This section requires expansion.

• Malcolm X Man and His Times [Paperback]

Citations[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c} "John Henrik Clarke", Legacy Exhibit online, New York Public Library Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture, accessed 20 Jan 2009
2. ^ 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 25 May 2009
3. ^ ^{a b} Thomas, Jr., Robert McG. (July 20, 1998). "John Henrik Clarke, Black Studies Advocate, Dies at 83". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E6DA1030F933A15754C0A96E958260. Retrieved January 21, 2009. 
4. ^ Robert L. Harris, Jr., "IN MEMORIAM DR. JOHN HENRIK CLARKE, 1915-1998"], The Journal of Negro History, September, 1998, accessed 25 May 2009
5. ^ Eric Kofi Acree, "John Henrik Clarke: Historian, Scholar, and Teacher", John Henrik Clarke Africana Library, Cornell University, accessed 25 May 2009
6. ^ The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, p. 122, Simon and Schuster, 1998
7. ^ "History of the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library", reprinted from: Black Caucus of the ALA Newsletter, vol. XXIV, No. 5 (April, 1996), p. 11; Cornell University Library, accessed 20 Jan 2009
8. ^ Molefi Kete Asante (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.

External links[link]

• "The John Henrik Clarke Virtual Museum", National Black United Front Web Site
• "In Memory of John Henrik Clarke", Hunter College, City University of New York
• John Henrik Clarke bibliographies from Cornell University
• IMDB.com entry on the film John Henrik Clarke: A Great & Mighty Walk
• Photographs of John Henrik Clarke from the EBR African American Cultural Life digital collection, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Additional reading[link]

• "John Henrik Clarke: His People’s Historian", Black Collegian
• "From SBA to SIA: A Great And Mighty Walk", AfricaWithin.com

See also[link]

• Ivan van Sertima

v t e Pan-Africanism Proponents Politicians Nnamdi Azikiwe Amílcar Cabral Muammar Gaddafi Marcus Garvey David Comissiong Kenneth Kaunda Jomo Kenyatta Patrice Lumumba Thabo Mbeki Abdias do Nascimento Gamal Abdel Nasser Kwame Nkrumah Julius Nyerere John Nyathi Pokela Thomas Sankara Haile Selassie Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Ahmed Sékou Touré I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson Others Marimba Ani Molefi Kete Asante Steve Biko Edward Wilmot Blyden John Henrik Clarke Cheikh Anta Diop W. E. B. Du Bois Frantz Fanon John G. Jackson Leonard Jeffries Yosef Ben-Jochannan Maulana Karenga Fela Kuti Bob Marley Malcolm X Zephania Mothopeng George Padmore Motsoko Pheko Runoko Rashidi Paul Robeson Walter Rodney Burning Spear Henry Sylvester-Williams Stokely Carmichael Omali Yeshitela Concepts United States of Africa Afrocentrism Kwanzaa Pan-African colours Pan-African flag Négritude African nationalism African socialism African Century Africanization Kawaida Ujamaa Harambee Ubuntu Zikism Black nationalism Organizations African Union Organization of African Unity Uhuru Movement UNIA-ACL African Unification Front International African Service Bureau

Runoko Rashidi (born 1954) is a writer and public lecturer based in Los Angeles. His academic focus is on "the Black foundations of world civilizations". Many of his claims are disputed, however, as evidenced by various anthropological and DNA studies.^[1][2] He has coordinated educational group tours to India, Aboriginal Australia, the Fiji Islands and Southeast Asia, as well as to Egypt and Brazil.

Countering Eurocentrism[link]

Rashidi rejects what he says are the claims by European anthropologists that the Negritos, Australoids, Negroids and Arabic peoples are separate ethnic groups.^[3] He claims that they are all "Africoid" or "Black".^[3] He believes European anthropologists have used "unscientific" and "invalid" methods and that their work was "racially motivated" to divide peoples whom he thinks are Africoid in race.^[3] He cites Cheikh Diop's statement on race:

^{[citation needed][3]}

Since the later 20th and early 21st centuries, academic theorists have generally rejected such definitions of race; instead, they define it as a social construct along a continuum, rather than a strict biological reality. In addition, as the most genetically diverse continent on Earth ^[4], the African continent possesses as much ethnic variation among so-called "negroid" peoples as among sister populations outside the continent.

Criticism[link]

Theories such as Rashidi's have been refuted by evidence of both mainline anthropologists and linguists, and, in many cases, overturned by DNA analysis of genetic populations. This has shown that, while the above groups are descendants of peoples who migrated out of Africa (as are all humans when traced back far enough), the populations migrated to distant territories and adapted to those environments tens of thousands of years ago. They reached their furthest destinations longer ago than did those humanoids who migrated and developed as the "races" or peoples of Europe and Asia. Because of this, the consensus of academic scientists and researchers is that the above groups do not qualify as one racial or ethnic group to be called Negroid. In addition, DNA analysis has shown that the Negritos and Australoids are more closely related to neighboring populations in East Asia than to those descendants of ancient populations who are still in Africa. The Negritos, for example, have lived closely associated with neighboring peoples for millennia in relative isolation from other populations, and have intermarried with their neighbors, as shown by DNA analysis.

Activities[link]

From 1981 to 1984, Rashidi taught African history at Compton Community College, Compton, California. From 1985 to 1987 he worked for the National Black Computer Network as history editor. Rashidi has contributed regularly to the Journal of African Civilizations, edited by its founder Ivan Van Sertima from 1979 until his death. In 1987 Rashidi inaugurated the First All-India Dalit Writers Conference in Hyderabad, where he delivered an address on The Global Unity of African People.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links[link]

• Articles by Rashidi, The Global African Presence Website (personal website)

Further reading[link]

• van Sertima, Ivan (1989). Egypt Revisited. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0-88738-799-3

v t e Pan-Africanism Proponents Politicians Nnamdi Azikiwe Amílcar Cabral Muammar Gaddafi Marcus Garvey David Comissiong Kenneth Kaunda Jomo Kenyatta Patrice Lumumba Thabo Mbeki Abdias do Nascimento Gamal Abdel Nasser Kwame Nkrumah Julius Nyerere John Nyathi Pokela Thomas Sankara Haile Selassie Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Ahmed Sékou Touré I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson Others Marimba Ani Molefi Kete Asante Steve Biko Edward Wilmot Blyden John Henrik Clarke Cheikh Anta Diop W. E. B. Du Bois Frantz Fanon John G. Jackson Leonard Jeffries Yosef Ben-Jochannan Maulana Karenga Fela Kuti Bob Marley Malcolm X Zephania Mothopeng George Padmore Motsoko Pheko Runoko Rashidi Paul Robeson Walter Rodney Burning Spear Henry Sylvester-Williams Stokely Carmichael Omali Yeshitela Concepts United States of Africa Afrocentrism Kwanzaa Pan-African colours Pan-African flag Négritude African nationalism African socialism African Century Africanization Kawaida Ujamaa Harambee Ubuntu Zikism Black nationalism Organizations African Union Organization of African Unity Uhuru Movement UNIA-ACL African Unification Front International African Service Bureau