John
Henrik Clarke - the people's historian
"My own search for an identity began-as I think it begins for all
young people-a long time ago when I looked at the world around me and
tried to understand what it was all about.
I think my value to the whole field of teaching history is that I have
prepared during my lifetime, and I have prepared in the years when no
one was thinking anything about black studies, but I kept on preparing
until ultimately the door opened.
In all my teaching, I have used as my guide the following definition
of heritage:
Heritage, in essence, is the means by which people have used their talents
to create a history that gives them memories they can respect and that
they can use to command the respect of other people. The ultimate purpose
of heritage and heritage teaching is to use people's talents to develop
awareness and pride in them so that they themselves can achieve good
relationships with other people.
A Search for identity, 1970
John Henrik Clarke was born January 1, 1915 in Union Springs, Alabama.
His mother, Willie Ella Mays Clark, was a washerwoman who did laundry
for $3 a week. His father was a sharecropper. As a youngster Clark caddied
for Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley "long before they became
generals or President."
Clarke
was inspired by his third grade teacher, Ms. Harris, who 'convinced
me that one day I would be a writer.' He drew a powerful image of the
woman who taught him in the fifth grade in 1925, in Columbus, Georgia,
Eveline Taylor. Taylor put a halt to his rambunctious play with other
children because she saw something in him. "It's no disgrace to
be alone," she said, "It's no disgrace to be right when everybody
else thinks you are wrong. There is nothing wrong with being a thinker....
Your playing days are over."
As a student,
he noticed that although many Bible stories 'unfolded in Africa, I saw
no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons',
he wrote in 1985. 'I began to suspect at this early age that someone
had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history
of African people the world over began'.
What he found was that the history of black people is worldwide; that
'the first light of human consciousness and the world's first civilizations
were in Africa;' that the so called Dark Ages were dark only for Europe
and that some African nations at the time were larger than any in Europe;
that as Africa sends its children to Europe to study because that is
where the best universities are, early Greece once sent its children
to Africa to study because that was where the best universities were;
and that slavery, although devastating was neither the beginning nor
the end of Black people's impact on the world.
Clarke
gathered his findings into books on such figures as the early 20th century
mass movement leader Marcus Garvey, into articles with titles like Africa
in the Conquest of Spain and Harlem as Mecca and New Jerusalem, and
many books, including American Heritage's two-volume History of Africa.
During his early years in Harlem, Clarke made the most of the rare opportunities
to be mentored by many of the great 20th century Black historians and
bibliophiles. Clarke studied under and learned from men such as Arthur
Schomburg, William Leo Hansberry, John G. Jackson, Paul Robeson, Willis
Huggins and Charles Seiffert, all of whom, sometimes quietly behind
the scenes and other times publicly in the national and international
spotlight, were significant movers and shakers, theoreticians and shapers
of Black intellectual and social life in the 20th century.
Although he is probably better known as a historian, his literary accomplishments
were also significant. He wrote over two hundred short stories. "The
Boy Who Painted Christ Black" is his best known short story. Clarke
edited numerous literary and historical anthologies including American
Negro Short Stories (1966), an anthology which included nineteenth century
writing from writers such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Charles Waddell
Chestnut, and continued up through the early sixties with writers such
as LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and William Melvin Kelley. This is one
of the classic collections of Black fiction.
John Henrik Clarke is in many ways exemplary of the American ethos of
the self-made man. Indicative of this characteristic is the fact that
Clarke changed his given name of John Henry Clark to reflect his aspirations.
In an obituary he penned for himself shortly before his death, John
Henrik Clarke noted 'little black Alabama boys were not fully licensed
to imagine themselves as conduits of social and political change. ...they
called me 'bubba' and because I had the mind to do so, I decided to
add the 'e' to the family name 'Clark' and change the spelling of 'Henry'
to 'Henrik,' after the Scandinavian rebel playwright, Henrik Ibsen.
I liked his spirit and the social issues he addressed in 'A Doll's House.'
...My daddy wanted me to be a farmer; feel the smoothness of Alabama
clay and become one of the first blacks in my town to own land. But,
I was worried about my history being caked with that southern clay and
I subscribed to a different kind of teaching and learning in my bones
and in my spirit.'
While he was teaching at Hunter College in New York and at Cornell University
in the 1980's, Clarke's lesson plans became well known for their thoroughness.
They are so filled with references and details that the Schomburg Library
in Harlem asked for copies. Clarke provided them, "so that 50 years
from now, when people have a hard time locating my grave, they won't
have a hard time locating my lessons."
In 1985, the year of his retirement, the newest branch of the Cornell
University Library- a 60 seat, 9,000 volume facility- was named the
"John Henrik Clarke Africana Library."
John Henrik Clark died in New York on 16th July 1998. He was often quoted
as saying,
"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."
Sourced
in part from an article in the LA Times 30.03.91 by Yemi Toure and from
The Black Collegian Online (www.black-collegian.com)
Links
John Henrik Clarke Virtual Museum
http://www.nbufront.org/html/MastersMuseums/JHClarke/JHCvmuseum.html
John Henrik Clarke Africana Library Cornell University
http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/
Africa Within
http://www.africawithin.com/clarke/dr_clarke.htm
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