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Date: 9/28/2022
SPRINGFIELD – The city of Springfield in 1940 was the location for an important test concerning how African-American children viewed themselves. The results of this experiment were the subject of much controversy and influence according to Tim Spofford, the author of the new book, “What the Children Told Us,” the biography of African-American researchers and activists Kenneth and Mamie Clark.
Spofford noted in the landmark ruling of Brown v. The Board of Education – making segregated schools illegal – the results of the Clarks; “The Doll Test” were part of that discussion.
Spofford, a resident of Lee, is a former newspaper reporter and college instructor who covered education issues while at the Albany Times-Union. He often interviewed Dr. Kenneth Clark in Clark’s role as a member of the New York Board of Regents.
Spofford explained to Reminder Publishing that Dr. Kenneth Clark bought four dolls – two white skinned with blonde hair and two African-American dolls with brown skin and black hair – and traveled from his home in Harlem to Springfield to carry out his experiment. He would ask black children which doll they think they look like and which doll would they like to play with.
Spofford said Clark chose Springfield because of its integrated schools. He would repeat the experiment in schools Hot Springs, AK.
He wrote, “Dr. Clark began with the Barrows School, Rooms 1, 3 and 4, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 1940, and tested kids for a full week. He returned weekends after that and finished his work in town on Oct. 30. The first two Black children on his list at Barrows were Erskine Chaffin, age 7, and Joan Edmonds, nearly age 8, in Room 1. Dr. Clark continued with his testing at the East Union Street School, the Hooker School and the Eastern Avenue School. He’d also approached W.P.A. nursery schools in town (operated by the federal New Deal’s Works Progress Administration) to test preschoolers. It’s not certain that he tested in the nursery schools, but it is certain that some of his test subjects were 2 or 3 years old.”
Spofford quoted Kenneth Clark as saying, “Our specific problem is to attempt to chart the course, and determine the nature of the development of racial awareness in Negro preschool children. Our materials consist of drawings and dolls which, from our past experiences elicit and hold the child’s spontaneous interests. We have planned our procedure in such a way as to appeal to the child in terms of ‘playing a sort of game.’”
Spofford added, “Dr. Clark did not spell out that he was looking for signs of a Black inferiority complex among the children, although that is what he was exploring both in Springfield and later in strictly segregated Hot Springs, AK.”
Spofford learned about the famous experiment in a psychology class and noted that in the experiments two-thirds of the children rejected the Black dolls.
“It really struck me as an example of Black self-loathing,” Spofford said.
Spofford wrote of the results, “Though most of the 119 Black children preferred white dolls, their comments were all over the map, often inconsistent. They often said that white kids started fights and called them the n-word. Some others said they enjoyed playing with white friends in their integrated neighborhoods. A few of the kids started crying during the test when asked to choose a favorite doll – between brown and white dolls, that is. When pointing to the doll that most resembled themselves – always the last question on the doll test – many of the kids hesitated or looked embarrassed to acknowledge that it was indeed a brown doll. Some even denied they were Black and said they wished they were white – comments that convinced the Clarks that these children had been harmed by white racism in society that filtered down to kids as young as three or four. Taking the coloring test developed by Mamie Clark, a number of the kids colored the skin of a drawing that represented themselves either orange or white – which the Clarks regarded as a sign of denial or avoidance by Black children – that is, unless they were very light skinned.”
Spofford noted that the Kenneth Clark was seen as a “leading Black scholar in his day … he was a big deal.”
He said that Kenneth Clark was active in many fields, from politics to the social sciences. “He was just everywhere.” Spofford added, “there was almost too much to write about.”
The author said his book doesn’t just discuss the Springfield experiment, but the lives of achievements of Kenneth and Mamie Clark. Among their many accomplishments were the establishment of the first Black think tank as a well as a clinic in Harlem. The Harlem Youth Opportunity Program was another creation.
Mamie Clark help founded Headstart and the Northside Center for Child Development in New York City.
The two were “major figures in American life,” Spofford said.