Children, Race, and Power: Kenneth and Mamie Clark's Northside Center

by Markowitz,Gerald

• ISBN13: 9780415926713
• ISBN10: 0415926718
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-12-02
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Both an intellectual biography of the Clarks and a history of the influence of their Northside Center in Harlem,Children, Race, and Powercaptures the vitality and confusion of progressive politics in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. If racism is America's biggest problem, then this absorbing study of the continuing struggle to protect the children who are most vulnerable top it in the nation's best known black community is, in many ways, a history of the struggle for the American future. Children, Race, and Powerspeaks strongly to those concerned about twentieth-century race relations. The authors examine the Clarks' vision and contrast it to how the Center actually functioned, revealing that even such an innovative institution as Northside could not offset the profound inequality of social and material resources in Harlem. The story of this battle against social and economic racism in New York City offers much insight to anyone wanting to know more about the intersection of politicsand race.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xv
The Abandonment of Harlem's Children	1	(17)
Shelters Like a Juvenile Jail	1	(2)
Harlem and ``Institutionalized Racism''	3	(4)
Sectarian Agencies and the Race Discrimination Amendment of 1942	7	(5)
Child Guidance for Neglected and Delinquent Children	12	(6)
The Northside Center for Child Development	18	(25)
``To Build a Child's Self Esteem''	21	(3)
Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark	24	(12)
Alliance with Philanthropy for an Integrated Service	36	(7)
Philanthropy and Psychiatry, an Exercise in White Power	43	(47)
Any Day, Spring 1954	43	(3)
The Culture of Northside	46	(8)
``A Certain Kind of Power''	54	(7)
Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice in a Racist Society	61	(8)
The Price of Control	69	(10)
The Dilemma of African-American-Jewish Relations	79	(4)
A Broader Base of Benefactors	83	(7)
Children Apart: Education and the Uses of Power	90	(40)
``Separate and Unequal'' in New York City	90	(8)
The Commission on Integration versus the Board of Education	98	(6)
White Boycott and Flight	104	(6)
Reading Programs as a Form of Therapy	110	(6)
``A Strategy of Despair'': The Development of Community Control	116	(7)
The IQ Controversy and Northside's ``Think'' Program	123	(7)
``The Child, the Family and the City''	130	(50)
The Family as a Source of Dysfunction or Health	130	(4)
Cultural Deprivation as a Rationale for Neglect	134	(3)
Psychiatric Treatment, Education, or Advocacy	137	(6)
A Psychosocial ``Model for the Future''	143	(7)
Empowerment of Mothers and the Social as Political	150	(4)
The Union Challenge to the Northside Family	154	(26)
Juvenile Delinquency and the Politics of Community Action	180	(37)
An Integrated Center or a ``Negro Clinic''	180	(4)
The President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and the Competition for Funding	184	(9)
Community Empowerment	193	(7)
Community Outreach: Power as Therapy	200	(14)
Class and Race in Neglected El Barrio	214	(3)
Urban Renewal and Development and the Promise of Power	217	(36)
Plans for a Gateway to a New, Integrated Harlem	217	(4)
Power Relations and the City's Resistance to Change	221	(4)
Plaza Arturo Schomburg	225	(11)
White Control through Outside Funding: A Psychology of Siege	236	(5)
Resisting Pressure	241	(12)
Essay on Sources	253	(6)
Notes	259	(32)
Index	291