The John Henrik Clarke Photograph Collection depicts some aspects of his personal life and his career as an academic and black studies advocate from the 1910s to the 1990s.The collection consists of individual and group portraits of Clarke, family members, friends and professional acquaintances; views and group portraits from conferences, social gatherings, presentations and trips abroad; photographs that were used as illustrations in books by colleagues of Clarke; views of British military activities and training facilities in Africa and Asia during the 1940s; views of a museum exhibition; and a limited number of motion picture stills. Images from Clarke's personal life before the 1940s and his professional activities during the 1940s and 1950s are limited.Among the other individuals depicted in either portraits or candid shots include New York City politician and businessman Percy Sutton, playwright Richard Wesley, civil rights activist Richard B. Moore, filmmaker St. Clair Bourne, Jr., poet Eugene Redmond, playwright Amiri Baraka, New York State commissioner Elmer A. Carter, historian John Hope Franklin, civil rights advocate Anna Arnold Hedgeman, and, in group portraits with Clarke, historian Yosef Ben-Jochannan.
Content: Collection contains work by Roy DeCarava, Christopher Griffith, Willis Bell, Anthony Barboza, Feleke Tekelewold and the British Information Service, among others.
Biographical/historical: John Henrik Clarke, historian, educator and advocate of African heritage and black studies programs, was born a sharecropper's son in Union Springs, Alabama, in 1915. Raised in Georgia and forced to drop out of school to help support his family, Clarke came to New York City in 1933 where he trained himself to study history. He would eventually write, edit or contribute to some 30 books; write short stories, articles and essays; co-found the Harlem Quarterly (1949-1951); was an associate editor of Freedomways Magazine (1962-1982); would lecture extensively; and would conduct research in most of Africa. During the 1960s, he was the Heritage Teaching Program director for HARYOU-ACT (Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited); was consultant and coordinator for the 1968 CBS television series "Black Heritage"; and was an associate professor of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, New York (1969-1986). After his retirement, he would continue to support black studies programs and criticize social injustice for the rest of his life. Clarke died in New York in 1998.
Citation/reference: Forms part of the John Henrik Clarke Papers, 1937-1996.
Physical Description
Extent: 339 items (3 boxes, 1 lin. ft.)
Extent: 52 photographic prints :silver gelatin, b&w ;26 x 21 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 83 photographic prints :silver gelatin, b&w ;21 x 26 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 46 photographic prints :silver gelatin, b&w ;18 x 13 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 68 photographic prints :silver gelatin, b&w ;13 x 18 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 6 photographic prints :silver gelatin, b&w ;36 x 28 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 1 photographic print :silver gelatin, b&w ;25 x 42 cm.
Extent: 16 photographic prints :col. ;26 x 21 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 33 photographic prints :col. ;28 x 36 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 13 photomechanical prints :halftone, b&w ;25 x 21 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 12 negatives :b&w, one col. ;26 x 21 cm. and smaller.
Extent: 1 transparency :col. ;7 x 9 cm.
Extent: 3 polaroid prints :b&w ;11 x 9 cm.
Extent: 3 photographic postcards :b&w ;14 x 9 cm. and smaller.