Clarke, John Henrik
1915-1998 · Contribution: 1969-1998
Education
Self-taught historian who became a Hunter College professor and founding chairman of its Black and Puerto Rican Studies department without ever earning a high school diploma or PhD
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Impact on the world
Clarke turned self-taught scholarship into an institutional force, helping build Black Studies departments and a generation of Afrocentric historians from outside the credentialed academy.
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Cornell University Africana Library
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Asante, Molefi Kete (Arthur Lee Smith Jr.)
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Coined the theory of Afrocentricity; founded the first PhD program in African American Studies in the United States at Temple University in 1988