JOHN HENRIK CLARKE

     Born in 1915, the oldest son of an Alabama
sharecropper family, the young John Henrik Clarke
left the South in 1933 by way of a freight train,
for a life of scholarship and activism in New York.
He developed his skills as a writer and lecturer
through the radical movements of the Depression
years and his assiduous participation in study
circles like the Harlem History Club and the Harlem
Writers' Workshop.  He studied history and world
literature at New York University, at Columbia
University and at the League for Professional
Writers.  But the greater part of his education
came from studying at libraries and from his early
association with prominent historians and
bibliophiles like Arturo Schomburg, Willis Huggins,
Charles Seiffert, John Jackson and William Leo
Hansberry.  "I was well-grounded in history before
ever taking a history course," he confided recently.

     A gifted story-teller, Dr. Clarke has
published more than fifty short stories, including
The Boy Who Painted Christ Black, written in his
early twenties and translated into more than a
dozen languages.  He has written or edited more
than thirty books.  His articles and conference
papers on African and African American history,
politics and culture have appeared in leading
journals throughout the world.  His syndicated book
review column, African World Bookshelf was
distributed to over fifty newspapers in the United
States and abroad by the Associate Negro Press.  He
was co-founder of the Harlem Quarterly (1949-51),
book review editor of the Negro History Bulletin
(1948-52), associate editor of the magazine
Freedomways, and a feature writer for the
Pittsburgh Courier and the Ghana Evening News.

     Dr. Clarke is also known for his influence on
several generations of African American leaders,
and for his pioneering role in the development of
African heritage and black studies programs
nationwide.  He was instrumental in helping launch
the publishing careers of authors like Audre Lorde
and Julian Mayfield, and in publishing the works of
Cheik Anta Diop in English.  In the 1960s, he
served as director of the African Heritage Program
of the Harlem anti-poverty agency known as
HARYOU-ACT, and as special consultant and
coordinator for the Columbia University-WCBS-TV
series Black Heritage (1968).  He was the first
president of the African Heritage Studies
Association, and was a founding member of the Black
Academy of Arts and Letters and the African
American Scholars' Council.  He has received over a
dozen citations for excellence in teaching, was the
recipient of the Thomas Hunter Professorship at
Hunter College in 1983, and is presently Professor
Emeriturs of African World History in the
Department of Africana and Puerto Rican Studies at
Hunter College.

     The author's political and community activism
began in the 1930s with his opposition to the
Italian invasion of Ethiopia and his membership in
the Universal Ethiopian Students Association.  A
personal friend of Malcolm X who paid tribute to
his encyclopedic knowledge of Africa, he was
instrumental in drafting the charter of the
Organization of Afro-American Unity.  He was
awarded the Phelps-Stokes Fund's Aggrey Medal in
1994 for his role "as a public philosopher and
relentless critic of injustice and inequality."

     The John Henrik Clarke Collection documents
the personal life and professional activities of
this prominent editor and teacher, his close
association with outstanding personalities
worldwide in the academic and political fields, and
his achievements as a public speaker and scholar.
Consisting of course outlines, correspondence,
writings, research materials and organizational
records, they represent a unique archive for the
study and interpretation of African and African
American history during the second half of the 20th
century.  The collection also plays an important
role in substantiating the lives of prominent
friends and colleagues like Richard B. Moore,
Julian Mayfield and John Jackson who have left only
a partial record of their accomplishments.