Author Tim Spofford will discuss his new book, “What The Children Told Us,” the biography of Harlem psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark, who developed the legendary experiment that played a key role in the landmark 1954 Brown v. The Board of Education ruling against segregated school systems. The biography opens in October 1940 in a Springfield schoolroom where Dr. Kenneth Clark tests a little Black boy, K.J., in a blue suit. The Clarks chose to begin their testing in Springfield’s integrated schools before moving on to the rigidly segregated schools in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In Springfield, Dr. Clark showed K.J. and 118 other Black pupils four similar dolls, two of them brown and two white, and asked which doll was the good one, which the bad one, and which one the child preferred to play with. To Kenneth’s surprise, most of the Black pupils selected a white doll, and some even denied their own race or derided the brown doll.
Presented by Tim Spofford, author, journalist, and former college writing teacher; Cliff McCarthy, Archivist, Wood Museum of Springfield History, and President, Pioneer Valley History Network
Image courtesy of the author
Join us in-person or online!
If you plan to attend in person at the Museums, tickets are available on the day of the lecture in the Welcome Center.
Members: FREE
Springfield residents: $4
Nonmembers: $4
To attend via ZOOM, please register in advance.
