The Doll Test and the Black Psychologists Who Changed the World

What: The Doll Test and the Black Psychologists Who Changed the World
When: 3/21/23 @ 12pm
Where: Hybrid. In-person at Garland County Library or Virtual Livestream at facebook.com/garlandcountylibrary or youtube.com/user/GarlandCoLibrary
Who: 18+
Registration required for in-person audience.

This program series is sponsored by the Garland County Historical Society in collaboration with the Garland County Library, with an additional sponsor this month – the Gateway Community Association.

Author Tim Spofford will discuss What the Children Told Us, his sweeping biography of pioneering Black psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark (a Hot Springs native). The Clarks developed the famous doll test, the path-breaking experiment that played a key role in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling against segregated school systems. For the Clarks, this was just the opening act in their struggle for justice and racial integration.

Spofford will also explore the Clarks’ connections to Hot Springs. The daughter of a prominent Black physician, Mamie Phipps Clark was born in Hot Springs and attended St. Gabriel’s School and Langston High School. The Clarks returned to Hot Springs to conduct half of their Doll Test research with students at Douglas School. The Clarks’ decades of impassioned advocacy, their inspiring marriage, and their enduring work shine a light on the power of passion in an unjust world.

Guest speaker Tim Spofford has written articles for the New York Times, Newsday, Mother Jones magazine, Columbia Journalism Review and other publications. He is the author of Lynch Street, a documentary account of the Jackson State killings, a Black college in Mississippi, in May of 1970.