ABSTRACT
In 1951, eight-year-old Linda Brown, of Topeka, Kansas, had to cross the railway track and walk 21 blocks every weekday to catch the bus to a Black school on the other side of town. She could not go to school in her own neighbourhood because it was a completely ‘White’ school. In those days, under the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine this was not allowed. Her father took legal action, which eventually led to the well-known case ‘Brown vs. Board of Education’ on which the US Supreme Court ruled in 1954. Based on ‘modern authorities’, school segregation was declared illegal. In the verdict the results of several studies were cited, including the famous doll studies of Kenneth and Mamie Clark (1947) on racial identification among Black children. In their research, they worked with Black and White dolls, and the children were asked to indicate, for instance, which doll resembled them, which doll was kind, and which one they preferred. The majority of Black children showed a preference for the White doll, considered that doll nicer, and also identified with it.
some of the children who were free and relaxed in the beginning of the experiment broke down and cried or became somewhat negativistic during the latter part when they were required to make self-identifications. Indeed, two children ran out of the testing room, inconsolable, convulsed in tears.
The child … cannot learn to what racial group he belongs without being involved in a larger pattern of emotions, conflicts and desires which are part of his growing knowledge of what society thinks about his race.
