Biography for john henrik clarke religion

Dr. John Henrik Clarke(1915 -1998)

Historian, Lecturer, philosopher, writer, Pan Africanist

he was born John Henry Clark on January 1, 1915, in Union Springs, a small farming community in Alabama and died Dr John Henrik Clarke in Mount Sinai, New York, July 16,1998. John Henrik Clarke was not destined to become a small farmer as his parents thought, he beat the odds to become a stalwart in the genre of African History and education. At 18 years of age he hightailed it out of Alabama, hopped a freight train to New York, where he not only changed his name but changed his expectations and his destiny.

Education and Career

Joining the migration of rural black youths from the South to the more hospitable cities towards blacks in the North, John Henry headed to Harlem, New York, where he changed his middle name to Henrik in honor of his literary hero, noted European playwright Henrik IBsen ( A Doll’s House, Peer Gynt fame). He also modified the spelling of his last name by adding an “e” to the end making it Clarke.

Dr Clarke elevated himself from the son of a sharecropper and a washer woman to become the founder and chairman of the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York from 1969 to 1986. He was the recipient of the Carter G. Woodson Medallion for Distinguished Visiting Professors of African History at Cornell University Africana Studies and Research Center 1986. In 1968 he founded the African Heritage Studies Association from which evolved the Black Caucus of The African Studies, another of his brainchild. At the age of 77 years in 1992 he earned a bachelor’s degree from Pacific Western University and went on to 2 years later to acquire his doctorate from said university (renamed California Miramar University) in Los Angeles in 1994 at the age of 79 years.
Realizing that not only the damaging effects of World War 1 on the economy in rural communities but other demographic changes had resulted in an influx o

The following is a reprint of a 2002 reprint of a 1996 interview with legendary historian and great teacher, Dr. John Henrik Clarke.

A recent report in the New York Times demonstrates how Republicans are redistricting African Americans out of political power wherever they can, and White supremacists are working on taking over the federal government, we thought this interview is still useful going into the new year.
Dr. John Henrik Clarke was born in Union Springs, Alabama and grew up in Columbus, Georgia. A professor emeritus in New York City, Dr. Clarke was recognized worldwide as a leading Pan-Africanist and authority on African and African-American history. Our Time Press interviewed him October 23, 1996, and as we ring in the New Year, we thought we’d once again share his thoughts, still meaningful and centering for a people.

Our Time Press: Where are we now? Where are we going?
John Henrik Clarke: We are a loose nation searching for a nationality. The population of African people in the United States is far in excess of six small European nations. Where we are going? We have to go back as best we can to where slavery and colonialism took us from. And they took us from a concept of nation management and nation maintenance. We have been so long away from home that we, unfortunately, have forgotten how we ruled states before the foreigners got there. We did very well. We produced a state that had no worth for jails because no one had gone to one; no worth for prostitution ‘cause no one had ever been one We did not produce a state with a whole lot of nonsense about rugged individualism, but we produced a collective state. You had to function in relationship with the total state. You didn’t do your thing unless it was in keeping with the maintenance of the whole people. It wasn’t a personal ego-personality type of thing that we have now. “I’ve got my rights. Mind your own business.”
In a collective society, everybody’s bu

An Essay in Progress

Now I know that there are two things that people say you should never talk about unless you want to start a war for sure. Those two topics of course are politics and religion. However, my spirit is sooooo vexed with the way I have been treated over the years by friends and family due to (in my opinion) the way they perceive their walk with God to be in comparison to me, that I must vent and address some of these issues. I went on a spiritual quest, or you might say venture, to Sedona, Arizona to put things in perspective in my life, on a sacred level in regard to me, life, and my relationships. I was raised a Baptist, and later due to a family member becoming a Born Again Christian, I then too converted. I was told that I had to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior and confess that I was a sinner, and then I would need to maintain my salvation by keeping with the laws of the Bible. I was fifteen or sixteen at the time.

Since that time I have come to meet and befriend people from different walks of life that practice other spiritual beliefs. Despite the fact that I was taught that it was not wise and spiritually unbalanced to be among or socialize with people who had different faiths than me. I eventually grew to not totally agree with that theory. I gradually and consistently noticed that there were people who practiced the same faith as me, yet I didn’t vibe their energy. More importantly there were several people over the years that Idid relate to but they didn’t exercise the same religious beliefs that I did. As a result, Gradually began to feel that I could have friends, and interact with really beautiful spirits,who happen to observe a different religious spiritual path than me.

Presently, I am at a space of wonderment, bewilderment, curiosity, concern,frustration, and anger because of the way people judge and ridicule others since they have a d

African-American historian (1915–1998)

John Henrik Clarke (born John Henry Clark; January 1, 1915 – July 16, 1998) was an African-American historian, professor, prominent Afrocentrist, and pioneer in the creation of Pan-African and Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.

Early life and education

He was born John Henry Clark on January 1, 1915, in Union Springs, Alabama, the youngest child of John Clark, a sharecropper, and Willie Ella Clark, a washer woman, who died in 1922. ). With the hopes of earning enough money to buy land rather than sharecrop, his family moved to the closest mill town in Columbus, Georgia.

Counter to his mother's wishes for him to become a farmer, Clarke left Georgia in 1933 by freight train and went to Harlem, New York, as part of the Great Migration of rural blacks out of the South to northern cities. There he pursued scholarship and activism. He renamed himself as John Henrik (after rebel Norwegian playwrightHenrik Ibsen) and added an "e" to his surname, spelling it as "Clarke". He also joined the U.S. Army during World War II.

Clarke was heavily influenced by Cheikh Anta Diop, who inspired his piece "The Historical Legacy of Cheikh Anta Diop: His Contributions to a New Concept of African History". Clarke believed that the credited Greek philosophers gained much of their theories and thoughts from contact with Africans, who influenced the early Western world.

Positions in academia

From 1969 to 1986, Clarke was a professor of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he served as founding chairman of the department. He also was the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University's Africana Studies and Research Center. Additionally, in 1968 he founded the