“By living a life based on wisdom and truth, one can discover the divinity of the soul, its union to the universe, the supreme peace and contentment which comes from satisfying the inner drive for self-discovery.” Ancient African Proverbs
John Henrik Clarke, historian, black nationalist, and Pan-Africanist, was a pioneer in the formation of Africana studies in the United States. Principally a self-trained historian, Clarke dedicated his life to correcting what he argued was the prevailing view that people of Africa and of African descent had no history worthy of study. Over the span of his career, Clarke became one of the most respected historians of African and African American history.
Clarke was born on New Year’s Day, 1915, in Union Springs, Alabama. He described his father as a “brooding, landless sharecropper” who struggled to earn enough money to purchase his own farm and his mother as a domestic. Clarke’s mother, Willie Ella (Mays) Clarke, died in 1922 when he was about seven years old.