FRANCIS TERRELL

A psychology professor at the University of North Texas, Francis Terrell, PhD, an 18-year member of the psychology faculty and the only African-American member of the department, recently won a settlement for more than $124,000 in January for lost wages and mental anguish. Terrell sued the university in 1997 because he believed that since 1989 he was unfairly treated and underpaid compared with his non-minority colleagues. He is still employed at the school.

NA'IM AKBAR

Dr. Na'im Akbar, also known as Luther B. Weems, received his early education in the segregated South prior to the desegregation of public and educational facilities. In Dr. Akbar's late adolescence, he left his exclusive African-American social environment of Tallahassee and enrolled into the University of Michigan. It was at the University of Michigan where Dr. Akbar first discovered his passion to bring Afrocentrism and psychology together. Being a black man dealing with the harsh reality of stereotypes, racism, prejudice, and discrimination, Dr. Akbar found more than enough reason to educate himself with the history, philosophy, thought, and science of Black life. He has focused his career towards the development of the idea that the 350 year experience of enslavement and oppression still influence much of our community's behaviors and attitudes about ourselves, thereby limiting our ability to make real social progress.

KENNETH B. CLARK

An American social psychologist, Kenneth B. Clark was the best known and most highly regarded black social scientist in the United States. Clark achieved international recognition for his research on the social and psychological effects of racism and segregation. As a part of their research on the psychological damage caused by racism the Clarks developed the famous "doll tests." Black children in the early school ages were shown four identical dolls, two black and two white, and were asked to identify them racially and to indicate which doll was best, which was nice, which was bad, and which they would prefer to play with. The tests, administered to children in varying communities around the country, showed that a majority of the children rejected the black doll and expressed a preference for the white doll. For the Clarks these tests were indisputable evidence of the negative effects of racism on the personality and psychological development of black children.