Contributions Of African Americans To The Field Of Psychology

Contributions of African Americans to the Field of Psychology Author(s): Sheila R. Black, Susie A. Spence, Safiya R. Omari Source: Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Sep., 2004), pp. 40-64 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4129290 . Accessed: 18/08/2011 14:30
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CONTRIBUTIONS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS TO THE FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY
SHEILA BLACK R.
Universityof Alabama

SUSIEA. SPENCE R. SAFIYA OMARI
JacksonState University

of This articlehighlightsthe contributions AfricanAmericansto the fieldof with a focus on the strugglesof early African Americanpsypsychology chologists, the rise of Afrocentrism,and recent theoreticalmodels developed by African Americanpsychologists. The conclusion of this work is that psychology is much richer because of the contributionsof African Americanpsychologists.
Keywords: history of psychology; Black psychology

Many African Americans credit W.E.B.DuBois with being the first African American psychologist because he wrote so eloquentlyaboutpsychological strugglesof AfricanAmericansin his DuBois classic workentitled,TheSouls ofBlack Folk.In particular, focused on AfricanAmericanscoming to grips with a phe(1903) nomenon labeled double consciousness-seeing one's self from the perspectiveof the dominantcultureandfromthe perspectiveof theAfricanAmericancommunity.He spoke of a dualitybetween two perspectives,with one perspectiveembracingAfricanAmerican culture and the other perspectiveviewing African American culturewith contempt.Further,DuBois spoke of African Americans constantly being judged by another culture's measuring stick-and coming out on the shortend.

JOURNALOF BLACKSTUDIES, Vol. 35 No. 1, September2004 40-64 DOI:10.1177/0021934704263124 ? 2004 Sage Publications

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Black et al. / CONTRIBUTIONSOF AFRICAN AMERICANS 41

A careful study of African Americanswithin the field of psychology will revealthattherehas been an ongoing struggleamong AfricanAmericanpsychologists to have AfricanAmericanpeople standardsratherthan by stanevaluatedby culturallyappropriate dardsof the dominantculture.An ongoing theme among AfricanAmericanpsychologists has been thatAfricanAmericancultureis does not mean differentfrom the majorityculture,but "different" inferior.The purposeof this work is to explore the history of African Americansin the field of psychology andto highlightthe contributionsthatAfrican Americanshave made to the field. One might argue that there were three periods with respect to AfricanAmericansin the fieldof psychology. In the initial phase, AfricanAmericansfocused on survival;later,manyAfricanAmericans developed a more Afrocentricorientation;and finally, African Americans used a combination of traditionalmethods and Afrocentric principles to better understandpeople of African descent in an Americansociety. In 1920, Cecil Sumner (Sawyer, 2000) received his Ph.D. and becamethe firstAfricanAmericantobe awardeda doctoraldegree in psychology from an Americanuniversity.Although Sumneris an important figurein psychology andin AfricanAmericanhistory, he is rarelymentionedin introductory psychology textbooks. When one considers the context in which Sumner earned his Ph.D., one realizes that he earned his degree against incredible odds. Sumnerwas bornin 1895-one year before the 1896 Plessy v....