Volume 35, No. 8 September 2004
"We worked with the lawyers on the Brown decision without regard to color. To me, that was a good example of how science and law cut across racial and ethnic lines."
Kenneth B. Clark
City College of New York
Brown: a life-changing decision for all
Print version: page 61
APA President Diane F. Halpern, PhD, said the Brown Supreme Court desegregation decision "changed the lives of everyone who grew up in the United States in the last 50 years" at a session honoring the decision's 50th anniversary at APA's 2004 Annual Convention in Honolulu.
Other speakers at the symposium, co-chaired with Halpern by Dr. Harvette A. Grey, past president of the Association of Black Psychologists, were John P. Jackson, M. Brewster Smith, Vanessa Siddle Walker, EdD, and Minnijean Brown Trickey.
Halpern also awarded a presidential citation to Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth B. Clark for their key role in the case, noting in particular that, "because she was an African-American woman," Mamie Phipps Clark's contributions had been under-recognized in the past. "This is my small way of giving her some of the recognition that was denied to her in her lifetime," said Halpern.
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