HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON, N.Y., May 2 (UPI) -- Psychologist Kenneth B. Clark, a leading force in abolishing U.S. school segregation, has died of cancer at his New York state home at age 90.
His daughter, Kate Harris, told the New York Times her father died Sunday at his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Clark's 1950 report showing the destructive effect of school segregation influenced the Supreme Court to rule school segregation was unconstitutional.
He was the first black to earn a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University, the first to become a tenured instructor in the City College system of New York and, in 1966, the first black elected to the New York State Board of Regents.
He wrote several influential books and articles and battled white supremacists and black separatists alike because he believed a "racist system inevitably destroys and damages human beings; it brutalizes and dehumanizes them, black and white alike."
Clark is survived by a son and daughter, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. His wife died in 1983.
