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10 Facts You May Not Know About John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke: The Pan-African Scholar

JC1Dr. John Henrik Clarke was born Jan. 1, 1915, in Union Springs, Alabama. He was a professor emeritus at Hunter College in New York City. Clarke did not graduate high school and did not have a doctorate degree.

In fact, Clarke was an eighth-grade dropout who eventually took courses at New York University and Columbia University, but never graduated. Clarke received an honorary doctorate degree from the nonaccredited Pacific Western University in Los Angeles when he was 78.

Clarke was a self-taught man whose mentors included Puerto Rican historian and scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg.

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