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Kenneth ClarkKenneth Clark
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Session:         Page of 763

Now, there went medicine, you know. And furthermore, by that time, I'd sort of gotten disillusioned with the pre-medical thing anyway. It just seemed to me so damned isolated from what I was really interested in -- although I didn't even know what I was interested in, until Sumner told me. But when I saw my classmates who were being admitted to medical school, some of them cheaters, I wasn't particularly happy about medicine. But I never had a moment's regret about psychology.

My mother took it very well. When I told her that I was going to major in psychology, she said, “What is it?” And I told her, and she said, “Is this what you're really interested in?”

I said, “Yes. “She said, “OK. “She met Dr. Sumner. I met his parents, by the way. And he really became a part of the family. He'd visit with us, after we were married, and even as late as when we lived in Hastings, he'd come and visit with us.

Q:

Was he black or white?

Clark:

He was black. He was black, with a deep sense of concern about racial justice, but at the same time, not willing to make excuses or alibis for incompetence or sloppiness or inefficiency merely because one was black. You know, he had such a deep sense of racial justice that he believed that competence was absolutely essential.

The man had all of the values, you know, that my mother and others who were preparing me for meeting him had. And he had them without equivocation. I mean, he lived his values, and he -- he was my father, my intellectual father. You know, we accepted this.

Q:

You mentioned that you weren't sure exactly what you wanted to





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