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Kenneth ClarkKenneth Clark
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Session:         Page of 763

After I got my Master's, and they kept me on at Howard to teach for a year, I was making $150 a month, which I thought was terrific. That was ‘36, ‘37. But then, in ‘40, 1940, when Myrdal was working on the staff-- by the way, as an assistant to Otto --

Boy oh boy! My daughter was born that year, and the year before, we'd had a Rosenwald Fellowship. I think the Rosenwald Fellowship was a joint fellowship Mamie and I had -- maybe $1500, yean, $1500 to $2000 between us, which saw Mamie through Columbia, her graduate work.

But boy, to think I was making $175 a month. And I knew that the sacrifices in going to school, graduate school, were really worth it.

And we became friends. I really don't know how I managed to stand out with Myrdal, because there were about four or five or six research assistants, and I was not working directly with Myrdal, I was working with Otto, but I'd go down, you know, and sometimes he'd invite me to lunch with him. And we became friends.

Q:

Now, the project you're talking about, of course, is the AMERICAN DILEMMA (Myrdal's book).

Clark:

AMERICAN DILEMMA, yes.

Q:

Did you write any kind of draft manuscript for him at all?

Clark:

I did the part of it that was concerned with racial differences, and psychological characteristics, traits, you know.





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