Charles Henry Thompson

Charles Henry Thompson (19 July 1895 – 16 January 1980) was an American educational psychologist and the first African-American to earn a doctorate degree in educational psychology. He obtained a master's degree and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, he became an educator at Howard University. During his time at Howard, he was the dean of the liberal art college and later became the dean of Howard's graduate school, where he made several administrative and scholarship changes. Additionally, he founded The Journal of Negro Education, an academic journal pertaining to the education of African-American students. Thompson himself published more than 100 scholarly articles, editorials, and research papers, many of which pertained to the teaching and advancement of African-American students' education. Throughout his extensive academic career, he was a legal consultant for various desegregation school cases, prominently in Sweatt v. Painter, Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. He also was a legal consultant for Brown vs. Board of Education, though to a lesser extent than the three former cases.

Thompson was one of the first African Americans to complete a doctorate in education with a specialization in educational psychology. He chose this pathway as an educational psychologist because of his desire to be able to be in a position to help others gain access to information. Thompson worked to provide other African American students with the opportunity to use the resources available to him in education to be able to spread information about education and race. He had a strong belief that education should be available to gifted African American students and anyone in low income families so that everyone would be able to have access. She later became a health and physical education supervisor at Howard University.

Career

Thompson first served as an instructor of psychology at Virginia Union University from 1920 to 1921. Additionally, in his paper, he emphasized that segregated schools have no benefit and he broke down his argument in three parts. Thompson believed that the existing evidence of academic inferiority was unreliable. He used samples from various schools across several states comparing rural and city raised Caucasians and African-Americans. He found that African-Americans who were schooled in cities outperformed Caucasians who were schooled in rural areas, presumably because there was a lot of allocated funding to city schools. Even before creating this journal, Thompson would write articles for other papers criticizing the laws on education for African Americans and Caucasians. This made him to want to create the paper to draw more global attention on the issues of education for African Americans. However, during the time that Thompson proposed his paper was when there were many budget cuts to African-American education. The importance of the paper was doubted in this time of low funds but was thought to be useful to bring national attention to Howard University. His main purpose for starting the journal was because he believed there was a lack of information on African American education making it hard to have good schooling for people of colour. He expressed four reasons why he created The Journal of Negro Education: the lack of information on African Americans, the need for discussion about the segregation of schools, the journal would propose a further investigation in the lack of education for African Americans and finally the journal was something that was necessary at that time. Thompson worked to bring the journal to life despite the challenges that he came across. To the authority figures that worked for the University Thompson would explain the journal in more mild terminology to not cause alarm to them so they could provide funding for it. However, to the audience that read his journal he stayed true to make bold statements about the discrimination that occurred in education for African Americans. He used the journal as a way to provide information about African-American culture, history, arts, and other related subjects. Thompson pushed this journal as a way to talk about the issues of racial segregation and to bring more awareness about it. He received support from Du Bois and Walter White (head of the NAACP) but the editor of The Journal of Negro History was against Thompson publishing his journal because of how similar the name and content would be to his paper. This did not stop Thompson as he still pushed to create this journal. Thompson's overall goal of the journal was to reduce educational discrimination and bring awareness of the problems with segregation.

Sweatt v. Painter case

At the start of the school year in 1944 there was a surge of African Americans applying for post-secondary schooling but due to a lack of resources, space and staff it was not possible to admit all these students. This sparked debate among many people of color as they wanted to be able to attend higher schooling at universities that were at the time only for White Americans. When this came to the attention of Thompson, he wrote an article in The Journal for Negro Education about the failure of the government to follow through with the Gaines decision that stated that segregated schools should have equal access and resources. An important case that occurred during Thompson's time was Sweatt v. Painter, for which Thompson was asked by Marshall to be an expert witness. This was a case about the issue of a student named Bill Sweatt who wanted to attend a law school that was only for White Americans, so he went to court to argue that he should be allowed to attend. Thompson played a role in contributing to Sweatt's case by providing information about the issues with segregation in education. He spent weeks preparing to testify for the case as well as touring the University of Texas to understand how the environment is. He compared the difference in resources and opportunities for African Americans vs. White Americans in Texas schools to show the discrimination that African Americans suffered. Not everyone agreed with Thompson's views and it was argued that his testimony was irrelevant so it no longer was a part of the record. However, his role in the case brought an important aforementioned perspective in the discrimination against African Americans in education.

Achievements

Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Dean of the Graduate School Founder & Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Negro Education Editorial Consultant: The Nation's Schools World Book Encyclopedia