Dr. John Henrik Clarke — The Historian Who Taught Us to See Ourselves They told us we had no history. He said, “Then I’ll write it myself.” Hmm. Born in 1915 in Union Springs, Alabama, Dr. John Henrik Clarke left home at sixteen with a pillowcase of clothes and an unshakable hunger for truth. He arrived in Harlem during the Renaissance and educated himself in libraries when universities closed their doors. Without formal degrees, he mastered history so thoroughly that institutions eventually had