Clark is most famous for his studies
on race relations, most of which he conducted with his wife Mamie
Phipps Clark. One of his famous studies is the "doll tests" in which he
gave a number of children from various racial and economic backgrounds
white and black dolls to play with. They then asked the children which
dolls they preferred to play with. Regardless of the children's
differing economic and racial differences, that children tended to view
the white dolls favorably and the black dolls unfavorably, even though
the black children identified with the black dolls. Clark concluded that
racial segregation in schools and institutional discrimination in
general lead to a corrupted personality and psychological development in
black children. His study was cited in the Supreme Court case, Brown V
.Board of Education .
